Box Text

[Gentlegamer]

Ironically, AIR Gygax's Keep on the Borderlands has some good stuff.

Keep on the Borderlands has no boxed text . . . but if it did, why would it be ironic?

 

[T. Foster]

Here's probably my all-time favorite boxed text from a module (I'm not going to say which one, but most of you can probably guess):

As you approach the Temple area, the vegetation is disconcerting - dead trees with a skeletal appearance, scrub growth twisted and unnaturally colored, all unhealthy and sickly looking or exceptionally robust and disgusting. The ruins of the Temple's outer works appear as dark and overgrown mounds of gray rubble and blackish weeds. Skulls and bones of humans and humanoids gleam white here and there amidst the weeds. A grove of some oddly stunted and unhealthy looking usk trees still grows along the northern end of the former Temple compound, and a stump of a tower juts up from the northeast corner of the shattered wall. The leprous gray Temple, however, stands intact, its arched buttresses somehow obscene with their growth and climbing vegetation.

Everything surrounding the place is disgusting. The myriad leering faces and twisting, contorted forms writhing and posturing on every face of the Temple seem to jape at the obsceneties they depict. The growth in the compound is rank and noisome. Thorns clutch, burrs stick, and crushed stems either emit foul stench or raise angry weals on exposed flesh. Worst of all, however, is the pervading fear which seems to overhang the whole area - a smothering, clinging, almost tangible cloud of vileness and horror. Sounds seem distorted, either muffled and shrill or unnaturally loud and grating.

Your eyes play tricks. You see darting movements out of the corner of your eye, just at the edge of vision; but when you shift your gaze towards such, of course, there is nothing there at all. You cannot help but wonder who or what made the maze of narrow paths through the weedy courtyard. What sort of thing would wander here and there around the ghastly edifice of Evil without shrieking and gibbering and going completely mad? Yet the usual mundane sounds of your travel are accompanied only by the chorus of the winds, moaning through hundreds of Temple apertures built to sing like doomed souls given over to the tender mercies of demonkind, echoed by macabre croaks from the scattered flapping, hopping, leering ravens.

There is no doubt; you have come to a place of ineffable Evil. Still, it is most certainly a place for high adventure and untold treasures. It is time to ready spells, draw weapons, check equipment, and set forth into the maze of peril that awaits you.

Of course it breaks all the rules of what boxed text "should" be -- it's far too long, it has assumed actions and assigns thoughts and moods to the characters, it assumes they're approaching from a particular direction and at a particular time of day, etc. And yet, it's just wonderfully evocative, with language that feels like something out of an A. Merritt novel. I can't imagine any description improvised on the spot by the DM could match the power and resonance of this passage. It sets the mood perfectly and lets the players know this is it -- you've finally come to the site of the real adventure. (Alas, the "real adventure" itself is mostly a mundane bore, and the mood evoked by this passage will have dissipated completely long long before they're done with the adventure, but it sure is a nice way to start...

 

[MerricB]

Here's probably my all-time favorite boxed text from a module (I'm not going to say which one, but most of you can probably guess):

There's some nice passages in Necropolis as well, but even longer. At least the mood of the adventure stays with it all the way through in that case!

Cheers!

 

[Rothe]

Here's probably my all-time favorite boxed text from a module (I'm not going to say which one, but most of you can probably guess): ...
Of course it breaks all the rules of what boxed text "should" be -- it's far too long, it has assumed actions and assigns thoughts and moods to the characters, it assumes they're approaching from a particular direction and at a particular time of day, etc. And yet, it's just wonderfully evocative, with language that feels like something out of an A. Merritt novel. I can't imagine any description improvised on the spot by the DM could match the power and resonance of this passage. ...

It's not too long as a introductory set piece, a good thing to read while the players get their dice and character sheets in order. Once the adventure starts flowing it's way too long.

Assumptions about time of day are a good point, but If you assumed daytime that's probably the time all characters would approach a place of great evil.

Well, putting together long passages like that off the top of your head or otherwise is very hard to do, unless you are a gifted story teller.

I like box text if it is well done, i.e., a different box for coming through different doors etc. Up top things you might notice as you approach, a note to the DM if monsters present. It should be right up front. Levels of detail in the text, quick look detail, extended look detail.

I tend to write my own and as the player's ave a standard operating procedure, I can make some assumptions about what they see.

On the Gygax intro here is how I would have presented it...

[qb]

As you approach the Temple area, the vegetation is disconcerting - dead trees with a skeletal appearance, scrub growth twisted and unnaturally colored, all unhealthy and sickly looking or exceptionally robust and disgusting. The ruins of the Temple's outer works appear as dark and overgrown mounds of gray rubble and blackish weeds. Skulls and bones of humans and humanoids gleam white here and there amidst the weeds. A grove of some oddly stunted and unhealthy looking usk trees still grows along the northern end of the former Temple compound, and a stump of a tower juts up from the northeast corner of the shattered wall. The leprous gray Temple, however, stands intact, its arched buttresses somehow obscene with their growth and climbing vegetation.

Everything surrounding the place is disgusting. The myriad leering faces and twisting, contorted forms writhing and posturing on every face of the Temple seem to jape at the obsceneties they depict. The growth in the compound is rank and noisome. Thorns clutch, burrs stick, and crushed stems either emit foul stench or raise angry weals on exposed flesh. Worst of all, however, is the pervading fear which seems to overhang the whole area - a smothering, clinging, almost tangible cloud of vileness and horror.

[/qb] Here is where I would have stopped Ending on vileness and horror.
The illusionary images and sounds I would play out. I've done this before and the players can get really freaked out (things in front, things behind, we walked inot a trap!)before they realize it is an illusion. The players actualy feeling the discomfort is far better than saying your eyes play tricks but of course there is nothing there.

[qb]Still, it is most certainly a place for high adventure and untold treasures. It is time to ready spells, draw weapons, check equipment, and set forth into the maze of peril that awaits you.

[/qb]

You really didn't read this did you? I mean isn't that assumed for any module, high adventure, treasure; and if you didn't have your weapon out already when you first saw things out of the corner of your eye, your doomed.

 

[hong]

You really didn't read this did you? I mean isn't that assumed for any module, high adventure, treasure; and if you didn't have your weapon out already when you first saw things out of the corner of your eye, your doomed.

D00d. The first rule of chewing scenery is to state the obvious. Several times, if possible.

 

[S'mon]

Now I'm not a writer, so please don't judge me on my grammar or anything like that. I'm just wondering if this is bad boxed text for a group that's 50% roleplaying & 50% hack-n-slash. What makes this good or bad?

I like your boxed text. Nice short punchy sentences, good cadence. Very un-Necropolis.

 

[S'mon]

Keep on the Borderlands has no boxed text . . . but if it did, why would it be ironic?

Because I hated the endless boxed text of Necropolis. That ToEE text looks too long, also.

 

[adwyn]

In general I cringe at most box text, but several years ago I ran across a format I did like (in a federal govt training course of all things).

The boxed text was restricted to a single sentence and then there would be 3-5 talking points in bullet format that needed to be included in the description. An unimaginative reader could still stumble, but it gave a start and then let the DM (or training facilitator in govt speak) convey the information in a more natural way while making sure the important information was there.

 

[jmucchiello]

so is this considered bad boxed text:

My problem with this is I have no idea where I am. Am I on a cobblestone street where the houses are close together or in the town square? If the streets are narrow I can't see the square because of the houses, and yet I can also see the amphitheater. If it read more like a travelogue (things to see in the seaside town) rather than are present tense action it would work better for me.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Because I hated the endless boxed text of Necropolis. That ToEE text looks too long, also.

Fair enough, though I'm pretty sure Frank Mentzer wrote the boxed text for ToEE.