Description

[Azure Trance]

I noticed a little while ago that while I did have the basics of DMing down, one aspect of it which could use much more work, and have great payoffs, was being descriptive. Their not so much about plot (which had a nice write up in Dragon 303) though the roleplayingtips.com does have a lot of information on that too. From locales, to describing NPCs, to how they talk to your PCs ... here's a collection of links from www.roleplayingtips.com

City Places (Fantasy & Lo-Tech Worlds)
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/articles/city_places.php

Writing the Effective Villian
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/articles/writing_the_effective_villain.php

The GM As A Public Speaker
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/issue4.html

Top 5 Ways To More Compelling Encounters
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/issue11.html and the descriptions themselves at http://www.roleplayingtips.com/encounters.html

8 NPC Parley Tricks
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/issue25.html

Readers Feedback to 8 NPC Parley Tips 1
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/issue26.html#3

Readers Feedback to 8 NPC Parley Tips 2
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/issue27.html#reader

More Readers' Feedback
From: Tim Maruyama

Find a good thesaurus and make a list of "action verbs". For example, a mace or warhammer shouldn't just hit an orc, but rather crush, smite, beat, or pound it. A spear should pierce, stab, impale, or run through a bandit, and so on.

Thanks Tim!

5 Ways To Make Your Npcs Better & More Memorable
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/issue37.html

7 Quirk Tips & 40 Quirks For Your Reference
http://www.roleplayingtips.com/issue40.html

I got up to issue #42 out of #155. Will add more later ...