Delay: The encounter retards the party’s progress and consumes their time without
offering any real dangers or rewards. Anything that can grab the party’s attention
and hold it for a time can make an effective delay, even an empty room in a
castle or dungeon complex. Delays might seem like a general waste of time and a
source of player frustration at first glance, and that is just what they are
when they’re overused. However, they can be very effective if used sparingly and
thoughtfully.
Delays are very useful for controlling magic in the campaign; they eat up game
time and exhaust the durations of nonpermanent magical effects the party might
be using. To keep players from becoming bored, it is best to introduce delays
that consume lots of game time, but very little real time. For example,
searching a 10’ x 10’ section of wall for a secret door requires a full turn (10
minutes) of game time; most other searches and close inspections proceed at similar
rates. However, it only takes a few seconds of playing time to resolve the
search.
Delays also are useful for keeping players on their toes. If everything the
party encounters is valuable, dangerous, or significant to the plot, the players
don’t have to give much thought to their actions—going over everything they
find with a fine-toothed comb is the prudent thing to do. If, however, most
intriguing things the party finds turn out to be nothing special, the players quickly
learn to use some judgment about how they use their game time.
Delays also serve to vary an adventure’s pace. A few innocuous breaks in the
action give players and their characters time to relax a bit. These pauses also
tend to encourage role-playing by giving players opportunities to explore
aspects of their characters that are not directly linked to success or survival.
Even the most ardent mineral collector, for example, isn’t going to be terribly
interested in the surrounding rocks if an army of 1,000 orcs is descending on his
location.
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