D&D General I've Been a DM for 30 Years and I have Zero Imagination.

[TwoDollar DM]

I think because of all the Liveplay podcasts and the huge influx of recent new people to DnD the emphasis on that aspect of the game has gotten over-emphasized. Further, I think a lot of players talk about it in terms of creativity and non-railroad-y freedom but then are happy to have an NPC suggest a course of action for them. Or perhaps I am blending two or more concepts here...

 

[Scott Christian]

I am confused? Why has the speaker I quoted suddenly vanished from my post? I quoted them directly?

 

[Seramus]

I am confused? Why has the speaker I quoted suddenly vanished from my post? I quoted them directly?

Possibly blocked you. Log out and check the thread again to see if their posts (and your quote) appear. If so, it's a block and you just have to respect it.

I know at least one guy has me blocked, and I don't even remember why.

 

[Jahydin]

I am confused? Why has the speaker I quoted suddenly vanished from my post? I quoted them directly?

They blocked you. I know because they blocked me too, so don't take it too personally.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I am confused? Why has the speaker I quoted suddenly vanished from my post? I quoted them directly?

It's called "2-Way Ignore". It's a checkbox you can check, or not, on your ignore list page. I believe it's on by default, so if someone blocks you, they completely cannot even see your posts, and you cannot even see theirs.

I don't use two-way ignore myself. Nor do I have it hide content from people I've ignored--suppress, yes, but not making it invisible to me.

 

[Scott Christian]

Thanks for the explanation. I guess there is a first time for everything.

 

[Retros_x]

I can sympathise with this, Indie games require a lot of emotional energy.

You havent played with my DnD group - I think its more the players, not the game. But indie games (or better phrased: narrative focuses games) attract of course more players who express emotions and act all scenes out.

@OP: Sorry, I cant relate, I phantasize about scenes all the time, not just when playing D&D. I have an ongoing movie in my head. But I do can relate with having trouble prepping 5e adventures, because this has nothing do with aphantasia. They are just written that bad (most of them). I have a much easier time with specific 3rd party adventures or OSR adventures.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I guess I have a look that my wife has learned to recognize, because sometimes I start thinking about something during dinner, movie night, etc. and in the middle I'll hear my wife say, "Hey Maxperson, come back to us. You have the look again."

I find that affectionate name to be unusual but thankfully I have a vivid imagination.

 

[Coroc]

This is something I've found about myself recently that I thought was kind of humorous. I've ran multiple successful campaigns through every edition of D&D over the years and never once realized how bad my imagination was until I started to play more narrative focused games like FATE and PbtA.

Looking back though, I didn't really need to imagine anything to be successful:
For Old School D&D I could focus on the simple dungeon maps, random charts, and mathematical rules.
3E/Pathfinder (favorite edition) was all about miniatures, battlemats, and rolling for everything to determine results.
4E was D&D the board game, so even more so I didn't need to visualize anything in my mind's eye.

5E was when the cracks started to show though. I ran Out of the Abyss and nearly keeled over from exhaustion from the amount of prep I had to do. Multiple NPCs all with distinct personalities and motivations, long stretches of travel time with little explanation on how to make it interesting, completely foreign races (Underdark) and how they might interact with the PCs, and gigantic demons that were in complex environments I couldn't just run with miniatures and dry-erase boards. Throughout this entire campaign though, I never once realized why it was so difficult for me; I just thought it was terribly written!

Then came Dungeon World. My friend asked me to play and it sounded fun, but quickly realized how difficult it was for me to play. I could see everyone was drawing the scene in their minds and then narrating what they saw; but for me, it's just blank. My brain just doesn't do that.

It made me realize that I don't even imagine scenes when I read books. I enjoy following the logic of the story, but not once do I "visualize" the characters, scenery, or action. At best, I just get small "flash" if I concentrate really hard.

Anyway, curious if anyone else can relate!

Do not worry, i read that many humans are capable of "visual" imagination, but do not use it, but rather do this with "textual" descriptions. It might also be that you are putting yourself under pressure, because these days no one reads a book but every one is watching videos.
Do your players enjoy your sessions?
You do not need a myriad of fully deteailed NPCs. With OotA it is especially hard, because many of the npcs are following the party around eventually and some undergo drastical changes. Try adventures with only few essential NPCs and most other interactions are only like PCs entering a shop or tavern e.g. where it does not really matter what exact personality a NPC might have.

 

[Jahydin]

Do not worry, i read that many humans are capable of "visual" imagination, but do not use it, but rather do this with "textual" descriptions. It might also be that you are putting yourself under pressure, because these days no one reads a book but every one is watching videos.
Do your players enjoy your sessions?

Thanks. As a GM, I never felt any pressure and always had a great time. I've finished a few campaigns to completion (Lv1 - 14ish), so imagine players had fun too. It was only when a PC in PbtA games I realized what was going on. Part of the normal flow of our sessions was describing scenes as we saw them and it was a struggle!

You do not need a myriad of fully deteailed NPCs. With OotA it is especially hard, because many of the npcs are following the party around eventually and some undergo drastical changes. Try adventures with only few essential NPCs and most other interactions are only like PCs entering a shop or tavern e.g. where it does not really matter what exact personality a NPC might have.

OotA definitely had the most NPCs I've had to juggle at once. Thankfully most adventures I run are more like you described here. I've also have become comfortable narrating them, such as: "The smith shrugs and turns his back on you. You'll need more than 15 silver to convince him". No 1st person for me, but completely valid if my players want to interact that way.