What is exploration & why is it fun?

[Pickles JG]

I was taken aback to find Exploration as one of the 3 pillars of D&D. I describe my experiences with D&D as “Tactical miniatures games with in character chat”, which covers the other two “pillars”. Clearly many other people play D&D as something like an interactive story which obviously has much more emphasis on the interaction part.

So who does all of this exploring? What are they doing?
The only think I can think of is all that 10’ pole prodding we used to do in the day & setting up exhaustive SOPs for opening doors & setting watches & meticulous mapping so on – all stuff I was happy to drop. (Though conceded I did have fun mapping Pharaoh it was a solo project the rest of the party were oblivious).

What does “exploration” in D&D mean to you?
What do you enjoy about it?

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't really understand what "exploration" is in the D&D context. It seems like sort of a grab bag for things that are not combat or personal interaction.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

To me it's about having more than just monsters inhabit a dungeon. It's about interesting features, furniture, hidden passageways, puzzles, riddles, callbacks to previous adventures. To some extent it's about discovery of the world the characters inhabit - when you play a videogame RPG, you know nothing about the world (where your character probably ought to know lots), and you discover details about its history, geography and people as you play.

 

[delericho]

What does “exploration” in D&D mean to you?

Simply put, "exploration" is "discovering the unknown". That could be literal exploration (having the players map out the dungeon underground), but it also includes such things as finding the hidden treasures, solving the in-game puzzles to find hidden areas, or even simply discovering the identity of the murderer, the secrets of the puppetmaster, or whatever else.

So who does all of this exploring? What are they doing?

Pretty much everyone does at least some exploration in the game - any time there's a hidden trap on the battlemap, chances are you might explore it the hard way! However, different groups will, of course, put a different emphasis on the different pillars.

What do you enjoy about it?

It's a "challenge the players" thing. To a large extent, combat is about building my character correctly, and then optimising my use of resources, which has a certain mechanical charm.

But exploration proper is something that only lightly intersects with the mechanics - even if the game includes Search mechanics (and the like), I still need to think where to apply them to unlock the secrets of the adventure.

Plus, seeing new things is cool.

The only think I can think of is all that 10’ pole prodding we used to do in the day & setting up exhaustive SOPs for opening doors & setting watches & meticulous mapping so on – all stuff I was happy to drop.

Aye, that would be an example of exploration handled poorly, or at least in a fairly lazy manner. Basically, it sounds like an opportunity for a vindictive DM to spring 'gotchas' on you the moment you don't search for traps in the exact same places and the exact same ways as every other time.

(A while back, I posted a fairly lengthy rant about my issues with trap and secret door placement in adventures. Fundamentally, if these things are just a matter of rolling the obvious dice in the obvious ways, they're not worth bothering with.)

Hopefully, 5e will address exploration in a more full-bodied manner, and will actual advise DMs where and how to place things, rather than merely describing what things they can place. And hopefully the published adventures will then also learn these lessons.

I'm not holding my breath on either count, though.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

Exploration covers a lot of things.

In many cases, the village/fort etc. the characters start out in may need exploring. Various NPCs may have secrets to be uncovered (murders, deals with devils etc.), hidden locations could be found (dungeons, a font of healing etc.), and info on the surrounding area could be uncovered.

Moving out from the village, the characters will want to learn what is out there. If the keep that protects the village only patrols roads out about five miles, then what is beyond those five miles? What is in that trackless wood that some say is haunted by a fallen army and others say is cursed by a deadly witch?

Exploration also comes to magic. If the characters uncover items of magic they need to unravel what the magic does and how it can be useful or dangerous to them. They may have spellbooks to translate, magical locations to learn to control, monster lore to exploit (eggs that can be sold, young that can be trained etc.).

Exploration also concerns monsters. Who are the pech and why did they dig into this dungeon? Can we trade something with them to learn secrets they've uncovered about that drow city we're trying to sneak into? Discovering that a xorn will take gems in trade and maybe tunnel you around that trap-laden entrance to the crypt.

Hex-crawls/sandboxes are all about exploration. The characters know one hex, their home village, and they start exploring hex by hex around them. As they grow in power, they start to build a kingdom of their own based on what they've unraveled.

Then there is exploring other places. The planes. Underwater (Underdeep as I call it). The Underdark or Deepearth. Aerial kingdoms (castles in the clouds, winged monsters, and connecting bridges of cloudstuff, rainbows, and lightning storms). Outer space/other planets. Alternate realms/dimensions etc.

Exploration, having the characters and thereby the players, unravel some new mystery is a huge part of the D&D experience. No computer game can capture exploration like D&D can, since computers have finite space to describe things. With a DM and players working together a whole world can be worked out, to the smallest details of why is that secret door in the inn's cellar and where does it lead to the largest of figuring out how to meet the gods and walk as a mortal where only the immortal have walked before.

 

[Fifth Element]

Exploration is the one where the wizard makes the rogue useless by casting a couple of spells, isn't it?

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, the Three Pillars roughly correspond to three emotional states that players enter when playing D&D.

Combat = Excitement. There's action, tension, things are changing, a lot is at stake. It's a Michael Bay movie, or a Jackie Chan movie. Lots of energy.

Interaction = Drama. You're getting to understand characters, to see them grow and change, to watch their dynamics and loyalties shift over time. It's an episode of Breaking Bad or Mad Men. Lots of personality.

Exploration = Discovery. You're finding things that you didn't know existed, feeling out the limits of the world, and identifying new and interesting things. It's the exhilaration of finding out what's over that next hill. It's an episode of Planet Earth or No Reservations. Lots of interesting knowledge.

DMs get these emotional states, too -- they get Drama as their NPC's become dynamic, they get Discovery as the PC's plunge into off-map areas, and they get Excitement as the party comes up against the BBEG.

So look at Exploration as discovery, as uncovering the unknown, of the fun inherent about learning something new. In this case, something new about the DM's world.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

Exploration is the one where the wizard makes the rogue useless by casting a couple of spells, isn't it?

Not in my D&D.

 

[tlantl]

Exploration is wonder and discovery. It's when you go to a new place and look for all of the really cool out of the way places. it's crawling into a hole you broke in a dungeon wall when you figured out it was hollow.

Is there something dead back there, or is it a trap?

Ever heard of a mummy?

It's also the methods you use to overcome the terrain, environment, and the elements. When the wilderness survival guide came out for AD&D our games really changed. I used as many terrains as I could in my game setting. I expanded my game world because of it.

As it stands D&DN is a good fit. I've been tinkering with the playtest and I can use it to play in my setting. 3e character creation rules caused me to moth ball hundreds of npcs. 4e would have caused a spell plague on my world. Unlike Salvatore, I wasn't willing to sacrifice my setting to rules that were foreign to my method of playing D&D so 3e it is with some parts stolen from pathfinder.

My kind of D&D is definitely sandbox with a lot of role play interaction. I design small places to adventure sometimes a desperate plot develops or I inhabit tombs with liches who sells magical swords. You'll have to fight your way to him but it's usually worth it since he's the only arms merchant in the area.

Setpiece combats lasting hours is not for me I hate 3e for it and pathfinder's no better. but it's better than nothing so I deal with it.

 

[Erekose]

Doesn't surprise me at all that exploration is one of the three pillars of D&D. My first experience was with BD&D and B1 - In Search of the Unknown!

Nicely set the scene for how we've played D&D ever since . . .