D&D reconvened after a long break yesterday. As they were found in-game, I handed out pieces of a cryptic drawing to the players as a clue, but it turned out to be even more cryptic than I thought. I didn’t have time to do multiple passes of the drawing anyway, but I should have at least handed out the entire drawing instead of pieces. It would helped with pacing, too.
One issue with plot-based adventure design (and opposed to sandbox-based) is the fear that the players will rip through the events really quickly, leaving you to improvise without guidance, even though that almost never happens.
One way to address that is to design so many events that you know you won’t run out. If you don’t play that regularly, though, that could be wasted effort.