I'm a relatively new DM, and started in quite an odd way. I started off watching RollPlay made by itmeJP on YouTube, and quickly after started watching Neil Erickson, who does D&D 2E. So, naturally, I wanted to play, but due to lack of other DMs and lack of interest in others DMing at the time, I took it up my self, using an odd Hybrid of 2e, 3.5e and pathfinder.
Now that I know what i'm doing a lot more (and still barely know what i'm doing, it's funny how DMing works), and can focus on single styles IE: Pathfinder, I have some very annoying problems.
For 1: How do I pad stuff out, even if ever so slightly? I mean... if a player gets a mysterious magical item, what is there stopping him/her from just finding a mage and paying them a lump sum of gold to identify what that object does? This applies to many things, not just magical items. Whenever I DM it seems like the players aren't too interested in going into super amounts of details on things, aren't interested in crafting or exploring towns (or anywhere, for that matter) and only seem to enjoy finding jobs for people to give them. Obviously, with the lack of exploration, deep and extended conversation, crafting, shopping and so on, the sessions start to turn into a waiting game for the next encounter, how do I stop this?
I have more questions, but i'd like to see responses on these things first.
Also, i'm very interested in speaking with experience DMs, either via forum, PM, Skype or something similar.
TL:DR - I'm a s*%+ty new DM who can't find a way to stop players from changing 4 hours of stuff into 30 minutes of stuff
*Edit. Moved my response to the other thread, I suggest we let this one die, so MinisculeMax don't have to juggle two threads*