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My group thinks my descriptions stink!!
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<blockquote data-quote="Oryan77" data-source="post: 2760608" data-attributes="member: 18701"><p>Did they give you any examples on how your descriptions aren't helpful? Sometimes players just complain about things when they feel <em>they</em> should have performed better than they actually did. Rather than blame themselves, they like to blame the DM.</p><p></p><p>For example, I've always thought I gave <strong>very</strong> detailed descriptions for players surroundings. I got to the point where I wondered if the time I spent describing things took away too much of our game time. No one complained & they seemed to enjoy listening, so I kept being thorough. Then I got a new player, and within a couple sessions he starts complaining about not being able to visualize & understand his surroundings. Surprised the crap out of me. So I asked what else I could have said that would help him visualize my world better, and all I got was, "I guess I just need to see graphics like in a video game". That didn't help me at all and I soon realized that he complained about everything I did when no other players had those problems with me. I also assumed that when this player wasn't performing well during a session, he would complain about my lack of so-n-so as a DM and that's why he wasn't able to shine during combat or whatever. I realized it wasn't me being a bad DM, it was him being a lousy player.</p><p></p><p>There's only so much you can describe before it gets to be too much. It's an imaginary game and it's up to players to imagine the leftovers on their own. A DM can spice it up for them, but I don't need to know that there's pictures on the walls or a rug on the floor unless it's important. I also believe that if players feel they need more info from the DM, they should ask him more questions. Do your players ask you questions to fill in any lack of information about a room?</p><p></p><p>Basically all you need to do is say, "You enter a room, it's "this big", shaped like "this", there's a bed "here", a chest "here", no windows, and no other doors." Then describe any other important objects in the room like a dresser, desk, closet, people, or a painting on the wall that has a secret lever behind it in case they search. Otherwise, what else do they need <strong>you</strong> to describe? What the walls are made of? How fancy the bed is? Where the torches are hanging? If they care about that, they should ask you. If their imagination sucks and they can't imagine what the room looks like without you needing to describe the wall paper patterns, that's not your problem <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Oryan77, post: 2760608, member: 18701"] Did they give you any examples on how your descriptions aren't helpful? Sometimes players just complain about things when they feel [i]they[/i] should have performed better than they actually did. Rather than blame themselves, they like to blame the DM. For example, I've always thought I gave [b]very[/b] detailed descriptions for players surroundings. I got to the point where I wondered if the time I spent describing things took away too much of our game time. No one complained & they seemed to enjoy listening, so I kept being thorough. Then I got a new player, and within a couple sessions he starts complaining about not being able to visualize & understand his surroundings. Surprised the crap out of me. So I asked what else I could have said that would help him visualize my world better, and all I got was, "I guess I just need to see graphics like in a video game". That didn't help me at all and I soon realized that he complained about everything I did when no other players had those problems with me. I also assumed that when this player wasn't performing well during a session, he would complain about my lack of so-n-so as a DM and that's why he wasn't able to shine during combat or whatever. I realized it wasn't me being a bad DM, it was him being a lousy player. There's only so much you can describe before it gets to be too much. It's an imaginary game and it's up to players to imagine the leftovers on their own. A DM can spice it up for them, but I don't need to know that there's pictures on the walls or a rug on the floor unless it's important. I also believe that if players feel they need more info from the DM, they should ask him more questions. Do your players ask you questions to fill in any lack of information about a room? Basically all you need to do is say, "You enter a room, it's "this big", shaped like "this", there's a bed "here", a chest "here", no windows, and no other doors." Then describe any other important objects in the room like a dresser, desk, closet, people, or a painting on the wall that has a secret lever behind it in case they search. Otherwise, what else do they need [b]you[/b] to describe? What the walls are made of? How fancy the bed is? Where the torches are hanging? If they care about that, they should ask you. If their imagination sucks and they can't imagine what the room looks like without you needing to describe the wall paper patterns, that's not your problem ;) [/QUOTE]
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