Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
Of course, that balance also depends on the DM. I had one DM who would make combat much less of a thing and exploration and social interaction much bigger things. Skills actually happened, frequently. Role-playing happened more. Other DMs just make a series of combat encounters with maybe a trap or two to appease the Rogue, and most of the game is fighting.
If Social and Exploration aren't given actual design space and rules to play with that make them more important, then, when the DM decides to do a combat-light game and focus on the Social and Exploration pillars, what the DM is actually doing is either mostly freeform roleplaying (because currently ability checks with skill training bonuses are the only rules attached to those pillars), or homebrewing his own rules to support the playstyle.

Either way, regardless of whether that DM can make that game fun, it's a failing on the part of Mearls and his design/development team. They keep coming back and mentioning the three pillars, and I think that's a very novel approach, especially to D&D design which has sorely lacked Social and Exploration mechanics, yet we have seen no evidence that D&D Next will actually provide mechanics to run a deep Social and/or Exploration game.