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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Michael_R_Proteau" data-source="post: 3340435" data-attributes="member: 48658">No matter how well-written, a writer is not going to match my natural speaking cadence with boxed text. So reading the boxed text becomes obvious to a careful listener whether or not the DM reads ina monotone or not, because the reading will be in a different cadence than the DM's natural speech pattern. I don't mind if a published adventure includes boxed text, but I will paraphrase it not read it to keep my natural cadence and flow. I have played with a guy who joked every time a DM/GM read boxed text that someone in the group must have cast a "detect boxed text" spell, or would announce during play-"I enter the room and cast detect boxed text, what do I find out?" Even without commentary like that it becomes obvious this is an exposition moment in the game. The challenge-if it is indoors-what light source will the players use? Do I write a boxed text for a torch, another for a lantern, another for darkvision, another for some magical light source etc. They all have different radius of illumination so a player at a door in a dungeon room will not see as much if using a torch with a 20 ft. illumination as a lantern with 30 ft. If it's a 30 x 30 room, you can't see the far corner with a torch but could with a lantern. If it is an outdoors encounter-do I write one boxed text if it is daytime and several for night time woith different illuminations? Do I write one for each possible weather condition? One for each possible light source again?Even well-written boxed text cannot possible account for all the various possibilities and variables that adventuring in that environment can present. I much prefer all the relevant description information be presented in the first paragraph in fairly straightdforward terms (I would actually prefer a bullet list rather than prose actually) that allows me as DM (or any DM) to process the information and customize it to the specifics of the group playing. So instead of:You look in the doorway and see a 30 ft. x 30 ft. room with an overturned table and trash littered over the floor. A doorway stands opposite you in the south wall, and a pile of sacks are stacked in the corner. A stench of rotting flesh fills the room. I would rather have something like this:-30 x 30 room-doors in north and south wall-overturned table hides a kobold corpse on the south side-trash litters floor-stack of sacks in southeast corner-no lightsource except what party brings in-room stinks of rotting flesh, may be detected as they approach form the corridors in either direction..and then go into details and mechanics of that particular room that the party would discover by exploration rather than upon a casual sweep of the room from the doorway. -M</blockquote>

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