Love this! Though I do I find it really useful, when DMing at least, to have at least some flavor text to read out to players.
Right now for a dungeon I’m working on I have my “informational” DM text laid out similarly. Bullet points and bolding, but I’m including with each an Italicized sentence of flavor you could read out or rely on for quick descriptions.
Example based on yours:
RECOVERY ROOM - “Decrepit, rusted, and smelling of sweat”
* 6 bunks (post-augmentation recovery)
* “Narrow and uncomfortable looking”
* 1 bunk: melted organic cybermods → mutated former human (Fear Save) * “Warped flesh and thick black blood “
Without at least a little flavor, I’m stuck trying to come up with my own visual descriptions for everything, which can be tough or slow things down. The italics lets you know it’s exclusively flavor information like that, nothing actually informational gets lost in the flavor text.
"Empty room syndrome" is one of the reasons I stole the "Create an Asset" move from Cortex Engine for every game I run anymore. It's a way to signal to players that flavorful description can be *made* mechanically relevant with a little creative thought. And for that, the advice about clearly "flagging" things as potentially interactable is even more important.
Take one of the examples here: "12. Graffiti-covered Room: Crude pictures & lewd slogans on the walls; remnants of an old fire; dust & webs. Empty."
At this point I've trained my players to ask, "Hey, could that lewd slogan be useful if we run into one of the factions down here? Does any of the graffiti look like it might hold some useful information about the layout or history of this place?"
From there, I call for a skill check which doesn't determine *whether* the Seemingly Inoccuous Thing will be useful, but *how useful* it will be when the player decides to leverage it.
I just want it to be abundantly clear to players that they have the freedom to *make* some things important, or at least functional, even if they don't appear to be in the moment. It took me a long time to learn just how much nudging players need to buy into that freedom. But when you finally hit that point where simple flavor text becomes a tool in the players' kits, that's when lore really feels like it starts to matter and is worth writing.
I like that you'd applied it here to NSR stuff. I think you could take this further though -- besides presenting diegetic information, I love being clear about non-diegetic stuff as well ("You objective in this space is to X." "Y person is the only here with something worthwhile to say, the other mooks in this room are clearly just mooks," etc)
Yessss. Sometimes it's fun to drop the characters somewhere with little more than a half-explained clue and let them just figure it out (a fancy ball or event, for example).
But most of the time, yeah, cutting through the BS and just saying "the woman in the corner is who you're looking for, everybody else here is just milling about, having mundane conversation".
Absolutely. There’s a piece of GMing wisdom that goes something like “If you show players a door and ask ‘What do you do?’ they will think the door is part of the challenge. Don’t get frustrated if they check it for traps. If you want them to move on, just describe them going through the door and getting to the real adventure…”
… and I think GMs should be applying this kind of thinking veerrrry broadly.
Recently, I’ve liked experiences like Mothership modules where players get all the handouts about history, space station maps, science reports, etc, and get to just sift it and make decisions with all of the info on hand. Just give the players all the info.
Really enjoy this. Do you think cutting out so much will make it harder for newer GMs? I’m creating my first free dungeon for Shadowdark and this is where I am struggling. I love your ideas and think they can work if the beginning of the adventure is front loaded with details on factions/npcs/general ideas. However I just worry about the new GM.
I think it depends. If you front load the narrative information and maybe include a page saying "this is how the rest of the book operates and here's how you use it" I think it would be easier for newbies, personally.
While I totally agree and I find your method close to perfection, I have a doubt (or better a concern): an adventure module should be both a reading before the game and a support during the game. This approach is perfect for the second purpose, and let me add a comment about this at the end *. The text how it is laid, it is not helpful for the first purpose as it lacks of many narrative details that help the GM to build in his mind the image he has to transfer to the players during the game... I have always found this detail as a minor one however to my eyes it is really important. (* Additional detail to my comment: are we really sure that the GM needs always a supporting text during the game? Are we sure that this method doesn’t push GMs to not to read in advance the game since it is perfect for a first reading during the game?)
I think there's a place for the reading prior to a session! I think background, overview, and some set dressing helps in this regard. For me, I don't even necessarily mind if there's a little preamble to an area describing the five senses of the place (how it smells, tastes, etc).
It's when the writer pads out (consciously or unconsciously) the usable bits with a ton of extraneous detail where it becomes a problem for me.
If a book says "two story stone tower, strong, guarded by 4d6 guards", I can fill in the details from my own imagination of the ivy growing along it, the banners of the kingdom hanging, the vigilance of the guards, etc.
I guess that's really the crux of it: I don't need the author to do the imagining for me. I just need the facts of what is here so I can imagine around them.
The more I read your answer and the more I am thinking to an idea which merges both your method and my need to read a story first as a GM... I would need some time to elaborate it better... If you wish I can tell you more via chat!
Thanks again and may the fun be always at your table!
Love this! Though I do I find it really useful, when DMing at least, to have at least some flavor text to read out to players.
Right now for a dungeon I’m working on I have my “informational” DM text laid out similarly. Bullet points and bolding, but I’m including with each an Italicized sentence of flavor you could read out or rely on for quick descriptions.
Example based on yours:
RECOVERY ROOM - “Decrepit, rusted, and smelling of sweat”
* 6 bunks (post-augmentation recovery)
* “Narrow and uncomfortable looking”
* 1 bunk: melted organic cybermods → mutated former human (Fear Save) * “Warped flesh and thick black blood “
Without at least a little flavor, I’m stuck trying to come up with my own visual descriptions for everything, which can be tough or slow things down. The italics lets you know it’s exclusively flavor information like that, nothing actually informational gets lost in the flavor text.
Not a bad idea at all! Can certainly help get the feeling across of what the room actually appears as to the players.
"Empty room syndrome" is one of the reasons I stole the "Create an Asset" move from Cortex Engine for every game I run anymore. It's a way to signal to players that flavorful description can be *made* mechanically relevant with a little creative thought. And for that, the advice about clearly "flagging" things as potentially interactable is even more important.
Take one of the examples here: "12. Graffiti-covered Room: Crude pictures & lewd slogans on the walls; remnants of an old fire; dust & webs. Empty."
At this point I've trained my players to ask, "Hey, could that lewd slogan be useful if we run into one of the factions down here? Does any of the graffiti look like it might hold some useful information about the layout or history of this place?"
From there, I call for a skill check which doesn't determine *whether* the Seemingly Inoccuous Thing will be useful, but *how useful* it will be when the player decides to leverage it.
I just want it to be abundantly clear to players that they have the freedom to *make* some things important, or at least functional, even if they don't appear to be in the moment. It took me a long time to learn just how much nudging players need to buy into that freedom. But when you finally hit that point where simple flavor text becomes a tool in the players' kits, that's when lore really feels like it starts to matter and is worth writing.
Yeah, amen, I myself wrote a more longwinded version of this back here: https://substack.com/@jackedward/p-138525780
I like that you'd applied it here to NSR stuff. I think you could take this further though -- besides presenting diegetic information, I love being clear about non-diegetic stuff as well ("You objective in this space is to X." "Y person is the only here with something worthwhile to say, the other mooks in this room are clearly just mooks," etc)
Yessss. Sometimes it's fun to drop the characters somewhere with little more than a half-explained clue and let them just figure it out (a fancy ball or event, for example).
But most of the time, yeah, cutting through the BS and just saying "the woman in the corner is who you're looking for, everybody else here is just milling about, having mundane conversation".
Absolutely. There’s a piece of GMing wisdom that goes something like “If you show players a door and ask ‘What do you do?’ they will think the door is part of the challenge. Don’t get frustrated if they check it for traps. If you want them to move on, just describe them going through the door and getting to the real adventure…”
… and I think GMs should be applying this kind of thinking veerrrry broadly.
Recently, I’ve liked experiences like Mothership modules where players get all the handouts about history, space station maps, science reports, etc, and get to just sift it and make decisions with all of the info on hand. Just give the players all the info.
100% agree! Really well explained, clear guidance
Really enjoy this. Do you think cutting out so much will make it harder for newer GMs? I’m creating my first free dungeon for Shadowdark and this is where I am struggling. I love your ideas and think they can work if the beginning of the adventure is front loaded with details on factions/npcs/general ideas. However I just worry about the new GM.
I think it depends. If you front load the narrative information and maybe include a page saying "this is how the rest of the book operates and here's how you use it" I think it would be easier for newbies, personally.
Also, thanks for the kind words!
While I totally agree and I find your method close to perfection, I have a doubt (or better a concern): an adventure module should be both a reading before the game and a support during the game. This approach is perfect for the second purpose, and let me add a comment about this at the end *. The text how it is laid, it is not helpful for the first purpose as it lacks of many narrative details that help the GM to build in his mind the image he has to transfer to the players during the game... I have always found this detail as a minor one however to my eyes it is really important. (* Additional detail to my comment: are we really sure that the GM needs always a supporting text during the game? Are we sure that this method doesn’t push GMs to not to read in advance the game since it is perfect for a first reading during the game?)
Thanks and may the fun be always at your table!
I think there's a place for the reading prior to a session! I think background, overview, and some set dressing helps in this regard. For me, I don't even necessarily mind if there's a little preamble to an area describing the five senses of the place (how it smells, tastes, etc).
It's when the writer pads out (consciously or unconsciously) the usable bits with a ton of extraneous detail where it becomes a problem for me.
If a book says "two story stone tower, strong, guarded by 4d6 guards", I can fill in the details from my own imagination of the ivy growing along it, the banners of the kingdom hanging, the vigilance of the guards, etc.
I guess that's really the crux of it: I don't need the author to do the imagining for me. I just need the facts of what is here so I can imagine around them.
The more I read your answer and the more I am thinking to an idea which merges both your method and my need to read a story first as a GM... I would need some time to elaborate it better... If you wish I can tell you more via chat!
Thanks again and may the fun be always at your table!
Sure, shoot me a message!
Could not agree more with this. Love the practical examples, too, for cuting