Regarding Exploration and Social Interaction

[Arzanyos]

So, I see the point brought up regularly in 5e discussions that in DnD in general, and 5e particularly, that the rules for exploration and social interaction are underdeveloped, or barely even there. This is usually in contrast to the robustness of the combat rules.

Now, I'm not making this thread to debate the merit of that point. What I'm actually wondering is: What are some of the things you guys wish there were rules support for?

[Trask]

I wish there was a more robust system for exploring dungeon environments and the timekeeping involved. In older D&D (like, pre 3e) there was a stronger focus on resource attrition through random encounters, depletion of torches and oil and such. Nowadays the former is essentially a vestigial limb (getting a random encounter on a 15 or higher once per hour is not resource attrition, also the examples of these encounters usually suck) and the latter is really done away with, what with all the light cantrips, darkvision and such.

The modern old school gaming scene has some really nice ideas concerning this, with a sort of "hazard die" where you roll on it every "dungeon round" (usually 10 minutes spent searching a room, scraping grime off old runes, reading ancient scrolls, digging through a pile of bones, etc) and the result is variable, including a standard random encounter, but also the depletion of a torch, or the need to sit down for a break, or some ongoing magical effect dissipates (instead of tracking the exact minutes of that fly spell). Its clean, its nice, and it makes running dungeon exploration a lot more engaging, assuming you have an exploration focused dungeon and not just a series of linear battle rooms.

I also wish there was a better system for wilderness travel, or any system at all for that matter. It could be made so much more fun if it was just gamified a little, like the way Adventures in Middle Earth does. A table of results for each leg of the journey, from finding a good place to camp and getting to take a long rest, to getting stuck in foul weather than spoils the mood, disadvantage on persuasion checks when you reach your destination. Those might be weak examples but I know theres a lot more you could do that would at least make travel feel like its a part of the game at all, rather than something they begrudgingly put in the book because they knew they had to.

[TigerT20]

I wish there was more support in the DMG for how to build encounters that aren't combat. Example puzzles or obstacles, or even establishing somewhere that encounters are not always combat in the Building and Encounter Section. Actual guidelines on how to give XP for non-combat encounters would be nice too - you're stuck with debating the difficulty of an encounter and making a rough guess within those bounds.

I have some other stuff but I can't quite word it in a way that people will understand without writing a book, methinks

[HappyDaze]

The entire game minimizes the duration of negative effects. Hit point loss is cured overnight, and most poisons run their course in a single turn. Since the consequences of most exploration and social failures are longer-term, the game doesn't really even try to put mechanics to them and instead just hand waves it (I've literally seen my book wave hands in the air...I swear) because the design is heavily against lasting consequences.

[Greywander]

The way I see it, there's a fairly strong correlation between the combat, exploration, and social pillars of D&D, and the player archetypes of gamist, simulationist, and narrativist.

In D&D, combat is the Game, so it has the strictest, most rigid rules. Even the concept of Combat as Sport plays into the idea that combat is the Game, and those players who lean gamist enjoy combat because it allows them to demonstrate their mastery of the rules of the Game (a demonstration of skill, so to speak).

By contrast, the exploration and puzzle solving pillar tends to appeal more to simulationists. It might not seem like there are rigid rules for exploration, which is true, but to a simulationist the fluff gets treated as equal to the crunch. By combining the fluff with some common sense and logic, they're able to piece together a solution to a situation that isn't explicitly spelled out in the rules of the Game. If combat is a test of skill, this would be a test of logic. (Consequently, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of simulationists tend toward Combat as War, as combat is just another puzzle that can be solved creatively without needing to roll initiative.)

Finally, the correlation between the social pillar and the narrativist is obvious. The narrativist is more interested in the unfolding story, so they tend to chafe at rules that limit the development of that story. It's no surprise then that the rules for social interactions are pretty light, and a lot is left up to DM discretion.

It doesn't have to be this way, though. In an RPG built around political intrigue, the social pillar could become the Game. Or maybe puzzles could be the Game. You could have some weird system where combat is resolved in a single roll (like a skill check in D&D), but it has an extremely in-depth system for property management.

I think at the end of the day, D&D is an RPG, which means it does let you do literally anything. But at the same time, D&D is a Game about combat. When you're playing D&D, you can do other things besides combat, but the weight of importance something has is generally related to the impact it has on combat. If you don't want to play a game about fighting monsters, then you're better off playing a different system. All this to say, I suppose, that you shouldn't get too carried away adding new rules or systems to D&D; at some point you should just look for a different system that already has rules for that.

As for what I would like to see:

• As Trask, I'd also like to see some more robust rules for timekeeping and resource management. I think Angry GM had some decent ones for dungeon crawling.
• Crafting and economics. Okay, I admit it, I'm a simulationist.
• Political intrigue would be cool. I'm not usually into the talky stuff, but if it had rules attached I might get more into it.
• Heck, let's go all the way and lay out a basic strategy game ruleset that allows us to determine what resources each city has available or how strong a kingdom's armies are, and can simulate conflicts between kingdoms.
• Maybe some rules for the creation of new spells or magic items, especially if I'm a wizard or artificer and want to research new things.
• Better stealth/vision rules. I still find it odd that you can locate an invisible creature as long as they aren't hidden, but there isn't any actual range limit on hearing (so I can precisely locate someone hundreds of feet away by hearing alone?).
• Utility uses for damage cantrips (e.g. using Ray of Frost to ice over an area, or Acid Splash to melt through a lock).

That's all I can think of for now.

[Cheesegear]

I wish there was a more robust system for exploring dungeon environments and the timekeeping involved. In older D&D (like, pre 3e) there was a stronger focus on resource attrition through random encounters, depletion of torches and oil and such. Nowadays the former is essentially a vestigial limb (getting a random encounter on a 15 or higher once per hour is not resource attrition, also the examples of these encounters usually suck) and the latter is really done away with, what with all the light cantrips, darkvision and such.

This.

It's not that Torches and Lanterns didn't go away. It's that Light is a Cantrip. It almost-literally costs you no resources, and you can do it more-or-less at-will. You can even cast it on an Object (i.e; a Shield). So that the leading Fighter no longer needs to choose between being able to see, and wearing a Shield. You can do both with one hand now!

It's not that Rations didn't go away. It's that Rangers and Outlanders can find infinity food, and by Level 5, a Cleric has access to Create Food and Water regardless of Domain.
At Level 5, a Bard or Wizard will have Leomund's Tiny Hut.

It's not that there aren't rules for simulationist survival. If you don't eat, you get Exhaustion. If you don't drink, you get Exhaustion, etc. It's that those rules are trivially easy to bypass for a balanced party with even a smattering of knowledge about the game mechanics.

What I wish, was that there were more spells, with spell components that were consumed.

[DevilMcam]

The entire game minimizes the duration of negative effects. Hit point loss is cured overnight, and most poisons run their course in a single turn. Since the consequences of most exploration and social failures are longer-term, the game doesn't really even try to put mechanics to them and instead just hand waves it (I've literally seen my book wave hands in the air...I swear) because the design is heavily against lasting consequences.

As a player that has been affected by those. Long term mechanical consequences area terrible pain.
I ran a published campaign, in wich during our first encounter of the day (first of 6 that were to come) I got poisonned for the day as a monk. Our party didn't had lesser restauration ready or a paladin. I spent the following 2 sessions making all the rolls at disadvantage and having 25%less max HPs. Needless to say I didn't contribute much for 2 whole sessions. This was not super fun. I as a player had 0 agency in that happening.

Failing an action in combat isn't a big deal because both parties will do so and there is plenty of them.

Failing that athletics check to climbe the mountain? well I guess the dragon is gonna burn the village after all.
Rolling 5 of those to mitigate that "bad luck" effect, not fun either, you may as well succede automatically.

[Man_Over_Game]

As a player that has been affected by those. Long term mechanical consequences area terrible pain.
I ran a published campaign, in wich during our first encounter of the day (first of 6 that were to come) I got poisonned for the day as a monk. Our party didn't had lesser restauration ready or a paladin. I spent the following 2 sessions making all the rolls at disadvantage and having 25%less max HPs. Needless to say I didn't contribute much for 2 whole sessions. This was not super fun. I as a player had 0 agency in that happening.

Failing an action in combat isn't a big deal because both parties will do so and there is plenty of them.

Failing that athletics check to climbe the mountain? well I guess the dragon is gonna burn the village after all.
Rolling 5 of those to mitigate that "bad luck" effect, not fun either, you may as well succede automatically.

I think the happy medium is to make the impact of those effects as being gradual, so as to punish further mistakes instead of one.

Similarly, perma-death in video games is a fine mechanic, as long as the player knew it was his fault and not the game's. Punishments for bad actions need feedback that scales with the risk.

Or, to put simply, if I'm about to die, I need to know how not to do that. The greater the risk, the more I know how to prevent it.

Making dropping to 0 inflict Exhaustion? Fine, since players have a full HP pool to work with and early stages of Exhaustion still leave players able to participate.

Lowering HP gain from sleep? Fine, since Hit Dice still partially recharge per day and the effect of the change can be mitigated with magic. Since Hit Dice don't fully regenerate, players still are incentivized to play cautiously to have more readily-available HP the following day.

Punish players for playing badly, but do so in a way that creeps in slowly and obviously. It gives them control over what happens in the future, so it's their decision, and fault for what happens next. It makes their actions carry weight and responsibility, which is effectively what you want in a game.


---------------

As for the thread question:

• Real mentions as to how skills can impact combat, from a level 1 scenario to a level 20 with Expertise. We should know what's a simple scenario and what's a more heroic one.
• Real mentions as to how skills interact with real-life mechanics. For example, what's a DC 25 History, Nature or Medicine check?
• Uses for skills that allow them to surpass magic on a regular basis. Disguise Self should still be better than Performance, but only long as it's always more expensive.
• Scaling for skills. A character is expected to gain about +6 overall on their success for skills between levels 1-20. That doesn't account for much, when damage, health and spells scale so much more heroically. The default gives off the idea that either a level 1 is too heroic, or a level 20 is too mundane, when using skills, since they both are roughly the same.

I think the biggest problem is that they had skills follow the same system as attacking (AC/DC), but the system for attacking was designed to allow weaker creatures to succeed as often as stronger creatures.

However, magic doesn't use the same fail/success system, and so it quickly outscales skills when it comes to noncombat contribution.

If skills matched magic, or magic matched skills, the two would be seen as a choice between cost vs. risk rather than super vs. mundane.

[Warwick]

Now, I'm not making this thread to debate the merit of that point. What I'm actually wondering is: What are some of the things you guys wish there were rules support for?

Making (potentially) informed and consequential decisions with non-arbitrary outcomes. Social interaction is completely structureless, so you get to make consequential decisions but it's as much a game of persuade the GM as persuade the NPC. Survival/exploration has structure, sort of, but there aren't any interesting choices to make or tradeoffs to consider. It's 'pass a survival check/have a Ranger to not fail'.

[Arzanyos]

Making (potentially) informed and consequential decisions with non-arbitrary outcomes. Social interaction is completely structureless, so you get to make consequential decisions but it's as much a game of persuade the GM as persuade the NPC. Survival/exploration has structure, sort of, but there aren't any interesting choices to make or tradeoffs to consider. It's 'pass a survival check/have a Ranger to not fail'.

I was actually thinking more towards specifics. Y'know, like how I want there to be more mechanical weight behind what happens in the classic "bust into the throne room and claim the king's a doppelganger/the vizier is corrupt" than just making a check to see if you convince people of your claim.

[Dr. Cliché]

I think the biggest problem is that they had skills follow the same system as attacking (AC/DC), but the system for attacking was designed to allow weaker creatures to succeed as often as stronger creatures.

To be honest, I'm not fond of 5e's skill system in general. I don't like that it's just a binary proficient/not proficient for each skill, with additional bonuses only available through specific classes.

[BurgerBeast]

I wish there were rules for tempo, meaning the DMs decision for what speed the game progress at, how to decide which to use, and guidelines for how to run the game at each level. For example:

Hiatus: months
Downtime: weeks
Travel: Days
Wilderness Travel: Watches (4 hours)
Wilderness Exploration: hours
Location Exploration: 10-minute turns
Site Exploration: 1-minute turns
Encounters: Rounds

I wish there were calendars detailed for each world and generators for calendar based events.

I wish there were tables given for true “encounters” (meaning problems that are not only combat that require action to resolve).

I wish there were suggestions for how to make wilderness travel restrictive, but provide “discoveries” to expand PC travel-ability (e.g. tunnels, teleportation devices, bridges, etc).

I wish there were more complicated random wilderness encounter tables that included weather events, time-of-year events, travel hazard events, character backstory events, and wilderness events; and that these events were seeded so as to sometimes act as leads into further encounters or adventures, and that the seeds were often dependent on prior character choices.

I wish a modular crafting system was designed a la Angry GM so as to work alongside adventuring, and relevant tables existed for gathering materials, harvesting materials from the world and from monsters, and crafting.

I wish encounter tables included seeded motivations and points of conflict for any monsters or NPCs included.

I wish the books gave guidelines for how to make the character’s class abilities and the level-up process a part of the story. I wish the game rules from 1-20 were not given explicitly up front, and instead characters discovered their classes through the process of play, so that interested groups could spend the first months/years of play unlocking and discovering (i.e. exploring) the game.

I wish the game explicitly removed social abilities and skills and embraced the role of the DM in managing interactions using his or her brain, with some guideline for how to handle uncertainty using dice. I wish there were systems such as morale to help the DM in this endeavour.

[HPisBS]

• As Trask, I'd also like to see some more robust rules for timekeeping and resource management. I think Angry GM had some decent ones for dungeon crawling.
• Crafting and economics. Okay, I admit it, I'm a simulationist.
• Political intrigue would be cool. I'm not usually into the talky stuff, but if it had rules attached I might get more into it.
• Heck, let's go all the way and lay out a basic strategy game ruleset that allows us to determine what resources each city has available or how strong a kingdom's armies are, and can simulate conflicts between kingdoms.
• Maybe some rules for the creation of new spells or magic items, especially if I'm a wizard or artificer and want to research new things.
• Better stealth/vision rules. I still find it odd that you can locate an invisible creature as long as they aren't hidden, but there isn't any actual range limit on hearing (so I can precisely locate someone hundreds of feet away by hearing alone?).
• Utility uses for damage cantrips (e.g. using Ray of Frost to ice over an area, or Acid Splash to melt through a lock).

I really wish the raw supported harvesting and crafting. Monster entries could have a blurb about how their ___ body parts and/or secretions) are used to make ___ items. An exploration section could have lists of plants, fungi, insects, etc, detailing what environments they can be found in, their basic appearance, and their known uses. Along with that goes more and better poisons, venoms, and antidotes. (Then, suddenly, the Ranger gets a real niche to excel in!)


Stealth and Perception could probably use some more rules, considering how often they come into play.


Certain spells definitely could use a little... broadening in their language. Raw Acid Splash limiting you to targeting creatures has to be the most obvious example.

– In fact, I'd like to see written guidelines for slight modifications to spells in general. Want to make a Skeletal Warhorse for your necromancer to ride? You could if there were guidelines for spell modification. They could be something like upcasting removing a limitation in the spell's text. In which case, 4th level Animate Dead could remove the "humanoid corpse or bones" limitation, instead of adding more targets. And/or maybe add a bit of valuable amethyst or onyx to your components. But by current raw... sorry, your only option is to True Poly something into it.

– – For that matter, I'd like some permanency. The current standard for making spells permanent is to re-cast it every day for a year, but, by raw, only a small handful of spells are even valid for that. I'd like to see guidelines on getting that effect on most spells, and through multiple means. Maybe scale the number of re-casts to the spell's level. Maybe add some materials that get consumed upon the final casting. (It's not like wizards or sorcerers have many intuitive uses for all of that gold they get, anyway.) Maybe allow for some semi-permanency by using your own blood as a component, reducing your max hp in the process (similar to Create Homunculous).


It'd also be nice for the less charismatic players, and/or players who don't think on their feet fast enough for good RP, to have more rules to fall back on when engaging with the social pillar. But that's probably a tall order and the least likely to get anything more than it already has. But we could at least get something for resolving conflicts / succeeding at goals without combat yielding xp, right?

[Zarrgon]

I wish there was more support in the DMG for how to build encounters that aren't combat. Example puzzles or obstacles, or even establishing somewhere that encounters are not always combat in the Building and Encounter Section. Actual guidelines on how to give XP for non-combat encounters would be nice too - you're stuck with debating the difficulty of an encounter and making a rough guess within those bounds.

This. And this has always been D&D blind spot. Right from the start it was always "the game is not endless mindless combat"....but then the rules for anything else don't exist.

A good DM can add encounters that aren't combat, but the game itself does not provide any building blocks and only vague advise.

D&D could use some nice, hard rules promoting exploration. Like many older editions had the requirement that to make a spell or magic item you needed a special ingredient: something rare and exotic from some far off land that you had to go and find. Even 3.5E had the nice magical locations...that gave characters a reason to explore at least.

Something like you could get bonus action types for discovering things...the hard way by travel and exploration. The idea that travel exploration broadens your mind.

[HappyDaze]

I laugh everytime someone wants advantage in a Survival check just because a second person-- no matter how inept-- it's going to "assist" them. At worst, it means two people should never face disadvantage on a check.

[Asisreo1]

I feel this whole "Attrition" mentality is a bit, idk, wrong.

Resource management should be in a dungeon, overland should be discovering new and exciting things. Things like magic items or hoards of treasure should be found. Monster lairs, weird magic zones, landmarks. All of these should be discovered to give your story and world so much more. Instead of info dumping how Mr. Brightside got cheated on by his wife and destroyed his village, have the players actually visit the village and make it obvious that Mr. Brightside did it. Now, it's so much more immersive because the players get to interact with Brightside's history. So now they feel all the more compelled to save Mr. Bluesky

[Man_Over_Game]

I feel this whole "Attrition" mentality is a bit, idk, wrong.

Resource management should be in a dungeon, overland should be discovering new and exciting things. Things like magic items or hoards of treasure should be found. Monster lairs, weird magic zones, landmarks. All of these should be discovered to give your story and world so much more. Instead of info dumping how Mr. Brightside got cheated on by his wife and destroyed his village, have the players actually visit the village and make it obvious that Mr. Brightside did it. Now, it's so much more immersive because the players get to interact with Brightside's history. So now they feel all the more compelled to save Mr. Bluesky

The idea is to balance risks and rewards so that the players have goals to use their abilities around.

Otherwise, what you end up with is a situation where the players choose how they want to use their powers in a world that doesn't demand them to. So they enter Gladiator arenas, use their powers to steal from or manipulate the townsfolk, try to gather armies and politicians, etc.

Idle hands are the Devil's plaything, and DnD characters have some very powerful, very large hands.

A good balance of the two - not demanding attrition while also having a focus for the players - is by having a persistent problem in the world that the players can interact with. Like a magical illness sweeping the land, or how the Magical Mafia is slowly spilling into the countryside.

[Asisreo1]

The idea is to balance risks and rewards so that the players have goals to use their abilities around.

Otherwise, what you end up with is a situation where the players choose how they want to use their powers in a world that doesn't demand them to. So they enter Gladiator arenas, use their powers to steal from or manipulate the townsfolk, try to gather armies and politicians, etc.

Idle hands are the Devil's plaything, and DnD characters have some very powerful, very large hands.

A good balance of the two - not demanding attrition while also having a focus for the players - is by having a persistent problem in the world that the players can interact with. Like a magical illness sweeping the land, or how the Magical Mafia is slowly spilling into the countryside.

I know what the idea is. I just think the idea is either archaic or anti-fun. I don't think you should always have your abilities and never have fun with them. I don't think it's the DM's job to just police players.

Sometimes, they should be able to do cool things without consequence. It is a fantasy, after all.

And there will be times where they have to manage their abilities but I think these times should be reserved for truly dangerous places and not just in open grasslands or a 36sq mi forest with 1 owlbear in it.

Being able to fly, even if it's once per day for a minute, is very cool and something I'd love to experience without consequence irl. Eventually the call of duty beckons them on another adventure or they arrive at the sphinx's pyramid, but at least they had fun along the way.

[Man_Over_Game]

I know what the idea is. I just think the idea is either archaic or anti-fun. I don't think you should always have your abilities and never have fun with them. I don't think it's the DM's job to just police players.

Sometimes, they should be able to do cool things without consequence. It is a fantasy, after all.

And there will be times where they have to manage their abilities but I think these times should be reserved for truly dangerous places and not just in open grasslands or a 36sq mi forest with 1 owlbear in it.

Being able to fly, even if it's once per day for a minute, is very cool and something I'd love to experience without consequence irl. Eventually the call of duty beckons them on another adventure or they arrive at the sphinx's pyramid, but at least they had fun along the way.

Sure, but it's not like every day demands every spell slot, or even the adventurers to go adventuring. I've played at lot more tables with too few encounters for an adventuring day than too many. I don't think I've ever been at a table that had 6 encounters in a single day.

[Asisreo1]

Sure, but it's not like every day demands every spell slot, or even the adventurers to go adventuring. I've played at lot more tables with too few encounters for an adventuring day than too many. I don't think I've ever been at a table that had 6 encounters in a single day.

Join my table! I work hard to make challenging encounters that make sense to happen 6 times a day.

I'm actually more comfortable with them, too. It isn't as swingy which gives encounters less tpk potential. Sometimes, I'll have the BBEG as a deadly encounter even with the 6 encounters a day. All medium, usually.

[MrStabby]

So I have a few things I would want to avoid at least: any rules or "guidelines" that shut any players out from part of the game. So no "highest score rolls" type mechanics; everyones abilities should matter. I don't want barbarians to go to sleep and get bored in the social encounters; I want them to have as much a role to play as anyone else.

I don't want rules that cause players (you know the type) to try and force the DMs hand: "But convincing someone of something using partial evidence is a DC 22 check and I got a 24 - the King nowhas to believe this rumour I have been spreading!" or "you described a woodendoor withabarss lock! it means my 14 was enough to pickthe lock!".

If there are more developed rules for exploration and social then I would explicitly look for both pillars to try and find a way to use every stat - potentially tough, but I find an onjective like this, even if only partially met, can be used to include players more rather than be a means to exclude them.

[Yora]

I think the regular rules in the Player's Handbook are good as they are in their scope, presenting a generic adventure system. Not every game needs exploration rules, and I think most games that are being played these days (this century, really) do not. But on the other hand, they don't because D&D no longer has a default exploration system. More people would want to play and run such campaigns if theh knew more about them.

I think what's really needed at this point is a separate book that updates and streamlines the traditional exploration systems to the current rules.

I am using the system from the old Basic and Expert rules from 1981, and they work with 5th edition without real problems. But having a book that lays out the system in the terms of 5th edition would be great.

A change to existing rules that would be really useful is to have spell durations of 10 minutes instead if 1 minute. 10 minutes is a much more natural unit to track the passage of time in dungeons than 1.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think the regular rules in the Player's Handbook are good as they are in their scope, presenting a generic adventure system. Not every game needs exploration rules, and I think most games that are being played these days (this century, really) do not. But on the other hand, they don't because D&D no longer has a default exploration system. More people would want to play and run such campaigns if theh knew more about them.

I contest you on that. I think the rules would be fine on their own, for the DM to decide on how/when to implement them (similar to Exhaustion or Inspiration), but both Rangers and Druids have important features that rely on the Exploration pillar of the game.

As soon as you lock a player's investment towards a mechanic, you have to guarantee that the mechanic will be relevant as something else they could have gotten. If you can't, you screwed up, plain and simple.

That, or the player screwed up by doing what came naturally without being able to get the information needed to prevent that mistake (which is also bad game design, unless you're making a gambling or horror game).

To do what you're describing, they should have released the Ranger as an Exploration-Focused class in the Exploration-Focused expansion book. Or as a Fighter subclass that prioritizes on Exploration (making it a Nature-based Eldritch Knight wouldn't even be that far off).

I'm not against that. I like the idea of releasing different books for different playstyles of campaigns with character options that follow suit (for example, Bard College of Whispers being specific to the Horror expansion), but the way they released it almost implied that every feature was going to be relevant in every campaign (as there are some levels in builds where all you'd get for that level is a "ribbon" feature), but the rules don't actually support that.

Just because I am a Thief does not mean I will regularly have things to interact with. Not because the DM can't do those things for their players, but because the DM's guidebook doesn't tell them to. Not in terms of "If you don't have interactive objects in your encounters, some players will be disappointed in their long-term investments" that implies those considerations should be standard. It all feels "optional", which is a problem when what powers your players get for their level ups are not.