That sounds like the issue is the adventure style in Out of the Abyss rather than edition.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!
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.
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!
I've heard about it just recently actually! From what I read it does sound a lot like how I process information.
That's an interesting thought. Maybe one of these days I'll try out a more abstracted ruleset without my props.
Yup!
What do you mean? That sounds interesting.
Oh, that's a relief others feel the same way.
Don't sell yourself too short. I mean, there are actually a pretty significant fraction of people who DO NOT visualize! Its not really something you can consider a real limitation either, its just a particular sort of mental process. While the study of such things is sketchy at best there's no suggestion that such people are 'worse at imagining' in the sense of being able to, for example, extrapolate the likely outcomes of a situation, or invent a way to solve a problem.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.
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!
Exactly!
Oh, thanks! But I honestly don't. I mean, I didn't even realize I had an issue until recently. My players and I have always had a great time and I still love to DM (running PF2e atm). It's more of just a fun quirk I noticed. Thank goodness for flavor text!
This is true, and probably a separate issue from the imagination problem. Creating has never been a problem for me, it's actually pretty enjoyable, but not on the spot. Thanks for pointing that out.
I've only played with one group, but not my experience at all. Everyone is so hyperdetailed. Talking in character, describing how their actions look, making up scenery, NPCs, and cultures on the spot (since it encourages collaborative storytelling).
