How to Describe and Narrate | D&D | TTRPG | Web DM
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- čas přidán 6. 09. 2024
- What's the most fundamental skill a game master needs to run D&D or any TTRPG? We think it's he ability to DESCRIBE. To NARRATE a scene, to give information, to create something for the players to react and interact with. Welcome to episode one of DM Basics, where we talk step-by-step about the skills we all need to thrive as DMs.
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some notes
1. short evocative descriptions
2. most eye catching detail first
3. dimensions of the room
4. successes should be meaningful
5. failures shouldn’t make them hate themselves
6. colorful and consistent (take notes)
7. tell a narrative
8. don’t take player agency
9. don’t provide definitive advice
10. end with a question
11. avoid rambling/trivia/fluff
12. use all the senses
More on #5: failure shouldn't be a roadblock. If we are asking if we see a lever to turn something off in the room and roll a mediocre perception check, we don't make it so we don't see the lever that is plain sight if seeing it is integral to moving forward. Hell, don't even ask for a roll, just give it to us if we asked the right question/looking for the right thing.
When describing extemporaneously at the table, I like to stick to three sentences of description and count them off on my fingers. It forces me to be pithy and impactful while not droning on too long. In preps notes, it's trinities all the way down: three senses engaged, three objects of note in a room, three characteristics for each item.
THANK YOU! This is a tip I'm going to take to heart because I have a lot of trouble organizing a description and fumble it.
In combat i prefer to narrate in between rounds rather than on specific turns. I don't know what a miss or a hit really means narratively until Ive seen the context of the round
Getting hit that didn't drop you to 0 is a hard strike on the shield or a narrow dodge.
@@rokkkrinn2793 I agree. In my opinion (backed up by text in the phb iirc) hit points are primarily luck, stamina, and will to live. Very few strikes actually cause injury.
I'm kinda surprised I've never thought of this before. I know a round is 6 seconds so everyone's turns are happening at relatively the same time but for some reason it just never clicked like that
Definitely, once a round is done describe the new scene; recap what happened so all the players have the tactical information they need, but also add some fluff/flair for extra drama and excitement.
It took me way too long to realize that Web DM was a play on Web MD 🤦♂️
Nice
What’s Web MD?
It's when you Google your cold symptoms and find out you have cancer.
@@josuanygren What ChuggerBoiJoe said -- googling your symptoms and self-diagnosing yourself with some horrible plague, when really it's just the cold or normal vision loss with age.
Wow, I'm only now realizing that because you mentioned it. I just thought it was a snappy name
There's always room to improve as a DM. Love the video, guys.
Thank you!
Yes, but can you describe the room?
@@punkassbamboo Dark, wet, humid; the floor is coarse and hard.
I love that every time I'm having an issue like feel like I'm lacking in something web DM immediately comes out with a video of the day I'm thinking of the problem it's just so nicely timed
Love DM basics. Once you run for a while you can overlook basic techniques in favor of high minded concepts.
That's what we were thinking as well!
This needs to be the top comment.
nice, pin worthy comment here
Yay!! Such an important skill for DM’s! I really feel like there is just not enough writing about this in the WOTC products. As Iroh says “It is all about the fundamentals!”
The describing failure part was especially relevant. Honestly I've seen that super-annoying slapstick fumble mentality even in many experienced DMs.
I have on occasion done such a description on a 1 when it seemed appropriate. But otherwise, yeah. It hit a shield, glanced off armor, parried, etc. 1 often time is described much more as a miss of skill from the attacker but there should not be constant "slapstick" for sure, unless maybe that's the point of the game you're running?..
I think the big part of this is that you shouldn't make player characters look like fools. Your players care about their characters. And if they don't, that's a problem. Don't make my awesome Paladin, badass fighter, stealthmaster rogue, wisened spellcaster, or whatever else look like an idiot. For the most part, I try to narrate natural ones as something environmental or outside of the player's control, not a slapstick "look at the dum dum" moment. Picking a lock and roll a natural one? Your lockpick was poorly made and snaps off inside the lock, rendering the lock impossible to pick. Natural one on a stealth check? To your horror, you suddenly realize that the guard is accompanied by a massive guard dog, which catches your scent almost instantly. You see its lips curl as a deep, sonorous growl comes from it's throat.
@@GreenLanternCorps2814 : Yeah it's especially awful when it's your character's specialty. A good rule as a DM is that if you can't think of a way for an expert to believably fail the task, don't even ask for a roll, just make it an automatic success. Nothing is worse than having a master thief suddenly trip over a bunch of noisy pots like an idiot when trying to sneak past some monsters.
Going out of your way to make characters look like fools is indeed bad, but if you let your characters be very incompetent and mess up when they do so (the dice are deciding things for a reason) - that also makes their successes feel sweeter. It can add a new dimension to your character that he's an experienced fighter that makes a crucial mistake. Best campaigns for me capture all sorts of different moods.
"Your blow meets the shield of the enemy paladin as she raises it just in time to ward off your sword" - dungeons & dragons
"Your barbarian Balthor, scourge of the north, accidentally throws his hammer on the backswing and then trips on a banana peel, hurting his rear in the process and letting out a loud 'whoopsie-daisy' as he falls" - clowns & carnivals
Oh! And here I these both were D&D descriptions
The second one is just from a table that uses crit fails for some reason.
You can however use a crit fail as some outside source unrelated to the PC's competence such as
"Loosened by the previous blow, as your barbarian raises his handaxe, the head flies off on the backswing and he strikes the enemy with the handle."
Some of the stupidest stuff is loved by the players. Crit fail using one of the available tables was "goblin shits his pants" Pants? goblin, ignore move on. Then Vicious Mockery by bard to follow. It doesn't have to be the Tolkien level literature to be hilariously funny to the players, especially teenagers.
This was SUPER educational for a DM that has never had an actual DM run a game for them and I'm just going off what I see on streams. THANKS!
Glad to help!
The comment about every room being a rectangle, reminds me of the old Bungie rip that FPS games are mainly rooms filled with crates and crate-shaped objects.
Crates aren't nearly as prevalent in day to day life. How many crates do you see in your local bar? Consider even the modern crate - the cardboard box or plastic storage bin.
Just something that annoys me.
I dunno, most of being in any armed force is just moving crates around and keeping track of where crates are at any given time. Tracks.
An article by the blogger, The Angry DM, revolutionized how I approach narration. A lot of the information presented in this video is along the same lines as the article.
Also, combat narrative is something that I think suffers in newer editions. In AD&D et al, players described their intended actions before initiative is rolled. When combat begins, the DM weaves a narrative using the actions announced by the players. This speeds up combat and makes it so much more cinematic. Great video as always.
@@dziooooo It is indeed meant to simulate almost everything happening simultaneously. DMs may allow for PCs to change their actions within reason if they lose initiative to the enemies. In AD&D, spellcasting must always begin before initiative is rolled, but I believe most DMs would allow a caster to change the target, but once the process is begun, the spell must be cast. The casting process beginning at the start of a round allows for creatures and characters to spoil the spell by scoring a hit on the spellcaster before the spell "goes off". I should also note that most often in AD&D initiative is a single side vs. side roll optionally modified by various weapon and spell speeds.
dziooooo in my experience, it doesn’t produce frustrating results. The way I run the game, I would allow a spell caster to change their target and bring their spell to bear elsewhere. It’s really quite agile and quick in practice. The dm is free to move through the various opponents in a way that best serves the narrative if you don’t use all the optional modifiers (which I don’t).
I know I'm coming in late, but I love angry! Learned so much from that guy!!
I've watched a lot of GM content from various sources. This hour may be the single best collection I've ever heard. It's got so many specifics and covers so many use-cases that I've run into as a GM. It is practical, e.g. Pruitt pulling out his sticky-notes or talking about having a list of colour-words. It is also remarkably comprehensive, covering ways to prep, handling consistency, and even handling different players and maintaining tone. This video is a highlight reel of great, *usable* advice! Thanks!
This will be a chunky hour and ten minutes of pure gold I presume
Loved how you talked about describing misses. I always think about the Obi-Wan v. Anakin battle in ROTS. Epic confrontation where every attack "misses" except for the final blows.
I was literally gonna ask you guys to make this video. Just started DMing for the first time and I know all the rules but struggle with narrative and descriptions. You guys rock!
Glad to help!
I've only been DMing for a year, and THIS is what I feel I've struggled with most! I can't wait to implement some of what I've learned from you guys in this video!
It's always really encouraging when I see my own beliefs about writing echoed by the pros. ^^ General to specific, description with a purpose, all that good stuff...
To me, aimless "filler" descriptions are such a big pitfall for amateur writers.
In the poor light of the cave, cast in shimmers from your torches, your thief sees endless riches... Gems, Coins, Goblets and Chests, the thief wonders at the completion of their life goal, no longer would they have to deprive others, who would go without for them to get by, no longer would they have to contend with the law, the thief could finally know rest... The rest of the party only saw the Huge, Red, DRAGON! :D
Continue with the narrative dude! Who in the party was the first to wet themselves?
@@Drums_of_Liberation the thief obviously
Had dms read full on paragraphs from wiki pages.
Talk about some box text.
First Time Dm and just this video has opened my eyes to more better scenes
Write what you know, and use sinple speech.
You can do it! Don't stress yourself or compare to DMs who've done this longer. You'll learn.
Your quick mention of dungeon crawls and random tables and Cypher System a little while after just kept making me think of how much I love the Numenera Ruin Mapping Engine from Jade Colossus
"This is why history books written by journalists are better than history books written by historians. Much to the chagrin of historians." Love it XD
History books written by journalists are not better. They are just not scientific. You read those books to be entertained by history, not to learn history.
Are we talking real journalists or Urinalists?
@@Drums_of_Liberation whoever gets the publish, lol
@@yaldabaoth2 better in the sense "more readable and enjoyable" if a book are neither it's really difficult to learn so technical text tend to be useful only if you are searching specific knowledge
@@yaldabaoth2 I believe he used the term “better” to imply they are easier to read. You are using it in terms of detail and accuracy. Context my friend.
I LOVE the idea of the super-near misses being a superficial wound like a slash to the cheek or a bruised lip.
As a pretty new DM, I had never thought of that but will absolutely implement it next game. (Whenever that is.)
Web DM! Love Wednesdays.
Happy Wednesday!
9:20 - I switched over to 5 color mana paradigm instead of 8 schools and the visuals of revealing what type of magic is being used by color description is so much more intuitive and rich compared to the 8 schools that don't have any real thematic visual consistency. 5 color is a great example of the rules reinforcing aesthetic.
Great video!
As a player, I very much do a quick (emphasis on quick) description of my characters action in combat and let the DM describe the outcome thereof ("I charge toward the closest Kobold and make a swift strike toward its throat" then roll and let the DM describe the outcome.) It works well.
Also, loved the failure description points!
Great video. So much to glean. One of the top things I'll be taking away from it: Giving better descriptions of failure.
I would love to see a video about how to manage your mental state when going through a session as a dm but also a player. I often struggle with feeling too personally attacked when players act negatively towards an idea and confidence dwindles
i was watching a group play and the dm let the players describe the killing blow on the last creature of combat (or the main enemy if that dies before the rest)
On the killing blow of every enemy, I ask the player to describe how it goes down.
I enjoy all your guys' stuff, but this one takes the cake. Such great information. Narrating is one of my favorite parts of DMing so this was super helpful.
Thank you so much!
I really like these super long discussion videos 45 minutes or longer thats the good stuff
I love that when Pruitt is sitting still the top of that extremely sharp tower in the backdrop makes it look like Alfalfa all grown up had a midlife crisis and decided to leave the Rascals to become a monarch of the professional nerds. I’m there for it, for sure. 🤘
Pruitt: "okay jim. As we...." Me: "PROOCEEEAAD TO GIVE YOU WHAT YOU NEEEED"
95, 95 mutha...
When you said random tables my brain literally went to " You're in a room, there are random tables scattered about in no particular order."
This video is going to be so helpful, thank you!!!
If their AC is 18 and you roll 18, you do hit.
Yep 58m20s I had to see if anyone spotted that big blooper!
Love the videos you two; narrating is an essential skill as a DM and listening to you both has given me insight as to how I can improve my own craft. Keep it up!
What i like is you guys keep your focus but insure your points are not JUST dnd. Warhammer Fantasy is my journey this year im starting running in february and these videos, despite being targeted to Dnd primarily there is a lot worth noting for other games and systems too. Like so damn much. I appreciate that.
100%! We play all kinds of games.
Quick note as I believe it was incorrectly stated in this (3 year old) video, in 5e your attack hits if your attack roll equals or exceeds the target's AC.
That being said, I love Web DM! My go to background D&D info videos. In the car, on the go, while drawing or doing DM prep, they're absolute the best DMs to listen to. Hopefully they return to CZcams some day.
Best piece of advice here imho is describing missed attacks. Incorporating how much you miss a targer's AC for instance and instead of saying "you whiff your attack", saying "he barely parries your attack, you can see he is also very skilled"
You guys have the best dnd channel on CZcams hands down! Can’t begin to describe how much you’ve helped me fall in love with this hobby. Jim Davis and Jonathan Pruitt, you are the the true heroes of my campaign. Also you are gods in my campaign... had to find a way to pay homage somehow.
Omg that is amazing. Thank you so much
Thanks Jim, I'm getting started with preparing maps for an upcoming campaign and your bit about it being ok to have room-shaped rooms was something I really needed to hear. I was giving in to the thought "but the map needs to look interesting" despite a nagging feeling that putting in weird angles would be annoying when it came to actual play.
I think a lot of the slapstick nat-1 factor is helped by priming players for it. If you tell your players "if you crit-fail this shot, your arrow's going straight into your ally, still wanna' try?" and also try to avoid keep friendly fire to a minimum (and very rarely at full damage, go more for "you pull a muscle, 1d4 nonlethal", not "you accidentally stab your ally in the back, he wasn't expecting it, roll full sneak attack damage") it helps a lot. Keeping things fresh with environmental factors, fairly applying it to enemies and having enemies respond appropriately also goes a long way.
The most important factor is to tune your descriptions to the player's mood, having a bad day with the dice sucks enough without slapstick failures. In a serious segment you don't want to suddenly be tripping over your shoelaces. But in a hectic, flashy combat it can be fun to see your enemies fumbling in fear or having interesting complications like "huh, I guess my sword's stuck in this guy's shield now"
For example:
- I had a player (in pathfinder) nat-1 while shooting a musket into melee, he'd gone side-on to the combat though, so hitting an ally seemed unfair. Instead, because he was standing under a snowy tree, the sound of the shot dislodged snow and knocked him prone under a tiny avalanche.
-Had 2 guards roll nat-1s on crossbow attacks one after another in an ice tower and decided that the cold environment had made the metal brittle and they exploded for a very low-damage AoE, 3rd guard spent his turn gently putting his crossbow on the ground and drawing his sword and shield.
Pruitt's purple psionic eye is freaking me out!
Being concise and to the point with narration is always a great tip... I love to over embellish (read: 'prattle on') when PCs enter a new location, especially if it has significance to me - learning to step back and let the players discover things for themselves is something I struggle with!
One of the most useful videos for me. Thank you for making my table a little better!
Thank you so much!
I want to offer a counter argument to the talk about describing misses and failures. That being that it’s perfectly sensible. From a sense of realism, baseball, the people in the MLB are some of the best baseball players on earth and yet they fuck up all the time because baseball is a hard game. So if a batter can miss a pitch by a mile or an outfielder and just utterly fail to catch a ball then in that case it’s completely reasonable that a martial dnd character would just wiff sometimes.
Moreover I personally would think a ahem where everything is super serious and dire and every struggle is presented as the very realistic struggle as two people fight for their lives. Well that sounds boring to me. You’d be hard pressed to find an action movie released in the last 30 years that didn’t have some comedy in it. Because you can easily fall into the trappings of melodrama.
Now I can understand that if every time your 13th level fighter misses an attack they hit themselves in the head with their own frying pan that might be a bit frustrating. But you can ride that line. Having some situations of failure or success be light hearted and funny while also presenting all people involved as being competent.
Mathew Mercer once mentioned his aptitude for describing scenes comes from reading books. This really stuck with me.
You nailed that idea, at the very end, of saying, "you," when giving descriptions. My group's designated DM is virtually incapable of describing a scene without saying what one of the PCs feels or does. Half the time, he realizes it as he's saying it and corrects, "You feel a crushing fear," to something like, "For a moment, you felt fear, but you shake it off," because the character is actually immune to fear.
Combat advice. even though the character isn't being attacked or attacking, if they are in melee range they are locking swords and feigns. the attack rolls is finding that moment of weakness where you try and strike them, between that you are dodging blows, feigning blades, and pushing your advantage in the fight. If they are at range, they are using ranged weapon or casting a spell they are doing the motions for that, and moving around in that 5 foot square trying to avoid being shot. the roll is when in that 6 seconds a round happens when they have the chance to do something.
They are not just standing there like JRPG characters waiting for an ATB bar. the two rogues fighting in a minecart aren't just sat there, they are wrestling each other's knifes and trying to stab each other using every underhanded trick in the book. The wizard doesn't just sneeze up a fireball all at once, they are making the hand motions chanting aloud as material components glow and shimmer as the arcane is flowing through them.
and like the mentioned, if they have a character level, to a normal person, even at level 1, they are a badass. a level 1 fighter has martial training that a commoner couldn't even understand beyond wearing metal and holding a big sword. Casters can casually use magic that could kill a normal person with ease (a commoner normally has like 4-8 HP, one firebolt could kill) rolling a 1 isn't them hurting themselves with their baffoonery. they just messed something up and it didn't work how they planned at all, or the enemy saw through it.
Might be the deepest vid y'all have ever done. And that ain't no shade on your body of work
Thank you!
I'm still thinking about your suggestion to reveal the big bad right away, since I've historically done the opposite. I find it useful to set the scene, if you will, to better give the players the ambience as a part of the reveal. Dunno gotta think about that more.
That's how I've always done it. This is actually the first time I've seen someone suggest to do it the other way. I'm relatively new to DMing, but from my own experience and what I've read from others, the players will do nothing but think about the monster if you mention it first. Everything you say after that is ignored because they are already thinking about their first turn or what they are going to do.
Have you all done a video about Rime of the Frostmaiden?
We haven't! We only do them over books we really get to know in depth and feel like we have something to say about
@@WebDM I'm an experienced DM, and I find the structure of this premade to be absolutely bonkers. It's honestly one of the more confusing campaigns I've ever read. I'd love to hear you guys make sense of how the hell this thing is supposed to be run.
I don't dm a lot, but the thing everyone remembers in my sessions is the detail (and attention there to.)
From my experience, stick with common words. And don't explain anything in a way you aren't familiar with.
I.e. Unless you know engineering, don't try breaking down mechanical plot points.
As the great philosopher Beck once said "you can't write, if you can't relate".
Great video. I have to do a lot of details off the cuff since I have my game set up as a massive open world (multiverse, actually) that allows them to go and do whatever they want. My biggest asset is my notebook. I start every game off by reviewing the last game and asking players to each give their impression of what's going on and where they are. This lets them get back into the environment and get back into their cooperative mindset. I then add anything they may have missed by referring to my notes. I then go over their current status (HP, AC, spell slots, inventory, etc.) and double-check my notes so I know where they are and what condition they're in before throwing anything at them. As we go through the game, I'm constantly writing notes to myself for reference in case they ask for clarification or if we cross an NPC, area, or whatever again. This is all basically the same thing we learned in school. The teacher generally started class by reviewing the previous lesson, asking students what they remembered, and then proceeding. For description of an area or NPC, I just think how it looks to me and tell them. I think this just takes practice. If you can picture an NPC, you should be able to describe them. Think about all the police dramas you've seen and what a detective asks. What's the person's size, weight, hair, eye, and skin color? Do they have any noticeable scars, tattoos, or maladies? What are they wearing? I do the same for the room. I give a quick size and them hit them with whatever is most noticeable. I then usually have a few smaller details that often give hints to hidden clues or treasures, but I also throw in a few red herrings to keep them on their toes. I keep this sparse because I don't want them to be chasing their tails, but it lets them know that not everything is important and sometimes their are dead ends. I had a house they visited that was made of wood as opposed to stone, which was common in that area. They found this interesting, but it was really nothing too important, just showing it was a unique looking home. It turned out to be fun, because they got into a lengthy discussion with the current owner about the construction. This wasn't important, but it led to them discovering a lot about the history of the village and lore about the possible dangers in the area.
I have a lot of players that like to describe their attacks, so the way I do it is if it's just fodder that there's tons of we just say that they fall or whatnot, but if it's something that's taken many rounds to take down OR it was a crit, then they get to narrate how it goes. It helps keep the combat flowing without taking their agency. And if they want to do something cool outside of those boundaries they're not shy about telling me haha.
I've been DM-ing actively for about a year now and was always struggling with finding a good structure for presenting scenes. This video has helped a lot. Thanks!
As a new DM this is PERFECTION! Well done and thanks!
Just want to say I love the longer format you've seemed to adopt lately! Great channel!
As a DM for the combat descriptors will open up the floor to the player usually when they get the kill just to give them a little extra flavor and reward, occasionally i will pepper in some flavor here and there in combat
Just in time for lunch!
Have a good one!
This is part of why I love the idea of tags, which I first encountered in PbtA games, but which I'm sure were around before then. The idea that they are a few key phrases associated with a weapon, or a location, or a monster, etc., that you use to describe them efficiently, as well as a way to point out what might be important about them. Players' imaginations fill in the blanks for you, once they have a few seeds to get them started, and I think it takes less than I thought when I started out running games.
Thanks for this video, I've been searching for some good advice on describing. It'd be great to see you guys describe some scenes/actions etc. using the great guidelines you put out there!
especially awesome vid this week. i'm student of creative writing and an aspiring author. It is really cool how well almost all of this advice maps onto effective fiction writing techniques. brevity in description (short/specific/evocative) and narrative distance (not narrating a characters thoughts/feelings so that they may be revealed through action) are two essential techniques for good writing. "There is a sense of dread in the air..." vs "You feel a sense of dread..." also maps well onto the idea of eliminating character filtering ("she saw a snake in the grass" vs. "a snake slithered through the grass"), which i have found to be something of a 'cheat code' for rapidly improving prose. From a gamer perspective, the stuff about narrating failure in a way consistent with the character was super helpful. Yall are great at this and I'm glad you can make a living off of it.
I'm currently running a game where most of the party is playing a race with exceptional hearing. So when I describe the room I focus more on the sounds when speaking to the PCs with the super ears.
Great video as always
Y'all are great, I'm sure you have a lot of new DMs coming to you guys for help, but honestly with all of the videos you make there are less and less questions! Thank you for being so professional and accurate with the tips and tricks you give!
The perspective on how to describe failure and still maintain character concept was great. Thanks!
Would you guys be able to make a show on group character creation. I can’t seem to find any videos on it just people referencing it. My group keeps making ideas/whole backstories even before I know what my campaign is about is that ok or should they make one during session 0? If so how do I tell my players that?
I really enjoyed this video, I'm a newer DM (only been doing it for about 2years) but my friends and I stream/record our sessions and upload them. I've been desperately looking for how to improve my descriptions and found this video. I took a ton of notes, thank you so much!!
love your videos guys!
Thanks!
Really helpful video, as someone who is new to DMing, I appreciate the tips and experience you've shared!
One of the best D&D talk shows out there! I love these long deep dives, I hope to see more of them in the future!
Great stuff. Thankfully I'm doing well on the combat front. I'll start breaking my rooms down into 3 sentences. Easy but can do a lot
A small caveat to the "don't describe emotions or inner thoughts of the characters"... assuming the character isn't under the influence of something. So example: "You step into a room lit by a single candle sitting on small wooden table. As your backfoot crosses the threshold you feel anxious but excited. Roll a Wisdom Save"
And in general would be the break these rules once their established if you want to fuck with your players
Super super useful as always. Hearing that the best advice is to read when I detest reading makes me sad though. Not because it's wrong, I know it's the best advice but I feel like it's an uphill battle now when I'm already struggling to get off the ground with DMing. I wish I enjoyed reading.
It's interesting learning about the narration issues. They aren't really present in D100 systems. Hit locations, location based damage, armor coverage, success levels, ect all paint the picture of what happened in two or three rolls.
Greg Stolze's One-Roll Engine does it even faster, but just as clearly.
Where has this been all my life!
I don't know why exactly, but I've made a bunch of D&D characters that are trained as cartographers; even if it never comes up in the game.
For me I ALWAYS require and provide exact room sizes its ALWAYS relevant. 1) Adventurers are competent and can/should be able to understand this to function as adventurers competently 2) it effects the decisions a PC would make in terms of movement 3) it effects the ranges of spells and ranged weapon attacks as well as area effects.
I would 100% be a 'mapper' if it would force someone DMing for me to be exact. Also that includes the Ceiling height.
The exceptions are when literal mist/fog or other obscurment blocks one knowing the exact dimensions at an initial glance.
Otherwise great video, thanks.
I definitively feel like a lot of adventure writers could use some help in understanding physical dimensions...
Running Wave Echo Cave in Lost Mines of Phandelver for my group soon, and somehow these guys want me hide a Large sized ooze inside a 5x6 passage.
I know the ooze can squeeze in there, but how in the world am I supposed to **HIDE** it there?
Loved the discussion on the importance of description being used to convey info needed to play the game and to tell a story. I think many people who gripe about the "Matt Mercer Effect" are really just salty that they aren't willing to swallow a thesaurus or do their job as a basic storyteller (not as one who decides everything and railroads but as one who describes the imaginative scene to share with the others).
I appreciated also the point of not having 1s instantly mean slapstick comedy. Depending upon the group, that is a fun part of the game, but can also lead into some problems with player satisfaction and with storytelling consistency. I'm going to use 1s as a storytelling tool to express how potent the opposition is more often now. Thanks, WebDM!
With the "describe the monster/danger first" thing I'm a little conflicted. Another standpoint was from the DM Lair, where he argued that you should explain the room first, then the monster, because otherwise you'd explain the room while the Players don't care about it at that moment.
That is Angry GM's advice too, and it makes sense to end with the most important prompt. I'm also conflicted on that. If it isn't too complicated, it all be done at once:
"You open the door and immedoately see several goblins in an L-shaped room. There is a large table in the middle and another door on the far side. One goblin over in the corner to your right yells and throws something at you."
- starts with most relevant detail (possibly hostile monsters), includes some scene description for both narrative and tactical purpose, and ends with a prompt for action.
Lately I've been ruling critical fumbles on both sides in melee combat as your attack is expertly parried by the defender and the attacker takes 1d6 damage. Can be described a million different ways and it's quick and easy to resolve. (party level 6)
Incongruous misses is definitely the thing that takes me out of the moment more than anything. So u all hit the heart on that one
Pruitt seems to be affected by an enlarge spell in this video. Slight scale issue detected. Did I pass my investigation to discern an illusion effect?
I totally agree that vocabulary is the paintbrush of the DM, words make things real, and interesting words make things live.
But alas, it was not an illusion. Pruitt had gained considerable weight to his dismay. 🤣
As a DM the way I describe attack misses is like this: on a roll of 10 or lower is between your character miss calculating an attack and the enemy dodging (since 10 is the basic ac), over 10 I do as hitting but stopping on the shield, armor or getting parry. Nat 1 I don’t do goofy stuff, I say your foot slipped or something happened distracted you or another enemy tried to hold your attack.
These are reasons why i don't use "you miss" or "you hit" on the result of a roll. AC isnt like, an imaginary force around someone that keeps swords and missiles away. You can swing a sword and miss the ac target and maybe the enemy has parried your blade, or hell, maybe you did hit him! At an angle where your blade just skimmed the enemies armor. I look at AC as whether or not the intent of attack actually did damage
Regarding the "cardinal direction" thing, maybe establish the directions relative to how they entered the dungeon. When they enter, unless they have the necessary feats, "forwards" becomes "north" for the purpose of navigating the dungeon.
Coming from a creative writing back ground there are two things really important in a sentence making a player see something and making them feel something - Example: The archway looms with a dreary shadow from the twilight of the sun. This is how I describe things when I DM. But I also do things like only a 15 room dungeon because I want every room to drip with deadly emotion. So when I design, I take the time to write out what a player sees and feels in the dungeon rooms. It’s quality versus quantity. I want them to come out of the dungeon emotionally and mentally drained. And ive never had them notice how short the dungeon is. I leave things open to have them ask questions. Our the shadows coming from the sun? Yes as far as you can tell. But then using common sentence above you can plug play words- like huge torches instead of sun. Which may mean giants? And make the adventures even more apprehensive on the scenario. And ask more questions. Which helps keep the tension and begins to emotionally drain in the room. Where is the flipping Giant! Over the years, i sort of just learn that sentence structure is just a tool to convey ideas in the shortest amount words. And you can learn to manipulate the structure for even more dubious play. Great Video!
Thanks guys awesome video. This week week I kick off my second campaign ever and my first in my homebrew world. I will rewatch the video and partice ;)
Absolute gold at 52:40.
I feel that a humorous crit-fail really depends from the character. If a player brings a character that is the height of specialization to a group that is super focused then it can get really bad. But imagine a Jack Sparrow like rouge messing around with a more relaxed party on a lazy Sunday. It doesn't have to be a primitive like in a slipping on a banana peel kind of way, but a "I can't believe that just happened" situation can be fun every once in a while. After 3-4 competent failure descriptions it starts to feel like a participation award and if the entire night turns into rolling fails that sucks either way. So I usually try to mix it up between competent, dramatic, and if the situation allows it some levity.
I had a player that would get to involved with their own descriptions and assumed their descriptions over mine. They had an early interaction with the big bad, BB was lazily draped over a throne while an experimental creature he made fought the party. The barbarian decided to go for the big bad and got a crit, I described it as "The ax fell, lined up to fall across his bare chest. It was a solid hit that you can feel throughout your body, but when you draw the ax away you see that you've barely marked his skin." The BB hit him and dropped him in one shot. Afterward, the barb described the fight as "I almost cut him in half, but he recovered and got a lucky shot on me." The first time, okay, he's playing a braggart and talking to the people they just rescued. He then said it to an NPC that knew the Big Bad and the NPC told him he was wrong about what happened and that healing wasn't a factor in that fight. He then spent time trying to figure out how to block healing and I stopped the game to remind the player that he had barely hurt MrBad. He brought it up again as they were finally preparing to fight him for real after about 7 level ups, my other players stopped the game to tell him there wasn't a healing factor at play.
58:22. This is exactly why I think as a DM it is important to pay attention to how an AC is fully derived. So like a player rolls a 17, and you're like "DING, it bounds off their helmet." Player rolls a 14, "they nimbly dodge that blow." Ha, I rolled a 19, "OK, your sword slams into the breast plate of their armor and causes a massive dent but doesn't actually break through."
Sometimes when I describe a scene I feel like I'm doing a monologue on how the place looks wrather than a description. Takes me minuets to describe a room and make each of them different. I love creating details to have the players think 'hm, that's something the dm described in detail so it must be important' when really it's just for flavor. I love describing things and the more questions I get then the more I know my players are invested.
Never been this early before! I’m super excited for this one!
Thanks for being with us!
Thinking about misses and working those into the narrative, which is a sensitive subject. Back to 3.0, there was this idea of Touch AC vs AC. Sometimes you didn't even touch them, because you rolled under a 10 and they're in chain mail with no dex bonus. That's a straight up miss. Sometimes you rolled a 16 but their AC is 17 because they have a shield, and armor. Your sword hacked right into their shield and was deflected. This creates a sliding scale where you can narrate how close the hit is changes the description if you want. I think it's a little bit better than exactly telling your players the AC, and it helps build up your baddies (or the players) to remind them that their character's equipment matters. It's not "hit or didn't hit", as much as "you're hacking away at this guy but his gleaming armor still has you searching for a weak point you can exploit".
This could be especially interesting trying to figure out how a barbarian's 18 CON translates to an armor class bonus of +4. He shrugs off superficial wounds to his bare skin the way a dragon would to his scales. A monk's wisdom gives them the ability to see attacks coming and mystically dodge out of the way, as if effortlessly. Etc etc.