Precisely which parts of the adventure do you play?

[Halaster-Blackcloak]

Sounds like an odd question. What I'm asking is this...

Let's say you're running an adventure. Doesn't matter if it's published or home-brew. I assume most people play out any introduction necessary, the adventure set up, etc. And clearly everyone plays the actual adventure. But how many people play the epilogue? What I mean is - after the PCs go to the haunted castle or the underground caverns and kill the villain, rescue the princess and loot the treasure - do you play out the voyage home? Say the PCs go on a sea adventure and meet pirates on the way to their destination, defeat them, arrive at the island they're going to, defeat the villain, and begin the return home. Do you play out the sea voyage home? Or is it just summarized as: "After 30 long days at sea, you finally arrive home."? Or if the PCs are adventuring into the Underdark and face challenges along the way, face off with Drow or mind-flayers, do you play out the challenges on the way back to the surface, or is it likewise summarized: "After several months of struggling through the darkness, you reach the surface and bathe in sunlight for the first time in months!"?

I've done both. I tend to like adding something interesting in the epilogue - either fun roleplaying encounters, set-ups for future adventures (hooks), continuity details, etc. I'm not that fond though, of running the PCs through the gauntlet going into, for example, the Underdark - meeting various monsters, races, hazards and challenges along the way - then facing off against a Drow enclave, only to then run them through yet another gauntlet of environmental dangers, random monster encounters, etc. It feels like too much sometimes. The climax of the adventure should not lead to yet more challenges. And yet it seems unrealistic to just assume nothing dangerous or important happens on the return voyage. Internal consistency would demand that things may happen. If a sea voyage to the island can result in encounters with pirates, ghost ships, or sea monsters, then the journey back from the island should offer the same chance of such encounters.

I don't so much mind hand-waving small trips or even sea voyages (one can only invent so many random sea encounters without making the seas the most dangerous form of travel) but for something like a trip into the bowels of the Underdark...that almost seems to demand the return journey being played out as thoroughly as the journey into the Underdark. It's just a lot of work.

What say you all?

[garhkal]

Since i run a sandbox like campaign world, there's no real 'set adventures'. Ergo i RP the trip there, AND back from where ever they go.