As a counter opinion, be brief. Your players know what a dungeon or a castle or a graveyard look like. Give a one to two sentence description of the room, mention where they can go, and describe whatever is in the way. “You’re in a dimly lit 30x30 study in the castle. There are closed wooden doors to the north and east. An animated suit of armor approaches you menacingly. “. If the players need more info they’ll ask and you can have them make skill checks as necessary. Don’t forget the two most important things about narration: it pads session time and whenever you are talking, the players are not playing.
So, I always draw my rooms. Or repurpose a preexisting map. It will give you much better understanding of what you’re describing. If you’re playing Theatre Of The Mind it’s important to give your players elements of the environment that can be utilized. start with sensory stuff, then give shapes/textural examples, and then give Key elements (i.e doors, tables, chandeliers etc.)
“As you enter the cave the smell of fungal growth seeps into your bodies. The air is choked and dry, and the distant sound of bats screeching can be heard. The room before you is a roughly oval. The ground gently rises in the north west corner. The room is dark, but those of you with dark vision can see hundreds stalagmites hanging above you.” (Dc 15 Perception reveals that several of these stalagmites are loose.)
Describing the literal size of rooms doesn’t always help your players understand how big or small a room is. If the situation arises the players will ask for a specific dimension. This way when your players are being chased by a hoard of angry hill giants, then your wizard may remember the loose stalagmites. Then he can cast earthquake and cause them to fall on the Giants. That’s where the strength of TOTM really shines.
The hardest thing is not over explains the room. In a moment of drama the description is important so be dramatic, but afterwards, just answer questions with normal terminology (How wide is the room? “35 feet”)
As an inexperienced DM, this is something that puzzles me, and it applies very much to published adventures too. IRL if I opened a door and there was a MINOTAUR in the room, my first reaction would be "OMG THERE'S A MINOTAUR IN THIS ROOM!" and only then would I start to notice room size, etc. So why is there this convention of describing size, furniture, smell, whatever before getting to the most important thing?
(Actually my IRL reaction to entering a room is to see if there are any interesting books around. Eventually I might get around to saying hello to the people/minotaurs in there.)
The reason for this is because if you start off describing the major threat, the players will tune out the other details while their mind is racing for what to do. However, that also doesn't mean you should give a lengthy description, then just throw the Minotaur in at the end. It should be more brief than normal, certainly, but even with a glaring threat, they're bound to notice a few details.
For example: "As you open the door, you see a cramped room, with various barrels and flipped over furniture. A single lit torch gives the room some ominous lighting as movement catches your eye in the center of the room. Slowly rising as he grins is a large Minotaur, menacingly brandishing his axe. Your nostrils fill with the stench of rotting teeth as he leans forward and unleashes a mighty roar. I need everyone to roll initiative!"
This helps gives some context to the room, but they still wouldn't notice the small sheet of paper barely peaking out from underneath a broken table until after taking care of the immediate threat. (It wouldn't let me unbold lol)
I've had a problem where players feel they don't get enough but I don't want them to think something is super important when it isn't. I had a temple and an altar and I told them: the temple is ruined and the original god's symbol has been graffitied over by cultists and through the window, you see 2 bodies on the altar, one of a red female dragonborn adult and one of a red female dragonborn child. They have stab wounds in their chest.
I let them interact and they were able to determine the original temple's god, who made it, why, as well as figuring out who the red dragonborn were, how they died, and how long their death was, as well as a trail of blood.
Yet they still didn't feel they had enough interaction. I'm unsure what I could've told them that wouldn't take up game time as needless information. I didn't think the size or color of the temple mattered, just the architecture. If it was a cathedral, I'd call it such. If it was a shrine, I'd say so. But I'm not sure how they want me to adjust the descriptions.
Thanks a lot DM4Life. The Template you gave there for describing a room couldn´t be made better. Im really happy to find this and being able to use in my Campaign as an DM. It´s even usable to describe any kind of area. Im really thankful :)
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As a counter opinion, be brief. Your players know what a dungeon or a castle or a graveyard look like. Give a one to two sentence description of the room, mention where they can go, and describe whatever is in the way. “You’re in a dimly lit 30x30 study in the castle. There are closed wooden doors to the north and east. An animated suit of armor approaches you menacingly. “. If the players need more info they’ll ask and you can have them make skill checks as necessary. Don’t forget the two most important things about narration: it pads session time and whenever you are talking, the players are not playing.
So, I always draw my rooms. Or repurpose a preexisting map. It will give you much better understanding of what you’re describing. If you’re playing Theatre Of The Mind it’s important to give your players elements of the environment that can be utilized. start with sensory stuff, then give shapes/textural examples, and then give Key elements (i.e doors, tables, chandeliers etc.)
“As you enter the cave the smell of fungal growth seeps into your bodies. The air is choked and dry, and the distant sound of bats screeching can be heard. The room before you is a roughly oval. The ground gently rises in the north west corner. The room is dark, but those of you with dark vision can see hundreds stalagmites hanging above you.” (Dc 15 Perception reveals that several of these stalagmites are loose.)
Describing the literal size of rooms doesn’t always help your players understand how big or small a room is. If the situation arises the players will ask for a specific dimension. This way when your players are being chased by a hoard of angry hill giants, then your wizard may remember the loose stalagmites. Then he can cast earthquake and cause them to fall on the Giants. That’s where the strength of TOTM really shines.
The hardest thing is not over explains the room. In a moment of drama the description is important so be dramatic, but afterwards, just answer questions with normal terminology (How wide is the room? “35 feet”)
OMG thank u so much this helped me a lot!!
im a tad bit fruity
The reason for this is because if you start off describing the major threat, the players will tune out the other details while their mind is racing for what to do. However, that also doesn't mean you should give a lengthy description, then just throw the Minotaur in at the end. It should be more brief than normal, certainly, but even with a glaring threat, they're bound to notice a few details.
For example: "As you open the door, you see a cramped room, with various barrels and flipped over furniture. A single lit torch gives the room some ominous lighting as movement catches your eye in the center of the room. Slowly rising as he grins is a large Minotaur, menacingly brandishing his axe. Your nostrils fill with the stench of rotting teeth as he leans forward and unleashes a mighty roar. I need everyone to roll initiative!"
This helps gives some context to the room, but they still wouldn't notice the small sheet of paper barely peaking out from underneath a broken table until after taking care of the immediate threat. (It wouldn't let me unbold lol)
I've had a problem where players feel they don't get enough but I don't want them to think something is super important when it isn't. I had a temple and an altar and I told them: the temple is ruined and the original god's symbol has been graffitied over by cultists and through the window, you see 2 bodies on the altar, one of a red female dragonborn adult and one of a red female dragonborn child. They have stab wounds in their chest.
I let them interact and they were able to determine the original temple's god, who made it, why, as well as figuring out who the red dragonborn were, how they died, and how long their death was, as well as a trail of blood.
Yet they still didn't feel they had enough interaction. I'm unsure what I could've told them that wouldn't take up game time as needless information. I didn't think the size or color of the temple mattered, just the architecture. If it was a cathedral, I'd call it such. If it was a shrine, I'd say so. But I'm not sure how they want me to adjust the descriptions.
Thanks a lot DM4Life. The Template you gave there for describing a room couldn´t be made better. Im really happy to find this and being able to use in my Campaign as an DM. It´s even usable to describe any kind of area. Im really thankful :)