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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7513836" data-attributes="member: 97077">I prefer the players to declare what they are doing in the moment rather than assume or make an agreement beforehand. It's also pretty common that the players have their characters not stay alert for danger because there are a lot of benefits to doing other tasks in my games. For example:In a recent game, the characters took on a quest to blaze trails to and between three points of interest in the dreaded Hills of Argh. But so did a rival adventuring group, The Pathfinders. The Pathfinders struck out toward the Tower Inscrutable at a Slow pace. The PCs opted to head to the Tear of the Moon Goddess at Normal Pace. As there was no trail to either of these locations, it was difficult terrain and each journey was 15 miles. The Pathfinders would travel 8 hours per day (8 miles). The PCs would travel 10 hours per day (15 miles) due to the dwarf druid's cobbling skills.Given that there were no trails, someone had to Navigate. The quest demanded maps of the trails, so someone else had to Draw a Map. Another PC decided he wanted to Track specifically to look for trouble as part of the quest is to collect icons or trophies of the sorts of monsters in the Hills as proof of the dangers therein. That left just two PCs who opted to Keep Watch, meaning they were alert to danger and could notice traps or avoid surprise. They marched at the front of the party. Everyone else in the party was risking automatic surprise if a stealthy wandering monster was indicated (1 check every 4 hours). It was especially risky because the Tracking gave the DM advantage on wandering monster checks since they were actually trying to look for trouble.I won't bore you with too many additional details, but these choices really mattered as to the outcome of the session, especially as they hauled butt at a Fast Pace from the Tear of the Moon Goddess to the Tower Inscrutable. Nobody Kept Watch for that leg of the journey as the Fast Pace demanded the two PCs who were Keeping Watch on the first leg Work Together with the Navigator and Tracker just to hit the harder DCs due to pace. Everyone would be surprised if a stealthy monster came up on a wandering monster check. This time they chose to avoid trouble via Tracking and their gamble paid off - they beat the Pathfinders there just in time with no trouble on the way.</blockquote>

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