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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 6812299" data-attributes="member: 7635">You are using one example (location-based exploration) to try and disprove the concept when LBE is one of many playstyles, and to be honest is one of the least used in the types of scenarios described in the OP. The vast majority of D&D is not mindless dungeons crawls anymore. Far more often, PCs have reasons to go explore beyond XP and GP and these reasons create the tension. Stop a villain. Save a person. Find a powerful MacGuffin. Solve a mystery. These goals create establish pacing due to additional factors. Exploring a vampire's castle is one thing, exploring a vampire's castle because he's going to turn your PC's sister into his undead bride at midnight is quite a different one! The latter has a strict time scale that affects encounter pacing (many weak encounters waste time and burn resources, and PCs cannot easily stop to recover them) which heightens the drama of the event. This is especially true to horror since its much harder to keep a "horror" atmosphere in your around a dining room table slurping soda and cracking Monty Python jokes. PCs are powerful beings all things said (compared to most horror protagonists) and keeping a sense of dread, horror, and fear is a delicate act. If you don't, a horror game quickly devolves into farce. Even in your example, tension can be created to an extent. The classic dungeon is filled with ambushes, tricks, traps, hidden objects, and other unknowns. A Good DM can build tension simply by making sure the group is never fully in control; will they be able to return to the entrance easily? Is the door not trapped, or did they not roll enough find it? Is the monster behind the door an orc or an ogre? Tension builds. In fact, the only way I think to completely remove it to allow the PCs free exit to rest whenever they wish unimpeded. Nothing kills pacing, and tension, like 15 minute workdays.</blockquote>

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