Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Out of Combat Woes
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6550617" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I think there is a time and place for a descriptive style, but in general I agree - "active" and "descriptive" are not equally good.</p><p></p><p>If you were reading a book, and the dialog was done in a descriptive style, or you watched a movie without dialog and just a narrator summarizing what characters said to each other but the actors never actually said anything, you'd pretty quickly pick out what was wrong with the approach. The descriptive style is fine for a book report or an encyclopedia, but is likely to be as dry as a book report or encyclopedia. The descriptive style is too clinical and distant. I'm really not saying here anything any creative writing teacher wouldn't also tell you if you were trying to create in other mediums. "Showing" is generally better than "telling", and is almost always better when the goal is to create dramatic effect. "Telling" is used only when you need to skip past less important context setting exposition, to quickly bridge between dramatic scenes. </p><p></p><p>As I explain in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?298368-Techniques-for-Railroading" target="_blank">my essay on how to railroad</a>, because "telling" is a sort of handwave of the action, it is also way to railroad players, and a DM should also be conscious of this fact when making the decision to "tell" and of what he tells. In particular you should be careful to avoid telling player's what the PC thinks, what the PC feels, how the PC acts, or what the PC infers. DM's that do lots of "telling" invariably unconsciously do this, and often a lot. You often see this fault even in prepared text of a professional adventure where the author unthinkingly tells the player how his character emotionally responds to the scene.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6550617, member: 4937"] I think there is a time and place for a descriptive style, but in general I agree - "active" and "descriptive" are not equally good. If you were reading a book, and the dialog was done in a descriptive style, or you watched a movie without dialog and just a narrator summarizing what characters said to each other but the actors never actually said anything, you'd pretty quickly pick out what was wrong with the approach. The descriptive style is fine for a book report or an encyclopedia, but is likely to be as dry as a book report or encyclopedia. The descriptive style is too clinical and distant. I'm really not saying here anything any creative writing teacher wouldn't also tell you if you were trying to create in other mediums. "Showing" is generally better than "telling", and is almost always better when the goal is to create dramatic effect. "Telling" is used only when you need to skip past less important context setting exposition, to quickly bridge between dramatic scenes. As I explain in [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?298368-Techniques-for-Railroading"]my essay on how to railroad[/URL], because "telling" is a sort of handwave of the action, it is also way to railroad players, and a DM should also be conscious of this fact when making the decision to "tell" and of what he tells. In particular you should be careful to avoid telling player's what the PC thinks, what the PC feels, how the PC acts, or what the PC infers. DM's that do lots of "telling" invariably unconsciously do this, and often a lot. You often see this fault even in prepared text of a professional adventure where the author unthinkingly tells the player how his character emotionally responds to the scene. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Out of Combat Woes
Top