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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8384999" data-attributes="member: 29398">Unless the guards blindfolded the PCs for the trip between gate and throne room, if it's the PCs' first visit to the palace the answer in both cases is yes.  It's unintentional exploration*, to be sure; but the PCs are learning a bit about what's where inside the palace that it's highly likely they didn't know before.  Whether this info will ever be of any further use to them is irrelevant to the fact of their learning it now.And the level of description doesn't matter.  The PCs still see the same things during the trip in either example, with the only difference being that in 2. you described more of it.  Further, if they chat with the gate guards while in transit a Social element enters as well; you're in two pillars at once.* - but may be very intentional, if there's a Thief or Spy PC in the party making use of the opportunity to case the place/people for later... <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=":)" />Your models carry a built-in flaw in that they only look at descriptions rather than at a) the whole play loop and b) the context in which the description is being provided.Looking at the whole play loop would answer why the description is being provided, as in what PC action(s) are the descriptions in response to.  It might be exploration (and always will be at least in part if the scene is new to the PCs), it might be merely scene-setting, or whatever.Looking at the context will tell us whether it's exploration or something else.  If the description is a repeat of things the PCs have seen before (e.g. this isn't their first visit to the throne room) then there's no exploration happening.  But if it's the first time the PCs have seen these things then yes, it's exploration.Your model 2 is correct whenever the PCs are seeing or learning something new; as that's exploration, whether passive or intentional.  Your model 3 holds water if-when the PCs are covering familiar ground, or are not engaged in adventuring at all.</blockquote>

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