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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CharlesRyan" data-source="post: 3343917" data-attributes="member: 5265">I love boxed text, and I even write it into my own adventure notes.I never read it verbatim, because even if I wrote it myself, it never comes out with the right rhythm or cadence--despite the fact that I'm both a decent writer and a decent speaker, it's nearly impossible to avoid that monotone sound when you're reading a snippit of exposition. Plus, eye contact with players is key when building a scene--and it's hard to make eye contact when your nose is deep in your notes.So why bother? Because:A) When well written, it succinctly encapsulates the initial impression of the encounter/area--not just the key facts (size of room, number of doors) but also (perhaps more importantly) the atmosphere and mood of the scene.B) It's a great quick-reference; as GM you can scan through the adventure and get a sense of what's to come without reading full entries.C) It's a great memory-jogger--even if you've read (or written) the whole thing before, it helps to have a few evocative sentences of text called out to put your head back into the scene.The key to making it work is to keep it short (seriously--one or two sentences), never assume a particular point of view (a trick to success here: never use the word "you" in the text), and restrict yourself to just the impression a person would get in their first second or two on the scene. Additional details can follow in the main text, or even be called out in a second box to be referenced when the PCs are studying the scene more deliberately.Seriously, I bet the 50/50 love/hate split among gamers probably correlates closely to the 50/50 good/really awful split of boxed text out there. Probably most of the people who hate it have had some bad experiences with boxed text--and given how much crappy boxed text has been published over the past 30 years, that shouldn't be a surprise.</blockquote>

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