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Hello people of Paizo, I have been running a game ( I'm baby new) for sixteen weeks. It is going well, however, my descriptive skills suck. I have read different ways of describing things, however, I.can't seem to keep it in my mind for my descriptions. I would like some advice on how you describe things. Thank you in advance!
Welcome to PF
I'm confused, do you mean describing a situation or dungeon room or the likes to your players?
Hi Mr. Nevada,
I rarely post, but felt compelled to reply as this is a topic I've thought about a lot myself. I think the "secret" to good description is to realize your players can fill in the obvious gaps. They don't need to know every detail to construct the environment in their imagination.
They know what a ship looks like, they know what a swamp looks like. What makes a good description in my mind is something that points out something unique, something that really lets the player "settle in".
For example, on the swamp: everyone can visualize an average swamp, but maybe point out how mud-caked spouts spring from the marsh water and sputter poisonous gases into the air. Or for the ship, maybe mention the name of the ship and how the paint is baked and faded from too many voyages in the south seas.
These things take a familiar concept, but twist it and make it novel and feel more "living". Obviously you need to give some basic details like maybe the overall length of the ship or what-have-you, but those little extra splashes of detail, even just one or two, will really spice up your descriptions.
Hope this helps!
Start generally (you push open the door to the captain's cabin. The room is dark, but you can hear the wind whistling from within), then mention specifics (now that a light is lit, you see that the room is in disarray and maps are blown across the floor. A single pane of glass in the window is shattered. The captain lays crumpled in the corner, impaled upon his own sword). We stop describing at this point until a PC asks for more details.
We've begun with a place identified by its name: the captains cabin. The listen may conjure an image in their mind from just that. A few other details are then given to modify the mental image and to draw attention to what you want them to see: signs of a struggle and a murder. If we extend this description out further within being cued to do so by the players, we run the risk of losing the listener's attention.
Most minds will begin to fill in the blanks. Stick to the critical details until you have more practice.
Think in terms of senses. When you describe an environment, start with what things look like. You don't have to go into too many details here. Everyone has a frame of reference for visual stimulus. Something as simple as "the forest is dimly lit and thickly wooded" is enough.
Then move on to another sense.
What does the place smell like?
What is the temperature?
Are there any ambient sounds?
Imagine what it would be like for you to be in that place, and then run through each of your senses individually. Jot down some notes. to help remind you later.
A really good way of cheating with your descriptions is to find pictures on Google Images. If you type in "abandoned ruins" or "creepy swamp" you'll get all kinds of stuff you can just show your players.
You can do the same thing with sounds. Youtube has tons of nature sound clips and some of them are really long. Storms, waterfalls, forest fires, waves, medieval battle sounds. Just about anything really.
For people, think of your game like a movie, and cast it with recognizable actors. Let the PCs pick their own actors to "play" their characters. That gives everyone an immediate frame of reference for who is who. When you describe the evil duke as being played by Christopher Walken, everyone has a really good idea of what that duke looks like, and even how he might behave. (I call this "body casting" in my games)
Mr Nevada,
I struggle with description, but in reverse of your situation. I am an old grognard who likes a lot of description and my players think I'm overly wordy. I think a way to meet in the middle is to engage all five senses of your players, whenever possible.
Descriptiveness is about feeling. GMing is about having feelings in front of a group of people. If this makes you feel uncomfortable or nervous, running the game will be difficult. The first step then is getting past your nerves. They're just your players; there's no judgment or need for fear.
Once you feel comfortable, let your emotions flow through your words. How? Simple; emote as you say them.
the ship is grand with its gangplank lowered through the mist.
or
The ship is GRAND with its gangplank lowered...through the mist...
It's hard to get it across in text, but the first statement, read in monotone evokes nothing while the second at least attempts to do so by inflection. By striking boldly on GRAND and using the hesitations around "through the mist" you help the listeners feel the mystery around to fog encircling the ship.
Also get yourself a thesaurus. The old DM's Guide for D&D had a number of pages offering different colors, sounds and smells as well as a table for underground air currents. The GameMastery Guide has something similar. Play with different words and see what works, even if you end up making up words to fit.
Practice. I know it sounds silly, but go to a mirror and say one or two sentences out loud. Listen to what your voice sounds like as it wraps around your words. Feel your jitters and then move past them.
Finally, do what C.B. says above. Even though I am long winded, I have learned this from my players: less really is more.
The night is dark. The wind is cold and howling. The rotten smell of the swamp is in your throat. It raises the hairs on your neck. There is something creepy about this place. It rattles your senses.
That could all be:
The brisk night howls in your ears and chokes your senses with the fetid stench of the swamp. Between gusts there is an eerie calm, like some great dark beast pausing to drink its next breath.
You've saved some word count and imparted a mood.
Finally...detail. A lot of posters will echo this suggestion, so you know its a good one. Add one or 2 specific, actionable details that the players can latch onto. In the above statement of the swamp, I'd follow with this:
Taking it all in you notice little by the moon's glow. Yet there is a light; flickering and inconsistent which darts in and around a gnarled old cypress. A whispering voice taunts your senses, mingling with the night wind.
All I've told them is that it's a cold night in a dark swamp and that it's eerie. Also there's a pixie flashing at them to get their attention so that they follow it; unfortunately they can't quite make out what it's saying from this distance.
As long as YOU have a clear grasp on what you're seeing and feeling in your mind's eye and you're willing to share those feelings with your audience without fear, your descriptions will convey what you need.
One important part I've always struggled with are the Chekhov's Guns. While it's very good to focus on the atmosphere and let players fill in the gaps, as it eases your job and can actually increase immersion, it also means that players (especially experienced ones) immediately know what's gonna happen based on which details you describe.
For example:
"You walk into a dark and damp room with a fireplace that has a stag's head mounted over it".
Experienced players will immediately suspect that something will happen with the fireplace and/or the stag's head, like it being trapped, hiding a secret door, animating etc... Otherwise you would't have mentioned it.
They know that e.g. the lighting, floor tiles, candelabras, the door on the other side, the cobwebs, the broken bottles on the floor, the dusty furniture in the corner and so on are unimportant otherwise you would have mentioned them to give the PCs a chance to react to them.
The converse example:
"As you twist the disgustingly slimy doorknob and the door opens with a creaking noise, you see a badly lit room. You strain to see clearly in the twilight created by the three lit candelabras, each dirty and unpolished. The fourth candelabra has fallen to the floor. The floor is made of broken reddish tiles that were once painted in a pattern of some sort. There are cobwebs in each of the ceiling's corners, patches of mold on the left and opposite side of the room and something dripping from the ceiling. The rotting furniture is stacked in the rightmost corner of the room in a pile of mostly broken chairs and one shattered oaken table. On the other side of the room there is an old fireplace made of worn limestone blocks, in which the embers of a fire are smoldering. A broken bucket lies next to the fireplace. Over the mantle an ancient stag's head is mounted. Its fur is coming out in patches and one of the glass eyes is missing. An empty green glass bottle of some sort has been placed upside down on one of the antler's points. On the right side of the room there is a moldy wooden door that is missing its doorknob."
The players have no clue what to expect, although they can use their skills to check out certain aspects, like whether the fire was extinguished, how and how long ago the fire was extinguished, whether there are recent scuff marks on the floor near the rightmost door that could indicate whether it was opened recently, whether the inside of the glass bottle on the antlers is still wet, whether the fourth candelabra had fallen on it's own or was torn from the wall etc... The players would probably not suspect that for example the stag's head has a trap built in that spits a glob of acid from the mouth the moment somebody steps on a specific tile.
I'm actually planning to purchase Adventure Paths and Modules for exactly this reason to make sure that I have sufficient background stuff. I'm not that good with improvisation and have a tendency to forget to mention the more unimportant or indirectly important stuff when I'm telling a story or giving a description verbally. I don't want my players to immediately know which NPCs are important based on the fact that I have named them or in how much detail I've described them.
For example:
"You walk into a dark and damp room with a fireplace that has a stag's head mounted over it".
I immediately thought of a cabin, a rocking chair, a bloody grandfather clock and the stag's head laughing madly while twisting this way and that. I too would not have suspected the acid glob, but I would've checked my character sheet for a chainsaw.
I hear you BB. You want to hand the players detail w/out handing them the game. On the other hand if you give them too much (your converse above) I know MY players would glaze over.
When I make up adventures I tend to write them in Word like modules, going so far as to craft flavor text and put it in a blue highlighted box. Suffice it to say said flavor text tends to be 4-6 sentences. Any more than this and I lose my players; any less than this and I risk showing my hand.
Of course, sometimes I use this to my advantage.
A jaded player in my games was convinced that "statue" = trap/monster. He was right the first couple times, then I would purposely add statues just to distract the party from real threats. My favorite was a room with 2 small, bronze statues of goblins and a side door. While the PCs were distracted with one of them an ogre with Catch Off Guard busted in through the side door, snagged the other bronze goblin and proceeded to wail on the party with it.
One thing you can do is get help from proffessionals. Even if you are writing your own adventure, you can cherry pick locations/rooms from published adventures, and use their descriptions. There are even some 3rd party companies that create locations explicately to be placed into adventures. After a time using those, you might find yourself better able to describe the scenes you are imagining.
Are you visualising your environments in your own head? If you've got a really strong image of what you want to describe it'll make it easier. Look at pictures of appropriate fantastical environments online to try to get into the mood and try to imagine how you'd describe them if you were there.
Also, if you're GMing you'll know about the places your adventure takes place in so there's no harm in making a note of some key descriptors beforehand.
Maybe try listening to or watching some games online with good GMs. Chris Perkins is, IMO, a fantastic example so you could look up some of the Acquisitions Incorporated games. It's D&D 4th Edition and it's mainly a comedy game but Chris Perkin's GMing skill is translatable.
Well I only really listen to the audio and tend to do so when I'm doing other stuff like working on my drawings or walking to work.
What helped me a lot was playing diceless games. If you make a commitment to avoid using dice for a session then you'll keep your nose out of the rule books and be forced into your world. It was rough going for me at first, but over time I found myself focusing on the descriptions as that was all that was really left to keep the game fun and interesting.
Of course, make sure to run this by your players first to see if they're okay with it. I have a few people I regularly play with that don't enjoy these kind of sessions, and remember everyone is there to have fun. If it turns out that you have some people that aren't interested, you can always try starting up a new game with anyone else you can find that is. The nice thing about these games is that they are easy to pick up and put down as no one has to create a character and track monster stat blocks.
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In my poetry class we talked about bringing out the "visuals" of something, as well as the "heart" or emotion of the setting as well.
In my PF and other games I have learned that you only really need three (3) lines of description to get the point across. If someone wants to know more then they will ask.
I tend to do this: Example: swamp, ominous mood.
You stand knee deep in the shallowest part of the swampy mire with darker and deeper murky waters around you.
The stench of decay fills your nostrils as the sucking of your boots from the mud makes each fetid step surround you in a stinking miasma.
All around you the wind whips the trees spraying the disgusting water everywhere as birds challenge each other in the canopy, and carnivorous creatures of the swamp stalk you from unseen vantages.
Never be specific with distance: it is always X or maybe Y, you are not sure. If they want to roll a survival or perception then they can bring it to where it should be.
Always try to include . . .
. . . VISUALS
. . . SOUNDS
. . . EMOTION (Stalk instead of watch, love instead of like, use metaphors and similes.
Always try to keep it under 3 sentences. For PLACES OF INTEREST give them all 3 line descriptions as well. Note: A place of interest doesn't have to be a quest area, it is actually a good idea to have a lot of places of interest so the PCs don't just go around asking about everything and going to the only places that offer a 3 line description.
Be vaguely specific, and avoid generalities. When you say "TEMPLE" your players envision a Mayan temple that is crumbling. So if you only describe the general image of a TEMPLE that is crumbling then congratulations you haven't told them anything. It is fine that it is an evil temple, but you need to make it YOUR evil temple.
Small simple but colorful details are what makes for good descriptions of people and towns. Pick a couple of details about the way a person looks, or acts, or talks, and use it as their calling card. Don't overdo it, make it into a stand up comedy act, but one memorable thing is better than 15 bland things. Same thing for a city - especially a small town. Blue painted signposts at the town square. It'll be memorable for your players - instead of incessant "which town was that again?"
If you're trying to do your descriptions "on the fly" it can be very challenging. I found it helpful to write on index cards beforehand a description of an area the PCs were going to enter, because I do much better when I have a bit of time to plan out what I'm going to say mentally, and that spares me the stress of having to think spontaneously. Sure, you'll still have to do it, but it won't be as stressful if it's only one in a while.
First of all, being good at being descriptive is something that will come with time. You will get better at it.
Secondly, read. Read a lot. Read fantasy novels. Read adventure modules. Absorb what you read. Consider it.
Descriptive fantasy, even ad libbing, is really a form of writing. Reading, and practice writing, is really the best way to learn to be a good writer, and good at description.
