Quickleaf
Legend
I do have a different answer!Okay so if you love exploration in 5e and think the idea of adding more meat to it is silly, that’s valid, but it ain’t what we are here for.
I want to talk about exploration as a pillar of the game, what that means, how it falls short for each of us, how it can be expanded on while staying within 5e design aesthetics, and what we hope to see in revised core books.
- Exploration isthe part of the game where you are being physically challenged, and challenged in terms of problem solving and related stuff, that isn’t combat. It includes travel and wilderness survival, but it is also a lot more than that.
- I think it’s important to separate action-by-action exploration challenges like finding and disabling traps or parkouring around some temple ruins to solve a 3d puzzle, from wilderness survival and travel, because I think they have different needs
- It’s also import IMO to note that all of point 1 is what the designers meant early on when talking about 3 pillars, and this is part of why these discussions often end with ppl talking past eachother.
- I propose Survival and Exploration for the purposes on this discussion.
- Exploration fails (for me)to lead to interesting challenges IME because there just aren’t that many things for the PCs to leverage to create chaos, like there is with NPCs, and D&D style Travel and survival have always been very boring to me. A game that gets Survival in travel right, for me, is The One Ring. Rest structures don’t help, with it feeling like harsh adverserialism to make up new rules like having to make checks to be able to get good rest, and ending journeys with hit dice and other resources spent.
- Exploration (parkour and traps and investigation) fall short less for me, but I do find that in some campaigns I’d like to have more structure (although I usually prefer just action resolution and the DM and Player conversation as what drives the action)
- Exploration could be very interesting and engaging in more cases. For survival, it could be done with better travel rules that cause you to use resources (more later) and end the journey with those resources spent, making resting in the wild/on the road less restorative than resting in comfort and safety, and handing narrative reins to the players at intervals amidst the journey or other survival challenge. For Parkour and Traps, I think that something like a skill challenge but with a success ladder does the trick.
- Exploration in the revised core has me very curious to see what they do. I think Bastions give a sort of “vibe” they might be aiming for, but I think they are very aware of how lacking many groups find exploration in 5e. I think that the UA thing of giving skills a little more specificity might help (if they keep it lite), I think we will see travel rules that speak to what they’ve learned but that aren’t going to be ambitious, and I think we might see some optional rules out front and center and expanded on, along the lines of a normal short rest on the road gets you less than the default, along with benefits to sleeping in safe places, or the Ranger making a well hidden and cozy bivouac to rest in, or spending healing resources at the end of a rest (meaning they aren’t regained by that rest), stuff like that.
So, what do you think? Do you have wildly different answers from me?
The One Ring's much-lauded Journey approach – very clear party roles, strong structure, and crunchy rules, determining in what state you arrive at your destination – is actually the opposite of the feel I want in exploration. It's clear, yes, but there's no creative juice there for me.
@Minigiant hit the nail on the head with mentioning Wonder and Discovery (along with other elements of exploration). I've noticed those forces - Wonder / Discovery - being what drives my players to explore.
Freebooters on the Frontier (PbtA/OSR D&D role-playing game by Jason Lutes that is being playtested) has an interesting example. Whenever you hunker down OR set out on a journey, you roll a d8 to determine what sort of incident the players encounter – this is built into the game's procedure. For example, in the Wilderness the table looks like:
- Roll 2d4 twice
- Hazard
- Obstacle
- Creature
- Creature
- Creature
- Mishap
- Discovery
It's not perfect – for example, it doesn't factor in multiple things in one incident & it doesn't think about navigational choices – but I love that Discovery is explicitly included as an element of these procedures.
Honestly, I think Discovery should be all over the place in exploration rules. The resource management stuff, or arriving in a "disheartened and dreary state", those are all fine – but I think they aren't where the creative potency is, they're not what draws in players. So any exploration system shouldn't focus the bulk of its effort on mechanics for those things – a little is fine – rather the bulk of the mechanics/procedures should be about Discovery.