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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5267384" data-attributes="member: 42582">Hussar, I'm inclining more-and-more towards "Yes" - I want player decisions to be important.Once upon a time I would have made my players work their way through those empty rooms. In yesterday's session, after ten or so minutes in which it became clear that they were intending to explore all of them - and thus get a sense of the overall layout of the area - before then heading into the areas they knew to have monsters/traps, I just set out the map for the whole area. It worked a lot better than my old approach would have! We didn't have needless repetition of door-opening routines and room descriptions. Instead, the players got to start making their plans in light of all the information available to them.It's not really an issue of pacing. Rather, for me the bottom line is that playing time is at a premium. And as I said upthread, it's a zero-sum game. I'm just not interested in spending time on stuff that isn't actually driving play.Now, some people think that play includes opening doors and checking out empty rooms. That's great for them. I'm very happy for them to spend time on it. But play, for me, is the players actually making decisions that affect their PCs and/or the gameworld. It's about planning, talking, fighting, engaging. Time spent speculating about the meaning of the strange pattern on the ancient minotaur tapestry? Great! That's the players playing the game. Time spend speculating about whether or not it's safe to open an innocuous door about which they have no warnings or information, and which Perception checks suggest is safe? No thanks, not anymore.</blockquote>

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