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Kymme
2021-12-20, 04:04 PM
I've been playing some exploration-focused TTRPGs recently and I've really been enjoying them. I'm interested to know what kinds of exploration-focused games people on the forums have played, and the kinds of mechanics those games have used to make exploration feel fun and enjoyable. Feel free to post your recommendations!

Grod_The_Giant
2021-12-20, 04:15 PM
By "exploreration," do you mean wandering around in uncharted territory where nature is as much a threat as anything else, or "exploration" as in the over-broad d&d three pillars sense?

Kymme
2021-12-20, 11:36 PM
By "exploreration," do you mean wandering around in uncharted territory where nature is as much a threat as anything else, or "exploration" as in the over-broad d&d three pillars sense?

Good question! I mean in the sense of wandering through uncharted territory, braving dangers, finding lost wonders, meeting with monsters and people and whatnot. I think that for the most part D&D's exploration pillar is very vestigial - the best 'exploration' it seems to offer is provided by adventure paths and sourcebooks that lay out hexmaps and territories to move through. People definitely play D&D in the West Marches style, but the game does very little to assist you in that regard. Most of the effort is offloaded onto the GM, which can be a pretty crushing burden.

I've found a few fun alternatives to that style from some very interesting games, but I'm wondering if anybody else has had experience with those kinds of things - and if so, what sorts of mechanics have they found that makes exploration fun and engaging?

Arkanist
2021-12-20, 11:57 PM
Rhapsody of Blood, a hack for the RPG Legacy that models itself off Castlevania, is interesting because it explicitly tries to mimic the dungeon-crawling antics of a metroidvania-style descent into not!Dracula's Castle.

I feel like it suffers for specifically trying to mimic a video game, I recall that leaving a stamp of "artificiality" on the mood and the like. But I think the best of it was that you roll to "Navigate The Labyrinth," and no matter what result you roll, it always seeks to answer the question "What interesting thing do you find?" If you do poorly, you encounter some sort of trap or threat. If you roll well, you may find something helpful or useful. But it's always something interesting - if you get lost, the journey is long and hard and dull, but the game's "camera" is always squarely pointed at the interesting part and, just like in a TV show, the long boring journey is a quick montage.

Grod_The_Giant
2021-12-21, 09:06 AM
I've found a few fun alternatives to that style from some very interesting games, but I'm wondering if anybody else has had experience with those kinds of things - and if so, what sorts of mechanics have they found that makes exploration fun and engaging?
It's a good question. I ran a bit of hexcrawl stuff in 5e D&D recently, and... to be honest, I'm not sure what you CAN do to reduce the burden on the GM, other than pre-made tables of weird stuff to find/deal with as you go.

Yora
2021-12-21, 05:46 PM
What 5th edition lacks (and 3rd too) is a structure for travel and encounters, and also incentives and threats. Wandering around to see what happens, and hoping what happens will be entertaining does not really have any pull or push factors, or any meaningful stakes involved.

Broadly speaking, PCs in a vacuum are interested in getting XP. Money generally has little practical value for characters who roam around and can get the best equipment money can buy by 2nd level. In a good game structure, characters gain XP for doing the things that the game concept is about. Even better if that thing is something they can fail at and have to work at to succeed. "Exploring" is not really something you can fail at. It's the process, not the result. "Finding" is a result, but it's something that either happens at random, or it has to be something that the players know about and can actively search for, and for which they have means to actually work towards.
The classic approach to quantify this is finding treasure. Treasure is something that characters have or have not, and something that you can count. In the archetypical world of D&D, treasure is also something that players can search for because they understand where it can be found. Treasure is to be found in dungeons, particularly in the lairs of dangerous monsters inside the dungeon. It's also a target that specifies a goal, but leaves the method completely in the open. The rules reward the players for "finding the treasure" (and carrying it home), but don't care at all how that treasure ended up in their possession.
The treasure does not have to be gold. It can also be all kinds of old artifacts found in hard to reach locations in dungeons, if that works better for certain exploration concepts. You can just as well have 100 XP scrolls, 500 XP clay tablets, 1,000 XP tomes, and 5,000 XP bronze plates.

Exploration often takes the form of expeditions , which is where manging supplies can enter the picture. Though I believe 5th edition goes to great lengths to give characters powers to make sure they will never have to worry about any supplies, even if the GM ignores them.

The best method of them all are wandering monsters. Not random monster attacks, but randomized encounters with creatures and people native to the area, which have randomized reactions to encountering the party. These are really cool when encpuntering them in dungeons, but outdoors, there is also always the option that many of the encountered creatures might have some kind of camp, lair, or village not far away, where more of their friends are waiting. If the encounter turns out positively, the PCs might be invited to visit. If it goes poorly, the creatures can be followed if they flee, or their trails tracked back to where they came from. If supplies are relevant for the campaign, then having a friendly village to trade can be really useful. Or there might even be a healer who can care for injured party members. (Again, assuming the game rules have not trivialized health already.) Bandit camps and the like can be the source of additional treasure. And you might always be able to get more information about the area from people you meet by chance.
By having the chance of wandering monsters, and the types of encounteted creatures depend on where the players decide to go, there is a greater sense of the players' planning having real consequences, and them having ways to affect what happens to them to some degree.

All of this becomes even more interesting when defeating enemies does not make up a meaningful source of XP. If monsters have no treasure, there is nothing to gain from seeking fights with them, but a risk of injury and death. So such encounters encpurage getting out of them without a fight. If the monsters do have treasure, then there is an incentive to get this treasure, but to minimize the risk of engaging the creatures. This greatly mixes up the tactics for how to deal with monsters that are encountered.

Saintheart
2021-12-24, 03:24 AM
I've been playing some exploration-focused TTRPGs recently and I've really been enjoying them. I'm interested to know what kinds of exploration-focused games people on the forums have played, and the kinds of mechanics those games have used to make exploration feel fun and enjoyable. Feel free to post your recommendations!

Start with the Angry GM's analysis of what exactly makes exploration feel fun and enjoyable. (https://theangrygm.com/what-makes-exploration/)

Then go to his article of how the exploration rules in D&D and similar actually work just fine as intended if you actually use them (https://theangrygm.com/exploring-by-the-rules/).

And for a finale, read his article on wilderness travel rules. (https://theangrygm.com/how-to-wilderness-right/)

Vahnavoi
2021-12-24, 03:40 AM
I have a soft spot for procedurally generating terrain and encounters by drawing cards or tiles.

In general, I find the core of good exploration to be a hidden map game, so the game master having a good map for players to navigate and for players to make their own maps are musts for the right feel. Allowing players to make and leave notes to other players playing the same adventure is also great.

Jedaii
2021-12-25, 08:56 PM
Best explorative mechanic? IMAGINATION.

Since the first ancient RPGs the imagination of the referee has always been crucial. Many new or poor GMs paint bland images of the environment. It's really Matt Mercer's true gift. He brings a scene to life with vivid description of the environment and the NPCs inhabiting it. His imagination feeds the imagination of his players.

TSR's old logo was "Products of Your Imagination". With a D/GM willing to invest the higher levels of his/her imagination the most simple scene becomes something vivid and evocative to the players who are propelled into adventure by the creative talent of their referee.

Game designers can't generate that kind of thing. They can give you a setting and everything it offers but it takes a dedicated GM with a wild interest in it in order to bring it to life. GMs need to love their setting which is why Gygax and many game designers stress GMs design their own settings. If you've built it you won't only have a greater level of interest: the GM will be the most capable person in the world who can bring that setting to life because every inch of it has meaning.

Gods never abandon their worlds especially when they find people (players) interested in exploring it.

Grod_The_Giant
2022-01-03, 03:32 PM
Game designers can't generate that kind of thing.
What they can offer are helpful tools and suggestions to make it easier for the GM to use their imagination.

Sure, with infinite time and mental energy I could create a wilderness with interesting prepared events for every square mile, but sadly no-one is willing to pay me to spend six months sitting around designing encounters. Wilderness exploration is such an open-ended thing that it's rediculosly difficult to come up with ideas without some sort of prompt--and that assumes you're the kind of GM who can see "goblin toll bridge" and fill in the rest on the fly.

Kymme
2022-01-03, 03:38 PM
Start with the Angry GM's analysis of what exactly makes exploration feel fun and enjoyable. (https://theangrygm.com/what-makes-exploration/)

Then go to his article of how the exploration rules in D&D and similar actually work just fine as intended if you actually use them (https://theangrygm.com/exploring-by-the-rules/).

And for a finale, read his article on wilderness travel rules. (https://theangrygm.com/how-to-wilderness-right/)

These were a pretty fascinating read. I think that there might be misunderstand caused by different definitions being used here. I define exploration mechanics as 'mechanics for piquing curiosity, generating interest, and creating satisfying experiences exploring places.' It would appear that the designers of D&D as well as the Angry GM define exploration mechanics as 'mechanics for movement outside of combat time.'

Having refreshed my memory on the rules D&D provides for exploration, I do not find them particularly satisfying or interesting. I appreciate you sharing them, but it feels like the game is mostly just saying 'do it yourself.' Which isn't really... how mechanics should work.

Amidus Drexel
2022-01-04, 02:09 PM
These were a pretty fascinating read. I think that there might be misunderstand caused by different definitions being used here. I define exploration mechanics as 'mechanics for piquing curiosity, generating interest, and creating satisfying experiences exploring places.' It would appear that the designers of D&D as well as the Angry GM define exploration mechanics as 'mechanics for movement outside of combat time.'

Having refreshed my memory on the rules D&D provides for exploration, I do not find them particularly satisfying or interesting. I appreciate you sharing them, but it feels like the game is mostly just saying 'do it yourself.' Which isn't really... how mechanics should work.

Would you mind giving us some examples of systems you think do that well? I'm sure plenty of us would be interested in exploration mechanics beyond creative writing advice and tables to roll on for proc-gen.

Most of the systems I've encountered have very little in the way of exploration rules as you define it - most either only mention it in passing, rely heavily on procedural generation in a single environment (like D&D), or don't really have any exploration mechanics at all - instead relying on the players or the GM to come up with whatever might be off the beaten path.

NichG
2022-01-04, 05:43 PM
I don't have an answer for this, but I feel like I should. So it's an interesting design question IMO...

If I think about exploration experiences I've enjoyed, I don't know if they form a natural category. Exploration high points for me (mostly in CRPGs) were:


- Realms of Arkania, being able to wander around this map with a lot of roads and finding that going someplace would reveal side passages, events, dungeons, places to harvest new kinds of herbs, new potion recipes, etc. In general the game also had a bunch of stuff (spells and skills) whose descriptions were vague or felt bigger than what could fit inside a computer game, and that motivated me to try to actually find out how those things worked and what they could let you do (some of them were literal 'we didn't think you could get this spell, you must have cheated, here have a random message' outcomes when you did manage to get them though). Something about the map format, seeing routes you could go and knowing that there were things to discover hidden on those routes was appealing. Similarly, seeing something like a hundred different small towns on the map and knowing you could go to any of them and there would be a map for it and maybe events (though generally, they were all generic, and that was disappointing...) If the events were random and you could find them on any route you chose, I don't think it would have worked the same for me.

- Tyrian. It had secret levels within secret levels, and based on those you could get access to special shops that would sell ship equipment you couldn't otherwise get or even hidden ship types. There were also a ton of codes to access alternate game modes and weird stuff. I guess here the feeling was again something like 'I can tell there's something in here that I haven't found yet' or 'The game leads me to believe there's something in here to be discovered'. The actual act of going to the secret levels and the levels themselves might not have been so interesting in their own right, it was more the sense that there was something to find and the feeling of making progress in finding it.

- Wizardry 7. Wandering around vast blobber wildernesses and finding that sometimes they actually led to areas with events, messages, treasure chests, etc - especially if you ended up having to do something that it seemed the game really wanted to make difficult (like swimming multiple tiles) to get there. I think this could have fallen totally flat for me, but the first area you spawn in has a pretty important secret thing (basically the item that gives you a minimap) hidden in a nearby forest zone, which you could totally miss. So that sort of made me interact with the rest of the game as if stuff like that was going to be everywhere, even if those sorts of side areas were relatively rare. The thing with swimming being basically fast death - unless you trained it up and drank a lot of stamina potions as you went - but then letting you sort of skip or get into areas you shouldn't also helped with it. There was a feeling of something saying 'you're not supposed to go here', but softly enough and with enough of a way to overcome it that you felt that it might be hiding something worthwhile rather than just being fatigue water.

Despite playing a lot of other blobbers, I haven't felt quite the same exploration pull as I did with Wizardry 7. It could be rose tinted glasses since it was the second game of that genre that I ever played. But I don't get it from something like Etrian Odyssey for example. At least some of it was me giving the game the benefit of the doubt about things it claimed which in more modern games I recognize formulaic stuff too easily - like, there was a spell Locate Object in Wiz 7 and before getting it I thought it would let you e.g. identify a specific item you wanted to acquire and learn roughly where it was in the game or which NPC had it, rather than just popping up icons for nearby treasure chests on the minimap. So again, something there about not knowing the limits of what you could find before going there or believing those limits to be broader than they actually are were have contributed to the feeling.

- Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim/Fallout - Putting these together because by now it's sort of run together in my mind as 'Bethesda game format', but they have an interesting thing where the exploration urge runs very hot/cold for me in these games. Finding dungeons or seeing NPCs on the road which pull you into side quests or things like that when randomly wandering feels engaging to me when I first get into a cycle of wanting to play these kinds of games, but then there's some transition to 'just another radiant quest' or 'just another dungeon' where I get more focused on doing the main questlines/etc. The modding experience also might give some hints - I tend to prefer the idea of dropping a lot of new content mods in and discover them organically or stumble on them rather than reading about where to go to start the mod, but there's definitely a switching point where I give up on that and just read where I should go (or just ignore the mod content). I've sort of had this recently with Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 - yes, I can find a whole bunch of interiors that I could go into, which suggests that there's going to be at least something there like a magazine or bobblehead or sidequest, but there are so many and they're all sort of... flat? with eachother, that picking any one to go into seems the same as picking any other, and therefore I don't want to go into any.


So I guess the points that I can sum up for things that make exploration compelling to me:

- The game/system should give me reason to believe there are things out there whose potential could be bigger than what I currently understand about what the game is about.
- The game/system should give me reason to believe that the choice of where to explore matters, not just in quantitative details but in a qualitative 'what is possible' sense.
- At the same time, the game/system should expose the fact that exploration can have returns early on and without hiding it so well to start that I never get that clue.

So that, plus the swimming/etc experiences with Wizardry suggests perhaps: Making it obvious that there's something to be found in a certain direction, but then making the question of how to go in that direction a challenge to overcome is a better recipe than hiding things so you don't know what directions may have payoffs but making it about the same difficulty to go everywhere.