Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, the last time we made a Survival check, we followed the tracks back to D&D.

Dungeons & Dragons has established the three tiers of the game as combat, roleplaying, and exploration, and while the definition of these three tiers is native to Dungeons & Dragons, it’s easy to see and apply the concepts to other fantasy RPGs. We’ve taken a look at roleplaying and combat, and now we’re going to dive into exploration. What does the exploration tier encompass, how much does it interact with the rules of the game, and what do we need to do to make exploration in the game meaningful. 

The Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide may be best known as the first source in AD&D 1e to introduce proficiencies to the game as a whole, instead of just being a rule tied to a specific setting. But in addition to that broad new subsystem, it also introduced expanded rules for falling, fatigue and exhaustion, hyperthermia, ventilation and air flow, the difficulty of starting up a new business, and how people will look at you funny when you’ve been literally buried in work for too long. All the good things to help you take your mind off real life long enough to realize you don’t want to live in a D&D setting.