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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6672404" data-attributes="member: 4937">I try to avoid miniatures whenever possible, for two reasons.  First, because it slows down play.  And second, because it tends to move the imagination of the player from the first person perspective to the third person.  The player ceases to imagine the situation that they are in, and instead just thinks in terms of the too simple tokens and maps that reference that situation.I agree that it is important to tell the players what they see, hear, and smell, but I draw the line at telling them what they feel.  It's not my job to play the PC.  If the PC believes his character would handle the hardship stoically, or the PC believes his character finds the time in the jungle refreshing and beautiful, it's not my job to tell the PC otherwise.So I would rewrite your lede to remove all direct emotional content, and say the same thing something like this:How the players are supposed to emotionally respond to this or characterize their response to this is up to the player and their imagination.  Ideally, I'd have players that can respond to my lede, but I don't at the moment have a particularly thespian group, so that part of play isn't particular in the foreground at least with this group.  As a player, I find it jarring when the DM takes a directorial stance and tells me my motivations and feelings in the scene.As for vagueness, the easiest thing in the world is to be vague.  While it's true that vagueness allows for flexibility, the danger in not being concrete is that IME the more likely outcome is that anything left unsaid doesn't exist.  If the floor doesn't start out rocky and uneven, with a marked slope to the east, then the floor will be featureless.   Even worse, there can be a dangerous trap that DMs can inadvertently introduce whereby they discourage players from asking questions or investigating the environment.  The most succinct example is the trap on the door that didn't exist until the player choose to search for it.  There is a tendency among DMs that are vague to bias their in game detailing toward creating conflict and complications, with the result that the wise metagamer avoids providing the DM fodder by exploring or interacting with the environment.  The last thing I want to do is get into a situation where I'm punishing the players exploration of the shared imaginary space.Yes.... well.  There is that.</blockquote>

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