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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 6879423" data-attributes="member: 20323">Hah, I think my use of the words "show" and "tell" are throwing you off from what I intended. After all, I was equating "tell" with read-aloud text & beginner players, whereas [MENTION=80982]pdzoch[/MENTION] equates "show" with read-aloud text & beginner players. So maybe those are the wrong terms to use...I was framing two polar extremes as a way to discuss the OP:I interpreted "what the players actually feel, see, smell, and interact with" as being about explicitly telling the GM what to tell the players. Boxed text is one form of this approach. Another form of this approach might be reductionist presentations like:[OOC]Vampire's Theatre: 20' x 25' foot room with a raised stage occupying half and seating for 20 human-sized creatures occupying the other half, the stage is separated from the seating by a scarlet curtain, dim light from black candles in small alcoves spaced every 5', heady smell of pig tallow from the candles, cool wind flowing under concealed door marked on map. 5 vampire spawn in masks behind curtain.[/OOC]In the hands of some DMs that's perfect for their needs. It covers the physical parameters of the room, and from those parameters the DM can evoke a mood with his or her storytelling technique (DISCLAIMER: I'm using "storytelling" in the common sense of entertaining a group with changes in tone, voices, onomatopoeia, word choice, framing, etc. I'm NOT using it in a "you should railroad the party" sense that some gamers interpret it as.) In the hands of other DMs, whether the text describes the candles as "black" or "purple", and whatever smells are in the room according to the text, is immaterial. Those are details that the DM can improvise in play IF the adventure makes it clear what motif/genre/theme it's working with. For these DMs, how well the adventure evokes and inspires their own imagination in a certain direction organically leads to the DM evoking the mood for the players with his or her description.Basically, some DMs work best from physical description > describing the mood of a scene.Whereas other DMs work best from a thematic description > describing the particular physical description of a location.That was the core difference I was trying to describe.And it's not "one or the other." Like with most things, adventure writing is a spectrum not a binary black/white switch. Setting up these sorts of poles, however, helps us discuss topics like this where someone says "adventures that do XY is bad."</blockquote>

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