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One of the pillars of Dungeons & Dragons that doesn’t always get the spotlight, what does exploration mean in D&D? Teos and Shawn really get into the meat of this often-ignored element of the hobby that can be vital to building an engaging story!
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Fantastic episode! Of course, all your episodes have great nuggets of Wisdom, but this one is particularly timely for me as a DM, as I had been guilty of somewhat neglecting exploration in my games and just started thinking about it more in depth after a reading some new threads on ENWorld. Exploration really *is* everywhere – we DMs just need to consciously cultivate the Exploration Pillar so the players can grab the opportunities for their PCs, if they so choose. Looking forward to catching parts 2 and 3!
One quibble: you mention the three pillars of D&D as Combat, Roleplaying, and Exploration. Roleplaying is not a pillar, Social Interaction is. Roleplaying is part of EVERY pillar. Don’t mean to be nitpicky, but I think it is an important distinction in how we think about the game.
Thanks for all you do for the hobby – cheers!
Thanks for the feedback, and I’m glad you enjoyed (and continue to enjoy) the show! I agree with you that “roleplaying” is a part of every pillar. We are using that term as a pillar because WotC D&D designers morphed the name of that pillar over the years. I believe they first called it “interaction,” then they called it “social interaction” (as you point out), and they finally settled on the term “roleplaying” to specifically mean that social interaction. So while I agree with you–I would have preferred them to leave it as “social interaction”–that is the reason we’re saying “roleplaying” in that stricter definition.
Huh – I was not aware of the change to “roleplaying”. That’s just a bit confusing since the 5e Players Handbook calls the pillar “social interaction”. Was that final decision to use the term “roleplaying” for that pillar in Sage Advice or some Errata that I missed? I guess I haven’t explored enough… (see how I brought that back around? :))
I’m not entirely sure if there was an exact article or podcast or stream where they started using the other terminology. It might have been at conventions where I listened to their panels, plus other interactions, either public or private. And I may be completely delusional! 🙂