"You open the door and see an empty room with two more doors on the other side." This sentence is a simple and effective way to describe a basic scenario in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons, and it works. Still, suppose you only describe things in this simple faction. In that case, you're missing the opportunity of adding some flair to the whole thing, and flair is a fun way to engage players and give them more opportunities to interact with the scene or people.
What can you do to this poor empty room besides adding some much-needed furniture, then? There are a few things you can try to get yo🐟ur players invested here or in other scenarios.
5 Focus On What They're Exactly Seeing
Even if this truly is an empty room, what details can they still spot? What materials do they see on the floor or walls? Is there some type of damage on them? It may look irrelevant, and it can be⛦, depending on your plot, but that helps them paint a clearer picture in their🌌 heads, and even without any particular objects, this can give them additional information, such as how long it has been since someone passed through this place, or odd details on the floor or walls that may represent secret passages, and you can either give those for free or ask for a perception check first.
The same applies to people. You can narrate a possible encounter by saying, "You 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:see a Goblin, and they get ready to attack you." But you can add more details from what they're currently seeing, like "you see a small little creature, with green skin and red eyes, looking at you; they slowly show a crooked smile as they see you, and proceed to place their hand on their bow, as they use their other hand to retrieve an arrow from their quiver."
This is especially effective if it is the first Goblin encounter, and the characters don't really know what the creatures look like. That said, once they get familiar with Goblins, you don't need to say something vague every time they see one.
Then, you can narrate the movements without vagueness, such as "The Goblin♍ proceeds to wave their arms above them, formulating a fiery energy, which they launch towards [insert a PC name here]," instead of just saying they used Fire Bolt.
4 🃏 ✤ Use Their Other Senses
With all that said, vision💦 is not your only sense, so take🌸 advantage of everything else. Even if the characters are in full darkness, for example, what do they hear? What do they smell?
Adding all senses in a scene description makes things more immersive and can also give additional information - any extra detail you give𒅌 is𒐪 additional information.
If their investigation was too low to find a dead body, but not that low of a number, you could talk about the stench the body gave to the room they are in - and smelly bodies also show the person may be dead for a while, too. ꦅAs another example, they may not be able to see through a door, but nothing stops them to try and hear something on the other side before opening it, making a valid perception check.
They can also function as indicators in dre🐷adful situations. Attacks that cause thunder damage would be loud, as well as most spells that cause explosions. Constant fire damage could also make the plac🗹e smell, which could be how they find out a fight is happening near them.
NPCs can𒉰 have certain smells, if relevant, too, from a noble full of perfume to a drunken chara🥃cter smelling like their favorite drink.
3 Roll First, Narrate Second ꧟
Rolling the dice first will help connect things better. What's the point of describing a deadly attack from the enemy, only for you to roll a natural one later and have to come up with a miss? To be fair, that can cause a funny situation, but if you see the details first, you can put everything together easily.
Still, by rolling first, you can see if you have to describe a powerful strike or a failure. It's similar to how you likely do things in non-combat scenarios; First, you 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:let them roll perception to hear something, then you tell them what they've heard, right? It's the same idea during fighting as well.
As an extra tip, avoid simply saying things failed, and that's it. Their actions can fail, sure, but give them a better description.
If they try to be sneaky and fail, have them step on something that makes noise, making an accidental noise in general, have them bump into𓂃 an enemy, or whatever other description 🌸rather than just saying, "You fail, they saw you."
2 Action
The party enters a shop. "You see the shopkeeper." Okay, but what are they doing? Besides describing the appearance and all, it's crucial to give some action to them.
Talking to other customers, tidying things at the shop, or being the first to spea🌳k, since shopkeepers will likely approach potential customers first and kickstart the interaction.
The Goblin enemy, who hasn't spotted the party yet, isn't just standing still. Are they on watch, getting sleepy, or doing a number one on the bushes? NPCs aren't just doing nothing until the players interact with them. They're people and need to be doing something.
Focus on what the character should be doing, whether it's something important or silly, and add that to the whole situation. Still, as a bonus tip: This action doesn't need to be unique, and it's okay to repeat them between characters.
Guards roaming the city will more or less do the same, even if you change a few details. Because, let's face it, coming up with something unique every time will be exhausting (the same applies to most tips here: you don't need to do them in every interaction and character; Minor NPCs are just that).
Feel free to make a list of basic actions if you want some backup, or just incorporate your body movement into it, such as looking to the sides while talking or letting your sneezes be in character in case you couldn't hold it.
1 ♍ References ♋
Referencing something during your descriptions is quite helpful, and that works particularly well if you and the group are long-time friends. You can just say the NﷺPC looks like Ryan Reynolds and give them a comic side as he has in his movies.
Considering everyone in the group is familiar with him and his humor, it'll be quick to pick up, you don't need to describe the character a lot, and your 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:players might really like your NPC depending on their opinion of the actor.
Books are also very efficient here since they are masters at describing things with nothing but words. Don't be afraid to copy how books describe places or people and add them to your narration.
In fact, as a bonus t🔯ip, read books; they will help you a lot by giving you many examples.
And you don't need necessarily to reference pop culture only. For example, you can use a common friend between you and your party as a reference for appearance or behavior.
Bonus: Let The Players Describe Things, Too
You may be the hand that guides the other people in the group, but you're not the sole storyteller in a D&D table, and trying to do that all the time will be tiresome. If you give the player all the proper details, and they succeed in whatever they want to do due to their roll, you can just ask, "Okay, you passed, so how do you open the door?" and let them describe it.
Another fun way to implement this is during combat. If a player manages to zero someone's health bar, you can ask them how they wish to knock down or kill the said enemy, and they can narrate the scene in all of its gory details.
It doesn't have to be you all the time, even if it will be most of the time.