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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8050032" data-attributes="member: 29398">Yeah, we differ here.In my view the DM should be as neutral as possible, intentionally avoiding highlighting the difference so as not to end up in effect leading the players/PCs by the nose.The fresh air is a noticeable difference, fair enough.  But if the secret door leads to a passage unused for ages and-or is airtight (to keep the wraiths in!), then what?Here, SOPs can be everybody's friend.  Do the first few rooms in detail, then if there's lots more just like them IMO it's on the players to come up with a standard procedure for how their PCs will deal with each one.  After that, things roll along pretty fast.The crawl IS the actual story!  It's the story of what you're doing in the moment right now to a) survive and b) achieve whatever it is you're there to do; along with what you're saying as you do this.Mapping, exploring, searching, wandering monsters, traps, set-piece encounters, field-testing magic items, sorting out treasure - all of these take time, and that time adds up.  And that's before time taken for inter-character role-play and discussion, PC romances and rivalries, arguments or conflicts, etc.Never mind that oftentimes an adventure's relation to ongoing stories (and my games usually have several not-necessarily connected stories going on at once) might not become apparent until months or even years later.  Sometimes it never becomes obvious, particularly if whatever story the adventure's supposed to be tied to for some reason later never gets off the ground or becomes relevant - not every story arc captures people's interest. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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