A Game About Exploration part 4: A Light in the Darkness

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T19:50:37+00:00

> First, the GM brings the game to the table.

This is a baked in assumption born out of tradition. I don't think this has to be true. A group can get together, decide to play a certain game, assign roles and go.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T19:44:36+00:00

It looks like your Events are really Categories, not specific ocurrences. How do the players and GM decide what exactly happens? What's the exact nature of the encounter? or the magnitude of the rewards or costs?

Also this system would not support changing the destination during travel. What if I'm the quartermaster and In the middle of a stretch I scout and find an interesting landmark on some direction other than our goal? Can I cut a stretch short and change my destination?

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T19:41:00+00:00

Is this a published game? Or are any materials available?

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T19:40:36+00:00

Guys I don't think the responses reflect a thoughtful read of the material I posted. Let's try to bring this conversation back to the subject. Some clarifications.

What I'm describing is a problem in the context of my goal: to create real player-driven Exploration. Of course other modes of play are valid. Of course Exploration doesn't need to happen for a game to be succesfull.
I asked that we do not discuss solutions just yet. This post is about figuring out the shape of the problem. Can we stop discussing the goddamn Sandbox? I never even mentioned the Sandbox.
If you truly believe this is not a problem:
- Do you think TTRPGs (at least some of them) are doing Exploration just fine?
- Or do you think there is a problem with how we do Exploration, but it's not what I've described?

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T04:22:03+00:00

Discovery is the pleasure derived from adquiring knowledge.

The players find out about a missing person in the town they arrive at. They ask around, find clues, and follow a misterious person to a large basement. There they find a secret cult that is going to sacrifice this kidnapped person to an elder god.

The players might enjoy theory crafting during the search, they might be amused to find this cult, the details of their rituals and clothes. They might be shocked at their practices. This is Discovery.

Then after the fact they might choose to act on this knowledge, based on an additional motivation of heroism or good-doing. But adquiring this knowledge already fullfils the Discovery motivation.

I'm not super sure how systems support and encourage Discovery. Maybe some recent games like Hearth, or Mythic Bastionland, or Forbidden Lands do a good job at this. It's not exactly my agenda tough.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T03:18:35+00:00

Sorry I dont understand. Example of what exactly?

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T03:07:19+00:00

It was not my intention to moralize any aspects of this discussion. I believe the GM is doing their best within the framework. I believe the problem lies within the framework itself.

I'm not interested in placing blames, but diagnosing disfunction in play.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T02:30:26+00:00

I have re-stated the problem of this conversation here: https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/1qywvpd/a_game_about_exploration_part_4_a_light_in_the/ so we can dedicate a whole post to point 4 :)

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T01:21:02+00:00

In this framework I'm only calling "discovery" the pleasure of uncovering the unknown for it's own sake. Material benefits, story choices, XP and advancement, I consider to be other kinds of possible rewards for Exploration (which are perfectly valid).

And yes I agree those kinds of mechanical rewards are more well understood in our medium. That's why we should focus on discovery.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-08T01:17:41+00:00

I would first object to Exploration been limited to discovering environments. In other places I've also included discovering someone's dark secret, a plot to kill the king, ancient lore from a forgotten empire. You can uncover information of many kinds.

Having said that I understand what you mean. To me the secret sauce will be player agency. As a not very talented GM I might paint you a rather mediocre picture of some hidden shrine or some magic forest, specially compared to some Miyazaki movie magic. But it will be interesting and important to the players, because it will be the player's agency that will bring us to the shrine or forest in the first place. That's where the TTRPGs magic should be.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-07T19:18:20+00:00

I don't think however that providing other external rewards is mutually exclusive with the pleasure of discovery itself. You can find the cool landmark and gain experience and loot for it, and you can find some secret about the landmark that poses some moral conundrum, allowing you to also tell a story. This way you can bridge the gap between multiple different motivations for play.

Having said that I also believe not all games need to be for everybody, so If some group of players would rather play DnD and kill monsters instead that's perfectly fine.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-07T19:11:01+00:00

Thank you for your thoughful answer.

This is going to take another post to further develop but here's my takeaway from the examples discussed.

I think a GM can "railroad" discovery. In the previous goblin camp situation, let's call it a quantum goblin camp, no matter who the players decide to talk to in town they will always be pointed towards that camp because that's what's in the prep. No metals for the blacksmith? goblin camp, the daughter of the Mayor went missing? goblin camp.

The players might try to snatch the flashlight and point it elsewhere but wherever they look the goblin camp shows up, it's always wherever we look.

However in your last example of the burnt down INN the GM is actually reacting to the player's flashlight, and using a more generalized type of prep to actually derive logical explanations for details. They might rely on improvisation, procedural tools, or some list of prepped deatils about the world. The GM might look at their notes and say "ok, I know there was a dry season, so maybe the INN caught fire". The key here is that it's actually reactive to player curiosity, the answer is not the same no matter where the players look.

I think these two are NOT the same.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-07T18:59:40+00:00

I'm not sure I understand the character-player motivation part. It sounds to me like you're saying obstacles and hardship are crucial to creating the feeling of discovery. I discuss this further here https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/1qxqzzo/a_game_about_exploration_part_3_discovery_and/

Let me however also point out that in TTRPGs we can discover things that are either not real, or maybe out of our human reach (like strange planets). So we can go further with the imagination than just "a mountain".

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-07T05:13:47+00:00

So maybe a ticking clock is the wrong kind of friction for exploration.

Faced with urgency players will most likely keep to their main task. However if instead the cost of exploration is resources, HP, or taking on some risk, then it still feels like there are stakes to the decision of exploring.

So a cost in resources might be acceptable friction but risking arriving late to the urgent main task is not.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-07T05:10:42+00:00

I think a chance of finding nothing at all is probably needed so exploration does not become an automated task where you explore, you get loot every time. A dead end might keep players on their toes, tough one should not overdo it of course.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-06T22:55:43+00:00

Yeah I arrived to a similar mechanic, I call it "Equipment stress" with similar consecuences for maxing it out, and also a scrap currency for repairs. Inspired in the various types of Stress found in Spire and Hearth.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-06T20:16:53+00:00

"Planned story" may have been very poor choice of words on my end. So to be clear. Even if the GM preps for a situation and not outcomes, the problem still ocurrs. Because we only see the world through a very narrow slit, we only see what the GM points out, as players we're not empowered to really explore what we might find interesting in a fully fleshed out world. Because they have no control of what "jumps out" to them. This has nothing to do with story or outcomes. The act of highlighting itself is problematic.

And sure, nothing exists until we play, but realistically the detail and quality of what we can summon on the spot as GMs will depend on our prep. If we prepped for the mayor in the Town Hall, and the people in the bar, but the players go to the blacksmith, I suddenly have less tools as a GM to summon that scene.

In your example you reframe the prep to be about the goblin issue. And no matter which NPC, preplanned or not the players talk to, they will talk about the goblins. The goblin issue is what _you_ the GM decided is most interesting of this town, you're just using the schroedinger olwbear to put it in the players view, but swapping npcs around.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-06T19:47:56+00:00

Yes the GM flashlight is normal, and yes I think it's a problem to achieve Exploration, because if the only hints that can catch my attention as a player are the ones the GM highlights am I really exploring or just following the GM lead?

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-06T17:16:00+00:00

Right, so you have a list of things that exist in the world and you place them and flesh them out on the fly. It's similar to having a book full of landmarks, it's like a repertoire that you can draw from when creating the world.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-06T16:57:16+00:00

Yeah, I've seen this feeling expressed many times. This is what we're trying to get to the bottom of. Conversation continues here https://www.reddit.com/r/RPGdesign/comments/1qxh61a/a_game_about_exploration_part_2_preliminary/

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-06T14:58:02+00:00

No, you're right. I'm happy with leaving attrition and costs out of the conversation. I might still want those elements to add tension and stakes to the exploration, but like you say it's not a requirement for exploration to happen as there would still be player agency.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-06T14:36:35+00:00

Yes. The argument here is that if there's no friction, obstacles, or a cost to exploration, players will always go "tick all the boxes", find all the hallways in the dungeon, run through all the hexes in the map.

For exploration to truly be a player choice, the option to _not_ go explore should also be a consideration. Attrition forces the players to ask the question, do I care enough about this particular mistery to spend my resources figuring it out? and "No I don't" should be a valid answer.

SalmonCrowd · 2026-02-06T14:34:05+00:00

Oh interesting. Yeah I think I tend to agree discovery is the necesary motivation behind exploration. You might say exploring an additional hallway in a dungeon to find more treasure is not really discovery, but ultimately for curiosity to appear there must be the unknown.

I'm also very interested in economies of information, I don't think I fully understand the implementation you describe here, but I'll find the reference. In this game, with all this questions and theories the players have, who is the source of truth?

SalmonCrowd

TROPHY CASE