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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Asisreo" data-source="post: 8383714" data-attributes="member: 7019027">Its just a case of bad DMing, then. Really, there's already a bit of guidance warning people about how encounters are not designed to be actively hostile to players. Past that guidance, the DM can do whatever they want in terms of how they present challenges and if they're bad at their job, you should really just leave. Its like the guidance for encounter design. The DM can put any monster in the game against any level player, but if the DM puts an ultra-aggressive Ancient Red Dragon against a level 1 party, there's something clearly hostile going on. The DM is meant to be fair. I don't think discussing the cases where the DM is intentionally unfair really proves or disproves whether exploration is bad because a poor DM makes a game bad no matter how granular the system? Need proof? If you've ever been in combat with a poor DM and they suddenly come up with weird reasons why your features and spells don't work, that's poor DMing despite the rules. And technically, they can still be within the rules because they're the arbiters of the rules and can interpret even the most concrete rules in the most hostile way. Hard rules for exploration doesn't help a hostile DM and strict rules for exploration will likely make the situation worse.</blockquote>