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depend primarily on your perception of the overall intelligence level of your group of players. Almost every role-player I've ever had the pleasure and honor to play in an RPG with has been extraordinarily intelligent, some to the point of being scary for the things they think of, others scary for their inherent level of anger and aggression. Seldom have I met a player that is a rock, and of those I've met that are, they have not been allowed to do much more than play a hack and slash warrior bent on getting themselves killed. Therefore, more often than not you, as the GM, will be required to have total and questionable descriptions of the places the players characters are going, and you'll have to be able to answer each of those questions in turn.

Generally, there are four things to consider when building your descriptions, and they are:

1) Terrain
2) Structures
3) Environmental effects (weather, fumes, sights and smells, tactile sensations, and sixth sense)
4) Characters (NPCs, monsters, animals, deadly flora, etc.)

Terrain being the first thing to consider, you need to determine whether your group is on a hilly grassland or in a sauna-hot rocky patch with mold, spores, and a babbling brook of lava. Describing first the terrain, or incorporating it into the descriptions of structures in the area, will help your players to put your word picture into an imagination picture in their heads. Having a map handy is a good idea, but not completely necessary, dependent on how well your description skills are developed.

Structures come next, and you need to figure out if you just have the one structure or many -which may be a cave or forest full of trees or a small village or big city or castle, or a mysterious lake. Keep in mind the more structures you have the more difficult it will be to describe them all, meaning more free time pulled away from other things you love to do. There is a cure for describing many structures, however, in giving your players an overall look, from a distance, of the many structures lying before them. For instance, when entering a huge city, it is best to describe it for them at a distance, "The colonnades of the various towers around the city walls glisten in the light of the rising sun, and the wide river beyond adds to the majesty of an already majestic castle. Atop these colonnades are banners and pennants of the various units assigned to protect the city within the walls, and they blow ever so gently in the morning breeze." Voila, that's

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