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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mouseferatu" data-source="post: 597313" data-attributes="member: 1288">Well, here's stuff that I've found works.Tip one: Avoid mapping where at all possible.  Don't do it for them, but don't require them to do it either, unless the dungeon is very complex.  I mean, let's face it.  When the party's wandering in the wilderness, you don't make them draw a map so they can find their way back to someplace they've already been.  Why make them do so here?  Just require an Intuit Direction check or two.  If they make it, they get back where they wanted; if they fail, they get lost--you decide exactly where--somewhere nearby.Tip two: (Only useful if you're also following tip one) Avoid getting too precise with your descriptions.  Unless the party is trying to draw a map accurate to the last inch, it doesn't matter exactly how many feet wide the room is, or how long the passage.  When they're wandering through a forest, you don't tell them how many steps it is between trees; instead, you describe the environment in terms of details and sensations.  What do they hear?  What do they see?  Smell?  Feel?  Instead of "You walk down a hall for 60 feet, make a right turn, walk 20 feet, go left..." describe things like "The stone walls of the passage are covered with a strange fungus that fills the damp air with a foul, rotting odor.  It seems as though you've been wandering forever in these halls.  Finally, though, after several long corridors and twisting turns, you see..."Again, that only works if you aren't requiring mapping.  But really, dungeons are (usually) the only environment that DMs tend to describe mechanically, rather than as an actual environment.  If you can get away from that, treating dungeons as just another setting where nfity things can happen, I think you'll find energy levels rising and play both faster and more interesting.And I'm sure a whole mess of people will disagree with me.  No detailed information for mapping?!  Blasphemy!!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  But I've found that it works.</blockquote>

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