Why is it that this is what's in my head as I'm GMing, but this is what my players hear? I try to be descriptive but I realize I'm too wordy. I try editing myself on paper then narrating, but it comes across as hokey. Maybe its my players, maybe its me, or maybe some combination. I know my players are having fun but is there a way to make the epic in your head consistently translate out loud?
Rabbity: I agree that theatrics are a good idea. I might not be able to employ them right now; we play in a public venue that precludes several of your excellent suggestions. However I really like your idea of pictures. I don't know if it's making things more epic but I do know that all my players were able to remember a couple NPCs that I made NPC cards for.
Basically I took a stock NPC portrait off the net, printed it, then placed that on a 3x5 index card. On the back I jotted some notes for myself about the NPC. This has gone a long way to jogging my players' memories between games of who they're talking to.
Thanks for your advice DR.
Props are good, but as far as verbal is concerned, some basic writing techniques will serve here as well. You need to focus on enough description without so much that you get that "hokey" feeling you're talking about. Think about your favorite writer. If you read his/her work out loud, it should not sound hokey. Try to model that style for pre-written descriptions.
Also, many peoples' voices sound silly to themselves, regardless of how they sound to others. Are you sure your players think it sounds hokey, or are you just judging that on your own?
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My only beef with GMs is when they describe everything in the room in minute details, they talk about how the air feels, the humidity, the tension, and THEN they say "Oh, and there's a big dragon too."
HOW THE HELL DID WE NOT SEE THE BIG DRAGON FIRST!?!
You might be overthinking it. A player that's really into the game will see a fight with an epic monsters no matter how much or how little you say. The only thing I really grow in great depth describing is gross undead stuff because that they won't come up with by themselves.
My only beef with GMs is when they describe everything in the room in minute details, they talk about how the air feels, the humidity, the tension, and THEN they say "Oh, and there's a big dragon too."
HOW THE HELL DID WE NOT SEE THE BIG DRAGON FIRST!?!
Well, it's generally considered good adventure design (for published modules) for the read-aloud boxed text NOT to refer to any creatures or NPCs that might be in the room... It's considered especially bad form to assume a particular reaction from an NPC/monster and write that into the box text.
That's because you can't assume that the monster is actually going to be there when the PCs enter: what if the alarm was raised? What if the PCs enter attack at night (or in broad daylight if the module assumes a nighttime raid?) What if the monster was attracted to the sounds of battle in an nearby area? What if the PCs sneak in or are invisible?
It's easiest for the publisher to write about the static elements of the room, and let the GM fill in the monster details. The problem is if the GM relies on first reading the box text, then ad-libs, "Oh, and the ten orcs that are also in there attack" at the end.
Maybe your players really like Order of the Stick!
In my case, I have learned not to go too overboard with the descriptions because my players tend to tune it out. Either that, or they focus on a word like "sepulcher", and then I have to explain that it's like a tomb, and then they say "well why didn't you just say it was a tomb?" In the meantime, the mood and the immersion sort of fade...
Why is it that this is what's in my head as I'm GMing, but this is what my players hear? I try to be descriptive but I realize I'm too wordy. I try editing myself on paper then narrating, but it comes across as hokey. Maybe its my players, maybe its me, or maybe some combination. I know my players are having fun but is there a way to make the epic in your head consistently translate out loud?
Well, the chances are that both artists drew something like the latter image when they were starting out, but one has since been practicing a heck of a lot longer than the other.
Practice, practice, practice :) Also, try writing scenes up away from the table, even try some short stories. Being creative is fun (and you can always delete the really bad attempts before anyone actually sees them :D)
Nobody expects (or if they do, they shouldn't) their GM to be narrating at a professional level. If they could, GMs would be narrating audiobooks and doing voiceovers for a living. Most of us can't achieve that level, any more than we can sculpt our own miniatures from scratch to represent NPCs.
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When I was a high school theatre student with terminal introvert syndrome (note: not a clinical definition), I learned how to pull this off:
Embrace the hokeyness.
Seriously. The moment you stop caring whether you look or sound like a fool is the moment you stop actually looking or sounding like a fool. You're at a table with friends playing "pretend". Get into the part!
voices
tone
cadence
mannerisms
facial expressions
eye contact
hand gestures, posture
standing up instead of sitting
not gonna get into props since you said you can't use them, so I'm guessing that also throws music or video projection out the window, too
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Embrace the hokeyness.
Seriously. The moment you stop caring whether you look or sound like a fool is the moment you stop actually looking or sounding like a fool. You're at a table with friends playing "pretend". Get into the part!
Yeah it's almost surprising how well players respond to you when you let go and embrace it like there's no tomorrow.
Thank you all for the kind advice so far! I'm pushing 40 and have been GMing now over 3 decades, so embracing the inner nerd is really a moot point. Also my players are early 30's to mid 40's with a few grognards, so there's my audience. I'm beginning to think it may be a lot to do with the venue. We play in a brightly lit games store while sometimes I have to shout across crowd noise.
Then again, it might just be that my players like OotS. Seriously; we just played the board game a week ago. Could be that my players have just been around the block enough that they are no longer impressed regardless of description or voice.
Something Rando said made a lot of sense. I do feel my voice is silly, but maybe because I'M hearing it. Anyway please keep the suggestions coming and I'll take it all in stride.
I hated running games in stores, to many distractions, to many backseat gms, giving sideline input..just was not worth it, although I did it for a buddy who opened a gamestore , and needed some inhouse games ran, but never again.
Barring playing at home and in person, some of the VTT have some pretty cool options.
Roll20 has a built in jukebox, that in addition to music can play background noises, ambiance (crackling fire, wind and rain..etc) and even has a built in search system for these.
I found a voice changer program, that works with the built in chat and camera system so I can alter my voice on the fly.
Also the Roll20 has some pretty cool fog of war and dynamic lighting options for the VTT, that makes setting up encounters and surprise pretty organic.
But I will always remember a summer when my group played d&d in a storm cellar, with candles and lanterns..that was pretty awesome..
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Why is it that this is what's in my head as I'm GMing, but this is what my players hear? I try to be descriptive but I realize I'm too wordy. I try editing myself on paper then narrating, but it comes across as hokey. Maybe its my players, maybe its me, or maybe some combination. I know my players are having fun but is there a way to make the epic in your head consistently translate out loud?
Being descriptive helps! But it's not the key to convey the full might of a powerful CR encounter, you need a bit of method acting. Make your voice boom as you describe what is going on.
This is me when I introduce a red dragon:
"You can barely keep your PITIFUL MORTAL EYES open as the POWERFUL and MIGHTY wings of the scaled beast start gaining momentum. BURNING air and the nauseous smell of SULFUR grips at your throats. Please dear players roll a Will save versus a fear effect, as the ancient beast STARE DOWN AT THE FUTURE PILES OF ASHES THAT STAND BEFORE HIM."
Notice how I did not use the word dragon, or red. I make their mind race around a bit, filling the blanks. This give them the opportunity to freak out a bit! :D
Learn to improvise and not read text descriptions, these are great for rooms that need a lot of detail, feel free to add a few touches on the spot!
When write a dungeon room:
"The floor of this antechamber is composed of badly damaged white marble tiles, through darkness you are deducing that the room is about 30 feet in height, 50 in width and about 35 in length. There are sculpted marble columns (trapped) to the northern wall of the room"
Now here is me describing the dungeon room live:
"This room is was clearly some sort of entrance, each footstep you take carry a distinct "crystalline" crackling echo. You notice that the floor is mainly composed of broken up white marble plates and that the sheer weight of the heavily armored half-elf barbarian is causing even more damage to what would have been once upon a time a pristine and luxurious antechamber. Finely sculpted marble columns decorate the wall straight ahead of you. In the distance, the flickering-light of your torches reveal what could be semi-precious stone are ornamenting the columns"
If I want my players to go to a trap I try to make them go for the shiny things, I try to avoid numbers and room measurement unless a player ask for it. Notice how I incorporate an element of design of the room in a way that the player interacted, that make them feel more connected with their surrounding, make them remember that yes I am a 250 pound buffed up half-elf in a fullplate and that every steps I take are loud and powerful
My personal trick is to write my material and then let it sit for a while in the back burner of my mind, then I sometime practice it in the shower, my girlfriend think I am crazy mimicking dragon noises while I wash my armpits hahaha!
Whenever my players and I have different visual setups of the room/area, I default to what their visual setups are. After all, it's their world, I'm just GMing in it. I had a player in a hospital hallway say "I tear the fire extinguisher from the wall, fling it at the bad guy, and shoot it while it's in the air so it blows up", and I thought that was such a cool rendition of what was around them that I just went with it, but I did include a caveat, I had the shot pierce a hole in the CO2 cannister, which launched it in a straight line at the baddie and took it clear out the window at the end of the hall, and it turned what would've been a quick but violent altercation into a tense running battle that was far better than had actually visualized in the first place.
Whenever I thought it was going to crucial, I used to have a whiteboard so everyone was on the same page.
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Sorry Mark I caved in long ago. No matter how epic I wanted to make something the players just didnt bite on it. Since everything to them was so "meh" I gave up on homebrewing entirely too much work for me. Good thing Paizo makes awesome gaming material to help me out cause I wouldnt be running anything(D&D/PF at least) if they didnt. Change of venue would help a lot I think. My group doesnt even like playing boardgames at stores and we are close to awesome places like FFG event center.
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Yeah it's almost surprising how well players respond to you when you let go and embrace it like there's no tomorrow.Embrace the hokeyness.
Seriously. The moment you stop caring whether you look or sound like a fool is the moment you stop actually looking or sounding like a fool. You're at a table with friends playing "pretend". Get into the part!
Hell yeah. First Steps III was worth it just for the sea captain that yelled at the ocean. The kids at Space City Con loved my squint-eyed raving. The fact that it was slot three and I was pretty loopy by that point really helped.
One idea for the monsters if you have art of them but don't want to give away what exactly is there is to use Tracing Paper. You get the general outlines and teeth and other things that a general perception check might get and show that to players. (pre-draw this of coarse) Then once they have a better idea of what they are facing, you can show them the full color picture.
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Hell yeah. First Steps III was worth it just for the sea captain that yelled at the ocean. The kids at Space City Con loved my squint-eyed raving. The fact that it was slot three and I was pretty loopy by that point really helped.Yeah it's almost surprising how well players respond to you when you let go and embrace it like there's no tomorrow.Embrace the hokeyness.
Seriously. The moment you stop caring whether you look or sound like a fool is the moment you stop actually looking or sounding like a fool. You're at a table with friends playing "pretend". Get into the part!
I agree. I like to run "serious" games with "serious" stories, but there are times at the table when the best thing to say is simply:
"You kick down the door and it's a mother f*ckin' DRAGON.
*rolls initiative as hard as possible against the GM screen*
One idea for the monsters if you have art of them but don't want to give away what exactly is there is to use Tracing Paper. You get the general outlines and teeth and other things that a general perception check might get and show that to players. (pre-draw this of coarse) Then once they have a better idea of what they are facing, you can show them the full color picture.
Just do an image google search for a lot of the more generic monsters. A buddy of mine just did that for some elementals, for example. (He was looking for them for another, non-rpg project.) Not only were they cool pics, but they were different enough to make even someone who would know the beastiary pics need to roll to ID them.
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Hell yeah. First Steps III was worth it just for the sea captain that yelled at the ocean. The kids at Space City Con loved my squint-eyed raving. The fact that it was slot three and I was pretty loopy by that point really helped.Yeah it's almost surprising how well players respond to you when you let go and embrace it like there's no tomorrow.Embrace the hokeyness.
Seriously. The moment you stop caring whether you look or sound like a fool is the moment you stop actually looking or sounding like a fool. You're at a table with friends playing "pretend". Get into the part!
I agree. I like to run "serious" games with "serious" stories, but there are times at the table when the best thing to say is simply:
"You kick down the door and it's a mother f*ckin' DRAGON.
*rolls initiative as hard as possible against the GM screen*
Improved.
Mark, could you post a sample of what you are reading to the players?
-Md
Md: I'll give you 2 rooms from a recent adventure. One room worked for the guys, the other kinda fizzled. The complex was a cursed tomb that the PCs needed to explore to find an amulet.
Preparation Chamber
The door opens into a cold, damp chamber. The air here is rancid and foul, causing you to gag as bile rises in the back of your throats. In the room are two limestone slabs standing roughly waist high beside a circular grate of corroded iron in the floor. The once ornate metal is now rusted and broken. Overhead a great timber beam strains to the point of bowing to hold back the sagging roof; already many chunks of rock and earth have spilled into the room. Stone shelves cut into the walls hold broken pots, urns and vials. From the depths of the darkened pit beneath the grate there is a sloshing, sucking sound.
The Grand Mortuary
This huge double-chambered hall has fallen into disrepair. Massive timbers that once supported the roof have toppled lying strewn amid piles of broken flagstone like discarded toys. The center of the floor is a mosaic though the enamel is chipped and worn with age. It is clear that runic script was etched into the outer border. The interior diamond and square pattern is made up of alternating slate tiles of olive drab and a dull, rusty hue. In the center of the mosaic a cross of solid iron is embedded in the floor. The twin antechambers of the hall are much larger than your light can fill and the walls are encrusted with macabre ossuary designs made from thousands of skulls and bones.
So the first one was toward the beginning of the night, the other came at the end. The preparation chamber they enjoyed and got into; there was a zombie otyugh in the pit that got a good hold of one PC but the party used their skills as a team to figure out how to collapse the room. The guy that was grappled barely escaped the collapse zone and took minor damage. All in all a fun and exciting room where my players really seemed to understand the epicness.
The grand mortuary by contrast was still fun, but in a much sillier and slapstick kind of way. There were kobolds and a kobold adept 3 hiding amid the rubble. I had a visual of the floor mosaic hand drawn but it was colored in crayon so might have looked less than epic. The players moved into the room, used dancing lights to illuminate the whole place, and I took a couple minutes drawing out everything. A couple perception checks later they attacked the kobolds. The adept leapt out from hiding, did some nearly-lethal damage to the cleric while the paladin who was merely singed took it as an insult to his faith that this creature had charred his holy vestments. He promptly smited and took the BBEG of this zone out with one swing.
All in all the adventure these came from ended up a mixed bag. On the one hand the players had a lot of fun and a few of the encounters really seemed to register with them. Others however just became silly or mediocre in their pathos. I did get an unsolicited compliment out of one player for the adventure so I'm certain they had a good time so maybe I'm being too hard on myself. Do other GMs have games like this, where the overall adventure is fun but some of their encounters are engaging and others are just silly or uninspiring?
I'm not going to lie to you Mark. Both of those descriptions are fantastic!
Maybe you caught them at a goofy moment.
Visual aids are a mixed bag. You can break immersion by passing around a picture. You are a good writer so put your trust in the pen.
I like to add an element to most descriptions that warrant some sort or further exploration and or skill check. When a player bites on that skill check the mystery of the room deepens and it holds everyone's attention a bit more on your description.
For instance the mosaic on the floor, maybe it forms a heraldry or a religious symbol? This allows the player to use a skill drawing him further into your imagination.
You have lucky players Mark.
-MD
On the environment details vs. monster order of description:
The other thing I've found on both sides of the screen, as soon as the monster is described in the room, other details are no longer given much attention, people's minds are occupied with the monster and how it will be dealt with.
I believe, like with any skill, it just takes practice. My pride and joy as a DM/GM is my ability to describe a situation or set a scene. I once had players at another table applaud my description of a black dragon rising from the fetid waters in an ancient, cursed swamp.
My weakness comes from throwing the same old cliche'd adventures at them. If I had your gift for coming up with adventure hooks I'd rule the world! (insert echoes here).
But seriously, just keep trying at it. You'll find a happy medium soon. Just try some ideas out on your players when not "in game mode" and get their feedback--too wordy? Not wordy enough? Does it need different words than the ones you used? Keep a thesaurus handy as you practice. And of course write them down. Have a friend you trust read and edit them. You can do eeeeet!