Because it's there!

 A couple days ago, I read an interesting post on the excellent Monsters and Manuals blog expounding on the notion of adventure for adventure's sake - that is, not primarily to gain rewards in the form of treasure and experience points, nor for story-related goals like saving the world, the village, or the princess, but simply to experience what the setting itself has to offer. In real life, after all, nobody travels to an exotic foreign country, takes a walking tour of a historic city, or hikes a windswept beach or mountain trail with the expectation of saving the world or returning richer and more powerful. Even participating in an event like a marathon or mountain climb is at least as much about testing one's mettle purely for the sake of it as it is about gaining greater skill. Is it possible to consistently recreate that real world spirit of "because it's there" in a tabletop game like D&D?

My initial thoughts, as a comment on the original post:

I think the closest I've ever come to this ideal was at the very beginning of my D&D "career" when my players and I had no deeply ingrained feel for the math and mechanics of the game, no encyclopedic knowledge of the monster lists, and no goals other than playing the game. Just playing it carried the thrill of discovery and venturing away from the beaten path, but it's a hard thing ever to recapture.

Now that I've had a couple days to ponder more deeply, I stand by my original thoughts, but I'd like to expand on them. Before I go further into the subject, let me say that part of this Because It's There! ideal, I think, involves the sense of wonder and discovery of things that are truly interesting and surprising in the game, and part of it involves the sense of accomplishment that comes from challenges requiring genuine player engagement instead of selecting abilities from a character sheet. Now, on to the meat of my musings.

Firstly, it seems to me a lack of deep understanding of game mechanics is less important than how much there actually is to be understood, how much attention the game mechanics demand. Numerous and comprehensive rules invite and require players and DM to invest a lot of attention in system mastery in order to succeed, and that's attention that cannot be invested elsewhere. If the game system is also heavy with character-building and customization rules, a large part of the game's focus is naturally on leveling up, always looking forward to that next cool feat or perk or weapon specialization rather than truly being present in the moment of an adventure. In a game like B/X, though, where character advancement is both simple and pretty much predetermined (as I've expounded upon before) more attention can be spared for the actual adventuring experience. A rules-lite game also implicitly encourages players to think beyond their characters' stats and abilities when facing challenges, and thus leveling up is at least somewhat less important to their success or failure. 

Secondly, in pursuing the Because It's There! ideal, we would do well to avoid pre-plotted adventure scenarios. Certainly, a detailed setting will often allow opportunity for true heroics, if the players desire it, but the who, what, where, when, why, and how of it, and most especially the if, ought to be left up to the players. By de-emphasizing this style of play, it can still occur when the players choose it without detracting too much from the spirit of pure adventure.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, my thought about the lack of in-depth knowledge of monsters really speaks more broadly to the need to discover new things rather than interact with things with which you are intimately familiar and from which you know exactly what to expect. The former is adventure; the latter is a job in accounting. You, as DM, must provide plenty of interesting places to explore and people and creatures to meet, stuff that really engages the players' imaginations and emotions, stuff that is cool just to hear it described, that hints at things yet hidden, that is rich in foreboding, that piques player's curiosity, makes them wonder what's behind that next locked door, beyond the next mountain range, across the raging river or sundering sea. It must be foreshadowed so as to allow them to form expectations, and then deliver something even more amazing, simultaneously confirming some part of their expectations and subverting or expanding on others. Ideally, each discovery allows them a little bit more insight into the setting, whether that's a specific dungeon or the entire campaign world. 

You must also genuinely challenge the players (not only, or even primarily, their characters!) Challenging doesn't always mean high difficulty or deadly danger; it just means actively engaging their intellect, imagination, and creativity to overcome. It means they have to come up with new strategies and approaches, or at least modify old ones for new situations; they can't just coast through passively, on autopilot, recycling old strategies to the letter. Any old dragon's lair with a pile of coins can test the PCs' stats and equipment and supply loot and XP. That's not what we're after. We need a dragon with a unique personality, who does unexpected things (and not necessarily combat things!) in a lair that's not a run-of-the-mill big room piled with coins and jewels. 

When I think of adventure for adventure's sake, I think of the modules I ran in my early days of DMing, especially B2 and X1. I think of the desolate, lonely feeling evoked in the preamble text to The Keep on the Borderlands. I think of the oppressive, sinister atmosphere of the Temple of Evil Chaos. I think of Taboo Island and the mysterious kopru on the Isle of Dread, the creatures that the PCs probably won't encounter anywhere else, the random encounters with dinosaurs that could devastate PC parties if engaged in pitched combat. I think of the parchment map with the cryptic message from an old explorer that first entices players to retrace his journey. And yet, you can only use them once with any given group. You can't even rely too much on them as a formula or template. You have to continue to innovate and mix things up, all the while being mindful of going too far, of violating the theme and tone of your world, of "jumping the shark," as they say.

Is it easy? Obviously not. Even this essay, though I've taken pains to convey the daunting complexity and nuance of the ideal, probably understates it a ton. Can it be done? I'd like to think so.