Often times hitting things takes a back seat. Adventuring and Exploration is far more than just travel or filler between encounters, or a way for the DM and adventurers to use their skills and develop creative problem solving — it is the inclusion of the world as a character that is dynamic and influential. More than a pretty backdrop, the environment can be a significant element in storytelling and exploration makes it an eminent part of the game.
Regardless, whether adventurers are exploring a dusty dungeon or the complex relationships of a royal court, the game follows a natural rhythm, just the same as the one outlined in The Basics of play:
The DM describes the environment. The DM sets the scene, informing the adventurers of the situation at hand and the environment around them, presenting the basic scope of options that present themselves (the direction and condition of the road they travel on, how dense and dark the forest is, what types of plants and animals they might be aware of, and so on).
The players describe what they want to do. When in the adventuring phase of the game, traveling between locations or carefully searching their surroundings in a musty tomb, often times players will be more likely to stick together. The group as a whole might be looking to blaze a new trail, or in a hurry to get to their destination. This is where the topics discussed below like Movement and Travel Pace and Activity While Traveling will come into play.
The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions. Describing the results often leads to another decision point. This might be an encounter to engage with-- bringing us to Combat & Turn Based Action--or avoid, or it might be a discovery of some new location or object in the environment to explore, which brings the flow of the game right back to step 1.
Typically, the DM uses a map as an outline of the adventure, tracking the characters’ progress as they explore dungeon corridors or wilderness regions. The DM’s notes, including a key to the map, generally describe a few preplanned ideas of what the adventurers might find as they enter each new area, but the list need not be exhaustive. Sometimes, the passage of time and the adventurers’ actions determine what happens, so the DM might use a timeline or a flowchart to track their progress instead of a map.
Time is an important aspect of adventuring. For DMs, time serves multiple purposes and roughly outlines the flow of an adventure. Choosing which scale of time to use in any given situation is a matter of context.
The most common span of time is a Round, which takes place during Combat and other situations where time is of the essence. A round lasts 6 seconds.
Minutes are the second most common. Most involved actions take a length of time using minutes. For example, an adventuring party spends roughly a minute proceeding through a dungeon corridor, to find a treasure room which they investigate for 10 minutes to find a hidden chest that the rogue spends roughly a minute checking to discover the deadly poison dart booby trap cunningly hidden in the mechanism.
Hours are appropriate for exploring a city or a limited area of land. A sudden whim by a wizard to visit a particular reagent shop on the other side of the city would take hours just as it may take an hour or so for a druid to lead their party members to a defensible cave in the ominous and quickly darkening woods.
Days are generally used for long periods of time during a journey or adventure. Traveling from one city to another, getting lost in the wilderness, and a journey into the unseen depths of the world are all good examples of using days.
The flexibility of the flow of time in play also means that the DM is capable of, should be, changing it as the situation requires. Hours or Days of Travel might suddenly be interrupted by a roadside ambush, suddenly narrowing the flow of time down to 6 second rounds as the conflict plays out between the adventurers and their foes, only to shift back to a scale of minutes as the adventurers search the corpses of their fallen foes and recuperate from their wounds, before finally stretching back out into hours or days while the party seeks to reach their ultimate destination.
By controlling the flow of time, DMs are capable of exerting more control over the pacing of the story and the context through which players view it.
Rules for the basics of movement, including climbing, swimming, and jumping, as well as overland travel and traveling pacing.
Including rules discussing marching order, keeping watch, navigating, foraging, and other rules.
Rules for interacting with the environment, like falling damage, suffocation, light conditions, and special vision types.
Basic overview of dealing a character's survival needs, sleeping, and gaining exhaustion.
A basic overview of portraying social interaction scenes.
Downtime Activities
A collection of other rules that didn't necessarily fit neatly under any of the other headings.