Every single one of those descriptions could be a whole lot better if they were described in 3rd person terms. By including the word, "YOU" in the description implies that you are dictating what the PC's are doing.
Your goal is to "paint a background that the players can interact with." You can see the _industry standard_ in DUNGEON magazine, where the worlds best examples can be found of GOOD read aloud text and as a DM, YOU should try to speak that way until a player tells you what they did
You'll also see this noted in the Living Greyhawk Writer's Guidebook and the
DUNGEON submission guidelines.
I'll give you two examples to help illustrate my point:
Example 1 (good/industry standard): The room is lit by a single torch
on the far wall. A door stands ajar to the right of the door and a
faint whispering sound emerges from beyond. A red tapestry of some
ancient design is hanging on the wall left of the door. A book lies
open on a table in the middle of the room.
Example 2 (not desirable) : As you enter the room, you see a torch
on the far wall. You pick up and read a book on the table and see
that there's some writing about Zagyg. You note that Zagyg was a mad
archmage and then you think to yourself, "Why would a mad archmage
write a book". Then you examine a red tapestry on the wall. You
think it's suloise writing about the rain of colorless fire, which you
remember is the catestrophy that occurred to create the sea of dust.
You then think to yourself how scared you are because of all this
wierd stuff. Next, listening beyond the door, you hear a whispering.
You surmise it's probably elvish.
The term "YOU" is acceptable if you are fading to black or simply
trying to move the scenario along. Example: "The lights go out and
the room darkens after the lever has been lifted. The door is
obliterated by a rapidly closing stone barrier. The gas is filling
the room quickly. You eventually pass out. ...Later you awaken in
the house of Elrond.
Anyway, it's tempting to use the word "YOU" in your writing, but go
back and rewrite one of your read-aloud text paragraphs without it and
YOU'll see how much more 'interactive' your encounters will look.
I looked through a couple hundred encounters over the past couple months in DUNGEON and also in the worlds longest dungeon-crawl, "Return to TOEE." Even through all those, I only found "YOU" in only about 1/50th of the read aloud text boxes. It was effectively used when you must lead the PC's by the nose or when a voice speaks to the whole group (or an item affects the whole group). For example, I saw it used to get PC's TO the first encounter. I also saw it as "if the PC's approach the statue the DM's should read this: The voice speaks to you in a loud booming voice, 'you shall be killed for your insolence."
Otherwise, it's better to paint a picture to interact with.
Simply using "you" and "appears" all the time railroads the PCs at
every turn and makes them think that everything is an illusion.
"Appears" is the same thing as saying, "You see" in an encounter or
players at your table say the words, "I disbelieve" you'd better be
thinking of ME
I'm not advocating a blanket banning of "YOU [act]," just it's proper
use in only paragraphs where it's necessary to lead PC's by the nose
or where the entire party is being addressed by something or someone.
I'm just as guilty in my old scenarios as everyone else, but have
SEEN THE LIGHT! AMEN!
My last example is the problem with saying "As you enter the room, inevitably, somebody
says "I NEVER SAID I ENTERED THE ROOM." You see a book is not that
bad, but isn't there a better way to paint the picture of the book
laying on the table
The worst case I ever saw was in an LC scenario (it sticks in my mind
to this day): "As you enter the room, the gargoyle from behind the
door jumps out and attacks you with surprise." Ick.
OK, my long rant on the subject is over
jh
