Boxed Text or No Boxed Text?

[Charwoman Gene]

You enter the chamber. The scent of mildew wafts from the dungeon walls.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'm with the majority here.

I like having it there, but I rarely read it aloud verbatim.

 

[Hussar]

I like the boxed text as well, and, like Demiurge, feel that it should be short and to the point. If it's longer than about six to ten lines, it's too much and should be broken up. I should be able to read it out loud in under ten seconds.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I voted against boxed text, but there's a caveat: The description of the encounter area has to be sufficiently well written that it's easily summarized, and clear if certain information is intended for the PCs on first examination or not.

What the Mouse said. My PCs dislike the 'canned' feel of boxtext, but they like a good description. Give me the important features and I'll do the rest, preferably with some evocative music playing softly in the background.

 

[the Jester]

I like boxed text and sometimes write it into my own adventures. I often (but not always) read it verbatim, so that's how I voted. In truth, if this poll was multiple choice, I would have also voted that I don't read it verbatim- I often paraphrase.

 

[jmucchiello]

I hate boxed text so much that I sometimes have trouble reading premade adventures because authors put important information about the encounter in the boxed text and I gloss over it making the rest of the encounter key read as gibberish.

I think I've been burned by bad boxed text in the past. I would read it and then realize how badly written it was. OR worse, that it made stupid assumptions:

You see a statue of a man holding a chicken. The statue is warm to the touch

DM: (reading about the trap) Oh, make a saving throw.
Player 1: Wait a minute, I never said I entered the room. How do I know it's warm?
Player 2: Yeah, no one touched the statue.
DM: erk.

 

[VorpalWarrior69]

I can completely understand that its a pain in the rear for you guys who actually write adventures, but I can emphatically say that as a consumer I need it, love it, want it. I NEED the boxed text when I DM, because I don't have a flair for descriptions, atmosphere, turns of phrases, etc. If I don't have the text available, I'm just as likely to say "You enter a 20x20 room...roll initiative". I'm buying the adventures to help fill in the uncomfortable spaces between combats.

 

[Ranger REG]

I've always been curious what people prefer. In my current group, my girlfriend has a really hard time following when I read off boxed text. I pretty much just summarize what's there now for ease of play. How do you do it?

I try not to read it, like a script. I try to narrate it, as if they're my own words.

If it does sounds weird coming out of your mouth, feel free to reword them.

 

[Vegepygmy]

In my experience, players start to "tune out" as soon as the DM starts reading the boxed text. And it doesn't seem to make any difference whether it's read monotonously or with a decent attempt at delivery. (An outstanding attempt at delivery will do the trick, but not many text-boxes lend themselves to outstanding deliveries.) The same players will, however, if the DM extemporaneously describes the area without boxed text, pay close attention.

For that reason, I find boxed text to be a waste of space.

 

[shilsen]

Last time I ran across some boxed text I ran over it. And then back up over it again to make sure it was dead.