Boxed Text - A Railrod Sign, or Great tool for Immersion? Both?

[renau1g]

Heh. This reminds me of the scene in The Gamers in which the DM is trying to launch into the bandit king's cliched monologue only to be interrupted by a player who wants to shoot him, mid sentence, with his bow. The DM gets progressively more frustrated as the player tries no less than three times to interrupt him to shoot the long-winded bandit king.

Same happened to me. Playing the Savage Tide first adventure:

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The PC's were tricked into the hole, when Valthus (sp?) appeared above them to gloat and laugh, the rogue fired his crossbow at crit'd him, almost killing him (according to the stat block he only had like 2 or 3 hp left)
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[Novem5er]

I find that boxed text in modules is usually only cursorily listened to by players. They listen once for any CRITICAL information (dragon... treasure... orc horde, etc) but the details are tuned out. Inevitably I have to repeat all the details multiple times, in different words, so that all of the players get it.

Still, not all players hate it. I find that older players like it, I think because it gives a structure to the game that is reminenscent of older editions, while I think younger players ignore it due to many combinations of factors.

However, a few months ago I did something kind of neat. A particular evening of adventuring had a spooky, alien setting and I wanted to really portray a sense of mystery and isolation. Since my past narrative descriptions had been constantly interrupted by questions, jokes, or comments, I decided to try something completely different.

Before the adventure, I wrote out several descriptive "scenes" using just a few sentences each. Then, I printed a copy for each player, cut them out, and handed them out during the adventure when the scenes arrived.

I asked all players to hold their comments until everyone signaled they were done reading. It worked brilliantly and most everyone loved it. My descriptions were more vivid because I put extra thought into them (instead of winging it like I usually do). Also, the solo reading kept the table quiet, let everyone absorb the info at their own pace, and the silence really added to the sense of alien isolation I was going for.

Since the players were literally on the Dark Side of Selune... it was great!

I haven't done it since then, but I do try to write little descriptive "snippets" for certain scenes. I find that I often dont read these snippets word for word to the players, but the simple act of writing them down ahead of time really helps me deliver them more naturally, and from memory, than if I had just winged it.

 

[Crothian]

Writing and being able to use box text is an art form and one that may be harder to do then people first realize. Players though sometimes react badly to boxed text and can ruin it for the game, so it is something that every one at the table needs to be able to help work.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

[Stuff on initiative and being flat-footed.]

(This is an aside to the thread, and I won't be pursuing it further. (Thus no fork.) If you're just interested in the main topic, you can safely skip this.)

You're partially correct, but partially incorrect.

Intiative is rolled at "the start of each battle." (All quotes are from the SRD.) 3.5 isn't perfectly clear on when a "battle" starts, but it's pretty clear that attempts at parley aren't the start of battle, and nor is a villain's soliloquy. An encounter, in short, is not the same thing as a battle.

As a DM, I call for initiative whenever any party in the encounter does something that any opposed party has a chance to perceive as hostile. I suspect that nearly every DM uses this metric, even if he or she hasn't given it much thought.

A given combatant is flat-footed "before [he has] had a chance to act (specifically, before [he has had his] first regular turn in the initiative order)."

So, yes, heroes can interrupt a grandstanding villain by declaring a hostile action, at which point all involved roll initiative. If the heroes beat the villain on initiative, yes, the villain is flat-footed. (Not "surprised." Flat-footed and surprised are separate concepts for a reason.) Part of the very point of initiative is to determine who is caught slower on the draw when hostilities erupt.

What does this mean in practice? Well, a few things:

You can't walk around with a permanently readied action. You can't even ready an action while a villain is giving his speech. You cannot ready an action out of combat.

You can raise your bow and point it unswervingly at the villain (and I'd recommend it; it's certainly what I'd do!), but the millisecond you twitch with the intent to release that nocked arrow, the DM should call for initiative.

If you want the heroes to listen to the soliloquy, you need to give them reasons to do so. In the past, for instance, not listening to the Big Bad in my game has led to the unintended (by the heroes) death of innocents. There are all sorts of reasons to listen: information, because it's just interesting, because the heroes are amazed that the villain is this freakin' crazy, whatever.

But if the heroes have no reason to listen to the villain, then it's stupid for the heroes to listen to the villain. One of them should declare he's shooting the villain in the throat! "Roll for initiative!"

 

[Dzyu]

I used boxed texts alot before, but noticing how little my players actually got out of it I started experimenting with enhancements to delivering atmospheric descriptions. I've had great success with adding preselected pieces of music or atmospheric sound recordings to accentuate events, especially crescendoing ones. Part of the success involves alot of time searching for the right music plus rehearsing the "script", so it is a bit too time demanding to use regularly. As part of a climactic event it's great though, and the praise I've gotten from this is very flattering.
Nowadays I mostly only write down cues for descriptions. Being good at winging it means you have done this over and over again so many times you know it by heart. It's something you train to be better at. Writing down short adaptable scripts, rehearsing them, and expanding your vocabulary, can work wonders for your ad-libbing skills, and your players won't feel railroaded as your "boxed text" is adaptable and in your mind so you can stay connected with your players.

 

[pawsplay]

In my view, boxed text, or spoken narration, should signal:
- Information gained from the senses
- The passage of time
- Events

Everything beyond that... mood, attitude, scene-setting... should come from my choice of words and how I field questions from the players when I am done narrating. I definitely believe less is more. At the same time, eloquence is an underestimated quality. I like to think of boxed text as a sort of haiku, a significant and moving image but not something that demands a particular interpretation.

I don't have to tell my players they feel dread if the situation calls for it, and if I try to and they don't, it won't work anyway. I might describe supernatural dread because that would be palpable to most characters, but even then I would not specify a particular reaction. As a GM, I feel like I should not be telling players what their characters do unless:

- The character fails a saving throw/morality check/some other measure of in-game events that the player does not experience, or
- I absolutely have to.

If I dictate actions because of my preference, or my artistic instinct, I am taking away a player's authorial privilege.

 

[Jhaelen]

As a DM I don't mind if a module has boxed texts. But I've never, ever actually read them aloud. I'm always paraphrasing the texts using my own words if I use them at all.

As a player I can't stand DMs reading boxed text allowed. That's guaranteed to make me drowsy.

 

[Oryan77]

As a player I can't stand DMs reading boxed text allowed. That's guaranteed to make me drowsy.

I had a player once yell at me because I started reading boxed text. She didn't even let me finish reading before she did this. She started comparing me to her old DM and said, "He never read to us, he described it in his own words!" She doesn't play with us anymore

As I said earlier, I do it both and ad-lib as I'm reading. This is how I DM and I feel it helps me run a better game. If a player makes a big deal about this type of thing and can't cut a DM some slack, well, he can DM us and we'll see how perfect he is at DMing

 

[Voadam]

As a player if the DM tells me I feel someting I expect it to be because something is physically making my character feel that way (such as supernatural dread). I get annoyed if the DM reads boxed text and tells everyone we are shaking in fright and it turns out its just because the author/DM thought the scene was scary. Double annoyance if I completely disagree on the scariness of the scene. Same if it says something like "you bow your heads in reverence as he . . ."

I like boxed text that tells you sensory information such as a room description as you enter. I use boxed text in modules but I edit them if they ascribe feelings or actions to the PCs.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I like boxed text. As long as it doesn't go on too long. I find DMs who are improvising descriptions often miss vital details of a room because they just assume everyone knows what they do. Boxed text is at least a way to put all of the important information down in advance to make sure it's there.

But then again, I don't have a problem with what a lot of people would call "railroading". I mostly prefer it, actually. To me, I like the feeling of knowing that the battle I'm about to fight was set up in advance with forethought as an epic conclusion to the storyline involving the missing princess. Even if it meant we were always supposed to find the princess in the abandoned warehouse eventually.

It's just more fun for me than knowing that the DM decided 5 minutes before the combat that this would be be a good time to end the story and looked up some human thugs in the monster manual in order to have a final battle.