DinoInDisguise
A russian spy disguised as a t-rex.
I want to write something verbose about verbosity. How GMs talk too much and accomplish too little with all their yapping. If you've ever caught yourself, or a GM you play with, describing a room in painstaking detail, only for the players to stare blankly or ask a dozen questions that were already answered, it's a wee bit inconvenient. It's a flaw in our award-winning flowery prose.
Over-description can actually be harmful. Yet the internet is full of advice insisting you hit all five senses when setting a scene.
We can look at an example of flowery prose in scene setting to get an idea here. In this I won't even get to all five senses, but will still far exceed many people's ability to retain the details. Details we likely had no plan to revisit later, so they were extraneous from the start.
And I lost you. Well, some of you. Maybe even most of you.
This means you need very little relative word count to get the same effect. Here's another version of the above description;
Effectively, this description is the same as the one in the prior section. The only difference is where we stopped talking. In the first one, we simply overstay our mental welcome. Well in the second, we stop after details we feel are needed.
By shortening our descriptions, we engage the player's imagination. Players actively participate in constructing the scene, rather than passively absorbing walls of description. And this doesn't affect continuity, because the required details can still be presented, while anything beyond that can be clarified with player questions, allowing them to guide the scene to their interests.
Here we are just stating three core traits. Towering, jagged, and glimmering. If every time we describe this monster, or others of its species, we use these words, the players will recognize it. Any prior experience helps the brain fill in the blanks. Questions guide the scene to fit player expectations.
The same can be done for a place. A town is a perfect example. By assigning three sensory motifs to a town, and nothing more, we can make the entire town feel cohesive. Every description of every building, of every room, in the town uses one of the motifs. Players will subconsciously attach the places together as part of a collective whole.
An example would be; black stone, the color blue, and the scent of honey. The first description of the town will use all three. After that, only one is required. The place feels cohesive and becomes memorable without wordy descriptions. This works because the brain recognizes the pattern and completes the picture.
Over-description can actually be harmful. Yet the internet is full of advice insisting you hit all five senses when setting a scene.
Here's the problem.
Let's talk about cognitive load theory, and why almost all players stop caring after your third sentence. Cognitive load theory suggests that when information exceeds of our mental processing capacity, retention and engagement decline. In TTRPGs, this means players may struggle to absorb and remember details after a certain threshold of description. It actually extends beyond that, but we will limit it to description for this discussion.We can look at an example of flowery prose in scene setting to get an idea here. In this I won't even get to all five senses, but will still far exceed many people's ability to retain the details. Details we likely had no plan to revisit later, so they were extraneous from the start.
And I lost you. Well, some of you. Maybe even most of you.
Here's a solution.
Law of closure posits that humans tend to perceive incomplete things as complete. By providing partial sensory cues, you can prompt the player's brain to fill in the gaps, kind of like dino DNA in a famous movie. This creates a cohesive mental image without the need for exhaustive descriptions.This means you need very little relative word count to get the same effect. Here's another version of the above description;
Effectively, this description is the same as the one in the prior section. The only difference is where we stopped talking. In the first one, we simply overstay our mental welcome. Well in the second, we stop after details we feel are needed.
By shortening our descriptions, we engage the player's imagination. Players actively participate in constructing the scene, rather than passively absorbing walls of description. And this doesn't affect continuity, because the required details can still be presented, while anything beyond that can be clarified with player questions, allowing them to guide the scene to their interests.
Here's my take.
This allows you to get really creative in your prep. You can do weird things, like assigning three sensory motifs to monsters, places, and other things. These guiding traits can be prepped with little time investment, and then be reused to create a sense of belonging and familiarity. An example for a monster would be; a towering reptile armored in jagged, glimmering scales.Here we are just stating three core traits. Towering, jagged, and glimmering. If every time we describe this monster, or others of its species, we use these words, the players will recognize it. Any prior experience helps the brain fill in the blanks. Questions guide the scene to fit player expectations.
The same can be done for a place. A town is a perfect example. By assigning three sensory motifs to a town, and nothing more, we can make the entire town feel cohesive. Every description of every building, of every room, in the town uses one of the motifs. Players will subconsciously attach the places together as part of a collective whole.
An example would be; black stone, the color blue, and the scent of honey. The first description of the town will use all three. After that, only one is required. The place feels cohesive and becomes memorable without wordy descriptions. This works because the brain recognizes the pattern and completes the picture.
Here's what it does.
The benefits here are pretty extensive.- This improves pacing. The players are doing more playing and less day dreaming.
- It engages the players as they fill in the gaps, allowing them more freedom to find cool things to do. Like a loose chandelier over the evil necromancer's throne of bone.
- It improves retention of the important details through repetition, much like when I repeat myself in this long winded post.
- It makes improvisation easier. You can drop encounters and scene descriptions on whim and they always feel planned and cohesive.
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