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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7344381" data-attributes="member: 97077">The DM describing the environment is Step 1 of the basic conversation of the game, but bear in mind that the 3-step loop described on page 3 of the Basic Rules is continuous. Thus, you're constantly describing the environment at the start of the loop which begins after you describe the result of the adventurers' actions.This means you don't need to get everything out up front - you can add as you go, filling in more color or detail as the players do their thing. What's more, rolling out information in stages tends to be better in my experience as it's more easily consumed by the players that way. While it's obviously a comical omission to forget about the people in the fort in the initial description, if you forget something and the players remind you, treat that as an opportunity to start the loop again. "Where's the people?" can easily be answered without missing a beat with "They begin emerging from wooden buildings and tents to see the recent arrivals. They're mostly humans, looking a bit worse for wear. 'What news from Port Nyanzaru?' one of them asks. What do you do?" (I do, however, heartily recommend getting your players into the habit of stating what they want to do rather than ask questions. "Where's the people?" in my view is better as "I look around for any people..." or "Ragnar looks around for any people.")I recommend keeping your descriptions down to 3 to 5 sentences at a clip. Boxed texts in modules are not very good at being succinct in my opinion and aren't necessarily organized in the best way to share what's important up front. It might be a good exercise for you to reorganize things a bit with notes or re-writes. And remember - a module is a writer communicating his or her vision to you, so it will tend toward being a little overwrought. You don't need that many words to communicate your vision to others around the table (especially when you get into coming up with your own adventures).</blockquote>

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