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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 7460615" data-attributes="member: 2629">Raise your right hand.  Move it to the left.  Move it back to the right.  Then to the left.  Then to the right.  This maneuver is called hand waiving and it is a great tool.Johnny and Jimmy decide to settle down for the winter, help out around the town, maybe find love, who knows.  They get no experience, but you might have a few story based encounters to set up the next adventure or just to have some role playing social encounter fun.  They might make valuable allies in town, or otherwise gain some subtle advantages for the future through the social role playing events in town during their 'down time'.  Sue and Jane on the other hand want to face the winter wilderness and hone their skills, kick monster butt and find treasure.  They wander the wilderness around the fringes of town and find a few insignificant challenges.  The experience is negligible for such weak foes.  Or, they decide to set off and fight DRAGOTHA THE DRACOLICH who lives in the mountains a hundred miles away.  Maybe they get sidetracked on the trip or stormed in while passing through a nearby town.  Maybe they get there and they can't get into the lair.  Maybe they get into the lair and find that a dracolich is not a good foe for fifth level PCs and either die (if they were really foolish) or come home with their tail between their legs.  There are a lot of ways to spin it, but in the end - whatever they end up doing - they don't advance much.  Maybe you give them a bit of experience points, but they miss out on the benefits of the social role playing that Johnny and Jimmy found.Now, you might complain that the DM is constraining Sue and Jane artificially.  Yup.  The DM is setting the stage for the adventures.  That is his job.  He writes the setting for the story, and the PCs interact with the setting.  It is the DM's <s>job</s> challenge to make that setting interesting for the PCs despite the curves they throw at the DM, such as wanting to wander off and fight monsters.</blockquote>

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