Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
Is noisms writing about gaming again? I stopped following him when he went for a long stretch of political commentary.
I preferred his first example to his second, but didn't particularly like either. At least, neither works particularly well for me. I do agree with a lot of his commentary, though, and Malrex's, and squeen's.
For my personal style of DMing, I focus on the dungeon - any environment really - as a living place. That means I need to keep track of all of the various relationships among the elements in the dungeon, how the PCs have stirred things up, the movements of monsters that they will have spurred, etc. Which means I am keeping track of a lot more than is going on in a single encounter entry. I need to keep a good chunk of the dungeon in my memory buffer. So I lean toward simple individual encounters because the complexity comes from how the elements in multiple rooms in the dungeon interact.
Because of this, I prefer spare room entries that focus more on inspiring an encounter than staging an encounter. And given these constraints (and the constraints of human memory even if you do only focus on the encounter), and the imprecision of language, I think it is an exercise in futility for writers to try to impose their vision of how a a room should be interpreted on readers.
Noism's first example is a good example of this:
Moreover, I take it from noisms' discussion that the backstory for the assassin does not relate to what is currently in the dungeon in any way. It is just an extra thing I need to keep in my head while I am running the dungeon so that the players have have the thrill of mystery, or partial discovery. But why not do this with mysteries that ACTUALLY RELATE TO THE ADVENTURE? Then is it not wasted ink (pixels).
I had a lot of questions regarding this when I first read it. "Hexagonal" isn't exactly evocative, is the shape significant or is it just an adjective for the purposes of having an adjective? IMO, "pit" is superior to "[irrelevant and non-evocative adjective] pit". Is the colour of the tunic relevant to the dungeon? Apparently not, so it should be removed. Before I read the second example, it appears that the victim died from the fall in the pit; if it came up I could have inferred broken legs from that fact, it adds nothing more than listing ordinary kitchen implements in an entry titled "KITCHEN". I also note the the depth of the pit, nine feet, is an unnecessarily precise number (unless the number "9" is important to the dungeon somehow) that actually misleads the DM because it gives the impression that the legs broke from the fall. And why is the vial in a tube?
If you get rid of the irrelevant apparently irrelevant information and language that is not evocative, the gameable content you are left with is this:
So if the width and the shape of the pit isn't clear on the map, it doesn't matter if the DM, when asked, makes up different details than the writer had in his head. It doesn't matter if he comes up with a different backstory as to how the bones were broken, or how the skeleton came to be there, or whether it was alive or dead when it went into the pit, or whether the blowgun belonged to the skeleton. The writer should want the DM to react to his description in the same way the players react to the DM's description, with wild, creative speculation about how it might have happened. And then the DM can start adding details on his own, and the writer doesn't have to clog the module with them.
And if you do have information that is genuinely important for the DM to understand, you need to call it out expressly. I have been wondering whether dungeons need a short section at the beginning outlining the elements that are important to make it function, and advising the DM that any other element in the dungeon can be given an alternate interpretation or changed outright without breaking anything.
EDIT: It occurs to me that I think it is more important for the situation to be evocative than for the language to be evocative. I often find purple prose gets in the way of comprehension. It is probably a continuum; the more information you are trying to convey, the less you should rely upon colourful language to convey it; conversly the less information you have to convey, the more important it is to use colourful language to inspire. It may also be more important to use evocative language for the elements that will form the players' (and the DM's) first impression, and revert to clear, precise language when describing things that are discovered through inspection or interaction.
I preferred his first example to his second, but didn't particularly like either. At least, neither works particularly well for me. I do agree with a lot of his commentary, though, and Malrex's, and squeen's.
For my personal style of DMing, I focus on the dungeon - any environment really - as a living place. That means I need to keep track of all of the various relationships among the elements in the dungeon, how the PCs have stirred things up, the movements of monsters that they will have spurred, etc. Which means I am keeping track of a lot more than is going on in a single encounter entry. I need to keep a good chunk of the dungeon in my memory buffer. So I lean toward simple individual encounters because the complexity comes from how the elements in multiple rooms in the dungeon interact.
Because of this, I prefer spare room entries that focus more on inspiring an encounter than staging an encounter. And given these constraints (and the constraints of human memory even if you do only focus on the encounter), and the imprecision of language, I think it is an exercise in futility for writers to try to impose their vision of how a a room should be interpreted on readers.
Noism's first example is a good example of this:
I had no idea from this that I was supposed to infer that the legs were broken as a result of torture. I assumed they were broken from the fall into the pit. There is nothing here from which I can infer that the victim was an assassin, or that he was tortured and his body discarded.57. A hexagonal pit, 9' deep and 6' across, lies at the end of the crawlspace. Its walls are completely smooth and it cannot be climbed unaided. At the bottom lies a skeleton, dressed in fragments of what was once a red tunic, and it can be seen to be clutching a short leather tube. Close inspection at the bottom of the pit will reveal its legs are broken in several places, and the tube contains a thin vial with a greenish yellow gas inside. If smashed, the vial will release poison into a 10' cube (save vs poison or choke to death in d3 rounds).
Moreover, I take it from noisms' discussion that the backstory for the assassin does not relate to what is currently in the dungeon in any way. It is just an extra thing I need to keep in my head while I am running the dungeon so that the players have have the thrill of mystery, or partial discovery. But why not do this with mysteries that ACTUALLY RELATE TO THE ADVENTURE? Then is it not wasted ink (pixels).
I had a lot of questions regarding this when I first read it. "Hexagonal" isn't exactly evocative, is the shape significant or is it just an adjective for the purposes of having an adjective? IMO, "pit" is superior to "[irrelevant and non-evocative adjective] pit". Is the colour of the tunic relevant to the dungeon? Apparently not, so it should be removed. Before I read the second example, it appears that the victim died from the fall in the pit; if it came up I could have inferred broken legs from that fact, it adds nothing more than listing ordinary kitchen implements in an entry titled "KITCHEN". I also note the the depth of the pit, nine feet, is an unnecessarily precise number (unless the number "9" is important to the dungeon somehow) that actually misleads the DM because it gives the impression that the legs broke from the fall. And why is the vial in a tube?
If you get rid of the irrelevant apparently irrelevant information and language that is not evocative, the gameable content you are left with is this:
On the other hand, if the backstory is actually relevant to the dungeon, I would add the basic backstory to the module background at the beginning, where it is a lens through which the whole dungeon can be interpreted by the DM, and I would change the entry to make it clear that the skeleton did not die of the fall. So make the unclimbable pit shallower and make it clear the body was discarded:57. A pit lies at the end of the crawlspace. Its walls are completely smooth and it cannot be climbed. At the bottom lies a skeleton. A search reveals it is holding a thin vial with a greenish yellow gas inside. If smashed, the vial will release poison into a 10' cube (save vs poison or choke to death in d3 rounds).
Even if these clues still don't convey the meaning to the reader, the writer needs to let go at this point because it really doesn't matter if the DM gives it a different interpretation. That is, while you want the language to be evocative, it doesn't need to evoke the same thing for DM and writer. This is not a dungeon chokepoint, so nothing turns on the DM getting it "right". Adding to the description to try to force the DM to understand your intent adds to the wall of text and impedes the overall understanding of the dungeon because it is more for the DM to hold in his head with respect to the room and the dungeon overall.57. GARBAGE PIT. A pit lies at the end of the crawlspace, filled to within 5' of the brim with reeking offal and other refuse. Huddled against one of the walls of the pit lies a skeleton in a blood red tunic. Close inspection reveals that its fingers are broken, and its legbones and kneecaps crushed in several places. Nearby lies a splintered blowgun, which is still loaded with a thin vial containing a greenish yellow gas. If smashed, the vial will release poison into a 10' cube (save vs poison or choke to death in d3 rounds).
So if the width and the shape of the pit isn't clear on the map, it doesn't matter if the DM, when asked, makes up different details than the writer had in his head. It doesn't matter if he comes up with a different backstory as to how the bones were broken, or how the skeleton came to be there, or whether it was alive or dead when it went into the pit, or whether the blowgun belonged to the skeleton. The writer should want the DM to react to his description in the same way the players react to the DM's description, with wild, creative speculation about how it might have happened. And then the DM can start adding details on his own, and the writer doesn't have to clog the module with them.
And if you do have information that is genuinely important for the DM to understand, you need to call it out expressly. I have been wondering whether dungeons need a short section at the beginning outlining the elements that are important to make it function, and advising the DM that any other element in the dungeon can be given an alternate interpretation or changed outright without breaking anything.
EDIT: It occurs to me that I think it is more important for the situation to be evocative than for the language to be evocative. I often find purple prose gets in the way of comprehension. It is probably a continuum; the more information you are trying to convey, the less you should rely upon colourful language to convey it; conversly the less information you have to convey, the more important it is to use colourful language to inspire. It may also be more important to use evocative language for the elements that will form the players' (and the DM's) first impression, and revert to clear, precise language when describing things that are discovered through inspection or interaction.
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