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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Wilderness Exploration according to the core rulebooks of 5e
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<blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 8570106" data-attributes="member: 6799660"><p>The basic ruleset for wilderness is not as sparse as sometimes discussed. Compare it to the oft lauded BX X54-58 or AD&D DMG appendix C. plus pp.47-58 and it is hard to say exactly what is missing. Possibly nothing except for presentation.</p><p></p><p>To the question of does it accomplish a B/X wilderness turn goal, I guess I would say that in a vacuum it does. Why it fails for so many people, IMO, is (and again, this is in comparison to the B/X games I ran BitD):</p><p>A) Natural Explorer, <em>Goodberry</em>, and <em>Pass Without Trace</em> -- I know it has been hammered to death, but it is at least significantly true that the characters likely to be chosen by someone who wants to engage the wilderness system obviate or at least make less interesting those things involved in the wilderness system.</p><p>B) Default recharge rules -- I get it, 5/15 minute workday and/or '5e defaults to easy mode.' Both are true, both are solvable by DM involvement (under group consensus). 5e defaulting to easy isn't a bad thing-the game is designed for children to be able to play without supervision, adults should be able to use the readily available optional material to cultivate the challenge rating they seek. Regardless, wandering encounters aren't a huge challenge if even a 'deadly' encounter is only likely to inflict resource loss which will disappear overnight.</p><p>C) XP for combat instead of GP -- This I think is a major driving force for B/X, although in a counterintuitive way. Wilderness adventure was, overall, detrimental in B/X. You could lose HP and other expendibles on your way to... whereever you were going (more on that in a minute); but, barring the occasional lair you found from the wandering monster, you received precious little benefit. Thus, getting through the wilderness travel as quickly as possible (both in terms of miles per day and in not getting lost), and with as few encounters as possible, was a huge benefit. Although that made it work, it was interesting work because doing really well at it had an obvious positive benefit. </p><p>And I think most importantly, </p><p>D) B/X wilderness turn as an actual <em><strong>goal </strong></em>-- this one is at least part cultural, although there are actual mechanics changes that contribute as well (no building a keep to attract followers at name level being an example). I think early D&D had a much better framing as going out and exploring the wilderness being <em>something you expected to do</em> (often for its' own sake). There was empty space on the map, go find out what's there. If you clear the hex, you might be able to make it yours. If there's a dungeon* there, you can explore that for treasure (/xp), which will make you better at exploring the map and finding dungeons to explore for treasure... (cycle continues) </p><p><em><span style="font-size: 9px">*Dungeons for their own sake also being more prevalent.</span></em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Willie the Duck, post: 8570106, member: 6799660"] The basic ruleset for wilderness is not as sparse as sometimes discussed. Compare it to the oft lauded BX X54-58 or AD&D DMG appendix C. plus pp.47-58 and it is hard to say exactly what is missing. Possibly nothing except for presentation. To the question of does it accomplish a B/X wilderness turn goal, I guess I would say that in a vacuum it does. Why it fails for so many people, IMO, is (and again, this is in comparison to the B/X games I ran BitD): A) Natural Explorer, [I]Goodberry[/I], and [I]Pass Without Trace[/I] -- I know it has been hammered to death, but it is at least significantly true that the characters likely to be chosen by someone who wants to engage the wilderness system obviate or at least make less interesting those things involved in the wilderness system. B) Default recharge rules -- I get it, 5/15 minute workday and/or '5e defaults to easy mode.' Both are true, both are solvable by DM involvement (under group consensus). 5e defaulting to easy isn't a bad thing-the game is designed for children to be able to play without supervision, adults should be able to use the readily available optional material to cultivate the challenge rating they seek. Regardless, wandering encounters aren't a huge challenge if even a 'deadly' encounter is only likely to inflict resource loss which will disappear overnight. C) XP for combat instead of GP -- This I think is a major driving force for B/X, although in a counterintuitive way. Wilderness adventure was, overall, detrimental in B/X. You could lose HP and other expendibles on your way to... whereever you were going (more on that in a minute); but, barring the occasional lair you found from the wandering monster, you received precious little benefit. Thus, getting through the wilderness travel as quickly as possible (both in terms of miles per day and in not getting lost), and with as few encounters as possible, was a huge benefit. Although that made it work, it was interesting work because doing really well at it had an obvious positive benefit. And I think most importantly, D) B/X wilderness turn as an actual [I][B]goal [/B][/I]-- this one is at least part cultural, although there are actual mechanics changes that contribute as well (no building a keep to attract followers at name level being an example). I think early D&D had a much better framing as going out and exploring the wilderness being [I]something you expected to do[/I] (often for its' own sake). There was empty space on the map, go find out what's there. If you clear the hex, you might be able to make it yours. If there's a dungeon* there, you can explore that for treasure (/xp), which will make you better at exploring the map and finding dungeons to explore for treasure... (cycle continues) [I][SIZE=1]*Dungeons for their own sake also being more prevalent.[/SIZE][/I] [/QUOTE]
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