How's my 'Room Key'?

[RoeeAV]

@Beoric how would you write the same 'Room Key' if your goal was to minimize the GM's prep work to the minimum and in addition to encourage him/her to creatively remake the room in his/her own version?

When i wrote my 'Room Key' I've tried to describe the room/s in a way that'll be very easy for the GM to read in-play and also creatively remake the room by adding or removing details as he/she sees fit.

My main issue is, that a lot of 'Room Keys' are written more like a story or a script and much less as a functional or technical text that can be used as tool in-play. In addition, most 'Room Keys' will not work with minimal prep or no prep at all.

 

[squeen]

@Beoric how would you write the same 'Room Key' if your goal was to minimize the GM's prep work to the minimum and in addition to encourage him/her to creatively remake the room in his/her own version?

I've never before considered that second point as an explicit writing goal --- I've always assumed that would just happen organically during play. Sometimes, I choose to leave dangling details as seeds for new (DM) ideas...but that's usually on the perphery of the keyed areas, or as hints to a larger world connections. Bryce advocates "Trust the DM" to work out detailed mechanics rather than over specifying every little detail --- but is that relevant for such a simple room key???

I guess I want a room description to be minimal but complete. Where things go from there depends more on the players than the DM, who will inevitably have to improvise.

Because I'm an isolated case (i.e. I don't really know enough about how others run their games), take the above more as a personal preference---an open design question rather than a definitive statement of Best Practices.

To avoid repetition, I'm going to talk a bit more about improvisation/level-of-detail in my next post (in TwoOrcs's Shadow Pearl thread). If you want another helping from my version of "the Existential DM Menu", go there.

 

[Beoric]

@Beoric how would you write the same 'Room Key' if your goal was to minimize the GM's prep work to the minimum and in addition to encourage him/her to creatively remake the room in his/her own version?

When i wrote my 'Room Key' I've tried to describe the room/s in a way that'll be very easy for the GM to read in-play and also creatively remake the room by adding or removing details as he/she sees fit.

My main issue is, that a lot of 'Room Keys' are written more like a story or a script and much less as a functional or technical text that can be used as tool in-play. In addition, most 'Room Keys' will not work with minimal prep or no prep at all.

I, personally, find it harder to run something "on the fly" if the key is only in (usually stilted) point form, because it is harder to figure out how the points relate to each other. That is, the individual points lack context. It is really no easier than dealing with a wall of text where you can't find anything; sure, I can find it, but I don't understand it.

My hypothesis is that you have different needs when reviewing a module (ie reading it to gain an understanding of it in advance) than you do when running it. When reviewing it you need to figure out how it all works together. When running it, if you have already reviewed it, you just need reminders of the highlights and technical information.

I'm not sure there is any point in trying to design modules to be run without any prep, unless all keyed entries are minimalist and very simple; if there is any complexity to the entry at all it is highly likely that the DM will screw it up on the fly. When I do run things last minute, I think I prefer short narrative entries that are easy to read and understand quickly, with the technical information broken out.

 

[squeen]

I'm not sure there is any point in trying to design modules to be run without any prep, unless all keyed entries are minimalist and very simple; if there is any complexity to the entry at all it is highly likely that the DM will screw it up on the fly. When I do run things last minute, I think I prefer short narrative entries that are easy to read and understand quickly, with the technical information broken out.

I am siding with you here buddy. All bullets are bad. Long paragraphs are bad.

There's a sweet spot with tight, short paragraphs using complete (or at least mostly complete) sentences that speak solely to the DM, some evocative language that is maximally effective at conveying the info the players can sense a set a mood, and a few textual illustrations (i.e. tables, bullet lists, keyed sub-paragraphs, icons, etc.) to help organize the deeper data for on-the-fly referencing.

Trying to find that sweet spot is The Creative Art. @Melan is frequently borderline too short for my tastes, but somehow he pulls it off. @Guy Fullerton is pretty close to my platonic ideal of balanced verbosity, although I'd like a few more "tricks" in my layout-bag to fall back on than he typically uses.

 

[Guy Fullerton]

It's not about the room beyond the door though; it's about the present-state room the party is currently in. That type of information is always found in the key for the room, because that's where room information is wrangled.

I don't think I understand the mechanics of how you present the information to the players. When do you tell them about positions of other doors/exits/corridors within a room? (When, that is, relative to telling them the room's dimensions/shape and contents.) A room's key does not usually say where its other doors/exits/corridors are, right?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I don't think I understand the mechanics of how you present the information to the players. When do you tell them about positions of other doors/exits/corridors within a room? (When, that is, relative to telling them the room's dimensions/shape and contents.) A room's key does not usually say where its other doors/exits/corridors are, right?

I describe the room to the players when they can see the room (which is almost always when they open its door and look inside). This includes describing the exits that they see in the room as if they were features of the room (which they are).

As a DM I gain some working understanding of the orientation of the room by its shape and the locations of the exits on the map, true, but when I describe something to my players there's a narrative process, and it's a distraction to need to look back at the map to find anything out. It stops the flow of narration. I know it seems redundant with the map being right there and all, but if the map just shows a door, then what are you expected to tell the players? "There's a door in the North wall" - hardly compelling or evocative. Paraphrasing Bryce - "I didn't pay for you to have me invent the things in your dungeon for you".

Honestly, I'd say it's high-time designers get into the mindset of describing room exits when they describe a room, because they are A) vital information, and B) part of the room. Authors cut them out for brevity sake, but that's just not enough information for your players IMO, and I see exits as being necessary information to pass along.

My viewpoint boils down to this: For the sake of information clarity and ease of narration, all the stuff that a DM needs in the process of describing the room to the players should be kept together in the same place - ideally the room's keyed entry - so it becomes a seamless, easy thing and not some disjointed lecture punctuated with "umm"s and "uhh"s and "let me check"s. This includes exits and dimensions, especially because they don't take up much space to describe.

 

[Beoric]

All bullets are bad.

I'm not sure about this yet. What I was trying to do above was, essentially, use bullets to make "marginal notes" so the DM doesn't have to. Sort of like the way bolding is used so the DM doesn't have to pull out a highlighter. Not sure if I succeeded, but I think it should be possible.

 

[Beoric]

My viewpoint boils down to this: For the sake of information clarity and ease of narration, all the stuff that a DM needs in the process of describing the room to the players should be kept together in the same place - ideally the room's keyed entry - so it becomes a seamless, easy thing and not some disjointed lecture punctuated with "umm"s and "uhh"s and "let me check"s. This includes exits and dimensions, especially because they don't take up much space to describe.

I think two places, the map and the key. Some things are best conveyed to the DM with a picture; physical space is one of them. But then I think all boxed text can die a fiery death.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

See I suppose that's where we differ: I think boxed-text (or at least, pre-determined scripts of a sort) has a place in modules, especially if the DM running it is bad at descriptions or improvising. And if you're writing for publications, you need to assume the worst of your users by default - that many will be poor narrators/improvisors.

The dreaded "eyes gloss over" syndrome derives from a place of subjectivity - hell, the freaking "study" it was based on no longer exists on the internet; nobody has an empirical source to point to anymore to prove the point. I believe that if boxed text is concise enough, the players will not be bored. If it matters to them and is interesting enough, they will pay attention. That's the fine line authors walk - conveying what needs to be conveyed and nothing more, or you risk inviting boredom.

 

[The1True]

I'm reading a lot of different DM styles here, which makes it kind of hard for a writer to format an adventure that's going to make everybody happy. It's possible that at a certain point, as a writer you're just going to have to say "Fuck'em. If I were paying for an adventure, this is how I would want it to be laid out." Trying to hit maximum utility for everyone's play-style/budget is impossible.
If no one buys your product and/or you get panned by critics, I guess you're going to have some soul-searching to do.

 

[Beoric]

I can get behind breaking out for the DM the things that the PCs are likely to see. But what they see is often situational, and boxed text locks you in to a particular point of view - and makes things harder if you need to extract information from it in order to improvise. Ever seen boxed text accompanied by a note that if the PCs, enter from a different entrance, or at a different time, or if certain NPCs are already dead, then the DM will have to modify it? That is worse than unhelpful. Which door are you looking through? Do you swing it wide open or just take a peek? Are you viewing it by sunlight or moonlight or starlight or infravision or ultravision or darkvision or a torch or a sunrod? All of those things can change what you see, and the poor narrator/improvisor ends up in an even worse position.

Not to mention that writing workable boxed text seems to be beyond the abilities of most writers, and as such is a poor element to advocate for universal inclusion. And new (and some experienced) DMs don't seem to know the difference, and wonder why their players miss elements described in the readaloud, or don't seem that engaged.

I'm reading a lot of different DM styles here, which makes it kind of hard for a writer to format an adventure that's going to make everybody happy. It's possible that at a certain point, as a writer you're just going to have to say "Fuck'em. If I were paying for an adventure, this is how I would want it to be laid out." Trying to hit maximum utility for everyone's play-style/budget is impossible.
If no one buys your product and/or you get panned by critics, I guess you're going to have some soul-searching to do.

That's probably fair.

 

[squeen]

@The1True : Totally agree, at some point you just have to follow your muse.

But if you are still shopping around...

 

[Guy Fullerton]

I describe the room to the players when they can see the room (which is almost always when they open its door and look inside). This includes describing the exits that they see in the room as if they were features of the room (which they are).

I stay with only the map much longer, transitioning to the text later.

To that end, I generally give special doors a unique appearance on the map or their own keyed entry. I know un-marked doors are conventional, which simplifies the back-and-forth. Hyqueous Vaults shows some of this technique, as does of one my home dungeons (go back in this thread to see the maps for other parts of this dungeon):

The Twisting Stair Level 1 Dungeon - Page 6 - Knights & Knaves Alehouse

but if the map just shows a door, then what are you expected to tell the players? "There's a door in the North wall" - hardly compelling or evocative. Paraphrasing Bryce - "I didn't pay for you to have me invent the things in your dungeon for you".

I don't want everything to be compelling or evocative. Special stuff stands out better against the conventional.

From another post...

I think boxed-text (or at least, pre-determined scripts of a sort) has a place in modules, especially if the DM running it is bad at descriptions or improvising. And if you're writing for publications, you need to assume the worst of your users by default - that many will be poor narrators/improvisors.

I intentionally assume referees are better than that, and don't lose sleep over anybody who rejects my things

 

[Guy Fullerton]

FWIW, the internet archive has a capture of the wizards.com page with the argument against long boxed text:

Design & Development: Undercover at Gen Con, Part 1

Design & Development: Undercover at Gen Con, Part 1

web.archive.org

 

[DangerousPuhson]

What you say is fair; I'm only defending my own personal preferences and beliefs on the matter here.

And yes, I know that not everything needs to (or can) be evocative, but this is more an argument for clustering information together in a more user-friendly way than it is about the specific content of the writing.

I tend to reverse-engineer the experiences from the games that I've run and the times I've had to describe rooms to players in order to derive my personal Best Practices for layout. If I ever find myself page-flipping around, missing something, pausing for no good reason, or wishing some piece of information was at-hand, then I conclude that the information belongs there. It just so happens that this occurs most often when I'm reading the room key to in order to interact with the players, rather than in the preamble, DM-eyes-only stuff like the map.

 

[Beoric]

Special stuff stands out better against the conventional.

I think this is a good point which sometimes gets forgotten around here.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

FWIW, the internet archive has a capture of the wizards.com page with the argument against long boxed text:

Design & Development: Undercover at Gen Con, Part 1

Design & Development: Undercover at Gen Con, Part 1

web.archive.org

I feel this part of that article is critically overlooked by everyone who cites it:

So do we change all our adventures immediately because Dave spent a lot of time wandering around the convention hall at Gen Con? Hardly. But boxed text is something we’re definitely watching closely. We’re goofing around with some alternatives right now. If they play better at the table, you’ll see them in products at some point.

And even after saying it, we still see boxed text. So is it the conclusion that there are no better alternatives? If nothing has been definitively answered, then why does the community definitively conclude that boxed-text is bad?

 

[Guy Fullerton]

Rewrite:

Meta: Since the trees & guards function separately from the pit (and reaction to the pit), I'd key them as two separate entries. But carrying on with just the one assuming we have to stick with the caves of chaos map as-is, and trying to make it shorter...

A. Kobold Lair: This cavern entrance is nestled at the edge of a large stand of trees. Weeping branches hang low over the lintel; medium creatures will have to brush past them or duck under them.

Specify the height of the branch tips, and you can eliminate the whole portion after the semicolon.

The tunnel beyond is unlit.

Probably don't state this. If you must, move "unlit" into the first sentence.

2/6 chance that 8 kobolds lurk among the trees. (AC 7, HD 1/2, hp 3 each, #AT I, D 1-4, MV (40’), Save NM, ML 6)

Interesting interpretation that 2:6 represents the kobolds' existence, as opposed to the boldness of always-present kobolds. Could go either way, I guess.

10’ pit inside entrance (marked on map). 3/6 first rank, 1/6 second rank, 1d6 damage, hinged lid closes to prevent escape.

Don't need to state the damage. (Insert counter-argument here about this being a beginner DM's module.)

Detect automatically with probing.

"Probing detects," or add wording earlier that otherwise implies the simplicity of design and specific trigger condition. Maybe "camouflaged lid" and triggers with 20 lbs. But that starts to get long again.

Kobold guards may lurk in the underbrush around the cave entrance; if present they carry 1d8 sp each.

Move the gold to their stat block (which uses abbreviated form, so shorter already), and you don't need to say, "if present."

The entrance itself is braced by a heavy stone lintel on stone pillars, set into the earth. Beyond lies a 10’ high tunnel roughly chiselled from the living rock.

Combine the sentences: "A heavy stone lintel and stone pillars brace the 10 ft high entrance into chiseled living rock."

There is an intersection 30’ into the tunnel; the din of conversation from area 6 can clearly be heard, and prevents any attempt to hear noises from areas 1 or 2.

I'd key this separately, but again: Can't change the map. Recombine: "At 30 ft in: Noise from area 6 emanates, preventing hear noise from areas 1-2." (Maybe that's shorter than you want in this section though.)

The intersection is protected by a pit with a hinged metal lid, camouflaged to look like stone. Tapping the metal lit will reveal its presence. After the pit is triggered, the lid will close and latch from the outside. The pit mechanism is noisy and will alert the creatures in areas 1 and 2. The kobolds in area 1 will be alerted by any light source, but will take no action until they know if the party will fall victim to the pit trap.

Combine details, switch to active voice, remove "will" constructs, and drop the "light source" part (since it's not in the original):
"A camouflaged pit with hinged metal lid protects the intersection. Tapping reveals it. When triggered, the lid closes and latches from outside; the noise attracts the creatures from areas 1-2."
Could even remove the "and latches..." part because it's not in the original.

This might all defeat the purpose of what you were trying to do though...

 

[squeen]

I would pay top dollar for a B2 re-edited by Mr. Fullerton.
Just saying...

 

[Beoric]

Ok, let's not lose sight of the purpose of my experiment by getting lost in my execution of it. I was trying to test whether it is helpful to differentiate the information you need when you are running something from the information you need when you are reviewing the module in advance of play. With that in mind, I broke it out into three sections (which could be more clearly demarked in a published product.

The third section is the stuff you pay attention to when you read the module in advance. I have made it deliberately NOT minimalist since it is not intended to be reviewed at the table. Here is where I would attempt to put the evocative language to inspire improvisation, as well as providing the context for the technical summaries above.

The first section contains information regarding the information the PCs are likely to see first. It is supposed to be written in punchy, oral language in case someone actually wants to read it aloud, but also to be easy to grok in a glance for those who prefer to summarize.

The second section is intended to contain information to remind the DM what they read when they read the third section between sessions, as well as the technical and mechanical information necessary to run the encounter.

I chose B2 because I assume everyone here has it, and the map that goes with it, and is already familiar with it. I chose the A1 entry because it was the first dungeon entry in the module and I figured it would be a better test if I didn't cherry pick an entry. I did not split the entry into two separate entries because I wanted it to correspond to the map coding and the original entry; I agree that it would be better to separate the elements, but on the other hand, the greater complexity made it a better test.

I'm tempted to discuss my stylistic choices, but honing Beoric's adventure-writing skills is not the point of the exercise. The point of the exercise is to evaluate whether anyone thinks the format has potential, making allowances for any deficiencies in style.