Over on the OSR Discord, user Sahh vented about her experiences with an unsatisfying DM, apparently running Hoard of the Dragon Queen in 5e. Near the end of that conversation, she asked, "anyone here got any good resources on how to condense Tolkienese into a few simple sentences to set a scene?"
This is where I got pinged in to the channel, with another user referring her to my previous post, Module Doctor: Oni Mother Okawa. I read through the conversation background and figured this would be a good subject for a blog post. Today we'll be looking resources, advice and processes for both improved narration at the table and improved writing for modules.
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| Tiamat flies down from the skies, shimmering with infernal energy, her five glorious heads roaring as one... |
Before getting into the nitty-gritty, best to address the claim that boring, stuffy narration, or having to listen to NPCs talk to each other, is a '5e thing'.
On the one hand, there's nothing about the D&D 5e system that requires bad narration that overstays its welcome. If that's happening at your table, it's because the GM is choosing to do so, not because the rulebook says so. Whether this is an informed choice on the GM's part is another story.
However, this trend is most certainly a part of the expectations and culture surrounding the system. The published materials from WOTC tend to have blunt boxed text, as I complained in Stop Writing Lazy Quest Intros. I haven't read Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but I know by reputation that it's a boring and railroady module, so I wouldn't be surprised if this trend was even worse there. But official WOTC materials are heaven-sent next to some of the 3rd party products I've seen.
More than anything, it strikes me as cargo-cult thinking. Many GMs, for a variety of reasons, don't fully understand the purpose and nature of narration, and so engage in imitation instead of deliberate problem-solving based on a situation, what Robert Pirsig called 'original seeing' in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This is a phenomenon with roots in the surrounding culture of 5e, though the same may be said of other systems, perhaps to a greater degree.
So now we come to the object-level question: how does one condense Tolkienese into a few simple sentences to set a scene?
Breaking Down the Object-Level Question
We have a problem: Tolkienese narration at a D&D table. We have a desired state: a few simple sentences. We have a known process to achieve it: condensation. And this is all in the service of a known goal: setting a scene.
Breaking down the question in more detail will help us clarify what we need and ground our conclusions.
First off, what is Tolkienese? In this context, it's referring to bloated and fanciful narration. It may be related to the 'High Gygaxian' dialect. Tolkienese is undesirable because it is at odds with the needs of the table, at least for Sahh, who wants to engage with the game world instead of listening to the GM drone on.
As a sidenote, while Tolkien's actual prose of famously long-winded, it is also very economical, with little bloat. As one commentator once said, economy of language and getting to the damn point are two different skills, and it is possible to have one without the other. The GM in question lacks both.
Rather than Tolkienese, we want a few simple sentences. That is to say, we want our narration to be short and easy to parse. We can get there by condensing existing prose to a more desirable state. And let us never forget our purpose: to set a scene at the table. Any tools, principles, rules and advice we make here are in service to this, and if they do not accomplish the goal, they should not be followed.
More on Condensation: Joseph Manola
OSR blogger Joseph Manola has an excellent post which I revisit frequently: Conceptual Density (Or, What are RPG books *for*, anyway?'). Manola's thesis is that a good RPG book is dense with unusual, detailed, creative or otherwise inspiring material, while a bad one will endlessly detail an orc tribe with the exact tropes one would expect from an orc tribe. This claim is made at the macro-level of adventure design, but a symmetrical argument can be made at the micro-level of description and sentence creation.
Only give details the players wouldn't imagine for themselves upon hearing the base description, or which deserve emphasis. If my players encounter a troll (assuming they're familiar with trolls) I'm not going to ramble on about how it has bad breath, warts and a leathery green hide.
However, if I really want to play up those aspects, I may give them more attention and really infuse them with detail, describing how the troll's hide cracks open with every movement, how pustules across its body pop and spill their sticky lymph with every step, only to coalesce and regenerate the next moment.
I didn't add new information per se, but I made the perception which was already there more vivid. Alternately, I can add unusual details. Is this troll draped in the heraldry of knights it has killed and eaten? Are there half-formed screaming faces bubbling out of its skin, the beginning buds of another troll which must be routinely scraped off? These are things that players don't immediately think of when they hear 'troll' and so can be used to great effect.
You'll know you succeed when, instead of following up your narration with, 'does anyone have fire damage?' they instead scream, 'HOOOOLEEEE SHIT KILL IT WITH FIRE!'
If you aren't doing either of those things, don't bother with detailed description of the troll. Your players have already imagined what you are about to say. Spend your narration budget on other elements.
Objectives of Narration
Skerples, of the Coins and Scrolls blog, writes 3 Types of Modules, in which he lays out three approaches to the design of modules, namely, modules as manuals, as art, and as novels. Once again we can shrink this down to a micro-level point. There is no single goal to optimize for when narrating a scene.
While Sahh and I both endorse terse and straightforward narration, this isn't because it's the One True Way, but for the results it achieves, namely, it gets the players back into the driver's seat as quickly as possible. There may be times when you want to lavish more detail on a scene, or build a particular impression or emotion. In those cases, economy of language falls by the wayside.
Always keep in mind the goal of the narration and use the tools for the job, instead of mindlessly swinging around a hammer because an internet blogger wrote something about nails.
And what is the goal of narration? Well.
Elements of Narration
The Angry GM writes How to Talk to Players: The Art of Narration, and stresses for us that narration is not about 'painting with words' or 'immersing the players.' Those are (largely) desirable things, but they do not spring from narration alone, and they are not the goal. The goal is to impart information, and do so concisely.
As we've pointed out before, players will create a mental image even with minimal detail from you. You don't need to paint a whole scene with words. You can take advantage of player imagination to fill in scenes for you, and focus your narration on relevant images.
Product Examples: Narration in Print
Narration is made easier when you have material to reference, in the case of both read-aloud and DM text. Two products come to mind for this. One is Gabor 'Melan' Lux's Castle Xyntillan, a megadungeon which I will continue to shill until I take my final breath. The second are the modules of Joseph R Lewis.
(Incidentally, Lewis was party to that same Discord conversation referenced above)
Both exemplify terse, economical, and evocative text which can be translated easily into narration, in addition to possessing other sundry virtues. Your narration will improve with your ability to recognize and write effective text.
The Limits of Narration
Xavier Lastra writes The Limits of Description part 2, and points out that descriptions in narration don't do what you think they do. Contrary to the above, painting an image with words is not nearly so desirable as one may think, because the ability of human language to describe sensory experiences is not as expansive as one would hope. Of the seven categories of descriptions, size, age, shape, color, origin, material and quality, few can be used effectively to do so effectively, and fewer still in RPG narration.
Size adjectives are narrow and mostly inadequate unless you reach for comparisons, and likewise for age. Words to describe non-geometrical shapes are particularly lacking, unless you are a mathematician or, again, reach for comparisons, 'leaf-shaped,' 'saddle-shaped,' and many natural shapes are so particular that the only point of comparison is itself. Color is rarely imprtant, and requires reference to existing objects unless you're sticking to ROYGBIV.
Origin is an odd duck here, as its worth depends entirely on contextual knowledge. If I'm running a group that knows FR lore, then I can talk about Ostorian or Netherese ruins, and that will communicate a great deal. For games set in our own world, I can likewise appeal to history if my group is sufficiently cultured to know the implications of an Achamaenid saber. But if we're running in a brand new homebrew world, or a setting that most don't know too well, the origins of an object are a very weak descriptor. Material is in a similar predicament, especially if you're trying to appeal to the obscure or strange.
What does effective description look like then? Again, don't try to paint a picture with words, you haven't the time. Describe relevant attributes and focus on a smaller number of effective descriptors. An NPC's eye color doesn't matter unless it matters. If an assassin had blue eyes and there's only a small group fo blue-eyed people, that's relevant, but not otherwise.
Sentence Level Examples: Oni Mother Okawa
'Alright, Mr Big Shot,' asks the hypothetical reader in my head, 'this is all well and good, but how do I actually do it?' To wit, some more examples are in order.
I'll take from my own previous post, linked up top, and show how I condensed the opening readaloud of Oni Mother Okawa, in even more detail than before.
‘Trudging through the snow, the trip to Okawa’s Bathhouse is by no means easy. Whether it be for experienced travellers (sic), weary adventurers or just determined traders, this trail is by no means easy. Even less so due to the noises that accompany it. Out of fear that a demon might hide at every step, every rush of wind is cause for concern. One can never be too careful around these parts. But that is now all in the past. Not long ago, you found yourself at the entrance to a beautiful wooden building, with shining lights all around. And there you are now, inside the warm interior of the bathhouse, taking off your large winter coats and scarves and finally revealing your faces once more.’
Let's color code this
‘Trudging through the snow, the trip to Okawa’s Bathhouse is by no means easy. Whether it be for experienced travellers (sic), weary adventurers or just determined traders, this trail is by no means easy. Even less so due to the noises that accompany it. Out of fear that a demon might hide at every step, every rush of wind is cause for concern. One can never be too careful around these parts. But that is now all in the past. Not long ago, you found yourself at the entrance to a beautiful wooden building, with shining lights all around. And there you are now, inside the warm interior of the bathhouse, taking off your large winter coats and scarves and finally revealing your faces once more.’
Red is outright repetition, blue is unnecessary prose, orange is redundant/overwrought, and green is the stuff we actually want, the bits describing the actual scene or setting the tone. They're not good here, but they are what we want to focus on and polish.
So we cut out everything else.
‘Trudging through the snow the trip to Okawa’s Bathhouse is by no means easy experienced travellers (sic), weary adventurers or just determined traders fear that a demon might hide at every step every rush of wind is cause for concern beautiful wooden building, with shining lights all around inside the warm interior of the bathhouse, taking off your large winter coats and scarves and finally revealing your faces once more.’
Now that your read-aloud looks like it's been de-fnorded, we can get to work. We've identified the parts of description doing actual work, and need to put them together.
'Trudging through the snow'
'the trip to Okawa’s Bathhouse is by no means easy'
A contrast between 'experienced travelers, weary adventurers and determined traders'
The fear of demons
The paranoia created by the wind in conjunction with the above
Arrival at a beautiful, well lit wooden building
Warmth, comfort, relief
[Reader exercise: Before reading further, try to take the above and rewrite it yourself. The exact way you do it will depend on your own style and ability.]
[Done? Read ahead.]
In the end, I wound up reversing and joining points 2 and 3, condensed 4 and 5,
'Trudging through the snow, neither experienced travelers, weary adventurers nor determined traders find the trail to Okawa's Bathhouse easy. Even worse is the rushing wind that might cover a demon's approach at every step. But now you find yourself in a beautiful wooden building hung with shining lights, where you cast off heavy winter coats and scarves and reveal your faces once more.'
If you want to cut it down further, remove 'trudging through the snow,' which confuses the scene a bit, and let the 'heavy winter coats' communicate the season and weather. That, and consider exchanging or removing 'weary adventurers' which doesn't quite fit in the set.
This will look different for you, and the goal should not be to imitate any one style. Still, I get a lot of mileage out of rearranging clauses and joining them together.
Fully General Speech Advice
I joined a new RPG server at the start of lockdown, which has profited me two solid campaigns which are just now coming to a close, as well as several one-shots. Like a good online citizen, I keep my personal information locked up tight, and the image my fellow players and GMs form of me are created entirely by my speech.
On several occasions, that image has been 'college professor,' which I find hilarious. The reason for this is the way I speak. I will now give my #1 piece of advice for public speaking
Eliminate filler words from your vocabulary. I'm speaking primarily about hesitation markers, exclamations like 'um', 'ah,' 'like,' 'I mean.' This same advice applies, to a lesser extent, to hedge words, such as 'just' or 'really.' Hedge words can serve a purpose, though they must be purposeful instead of reflexive, but the hesitation markers must go. Start practicing today. When you notice yourself using them, take a moment to collect your thoughts and say your piece fluently.
"But what if I can't figure out everything I want to say and need a little time?"
What do you mean, 'what if?' It's not a matter of if. You will have moments where your sentence gets away from you, where you need to clarify, or just need a spare moment to consider your next words. In those cases, which happen to everyone, don't try to replace those filler words with anything. Use silence.
Silence is very effective when used as part of a speech, or even a conversation, so long as you can maintain the floor during that silence. This is much easier in person where you can use body language to indicate you're still speaking.
"But won't it be awkward?"
Only if you make it awkward. I've gotten immense mileage out of randomly stopping in the middle of sentences, looking pensive for a span of no more than three seconds, and then continuing as if there had been no pause.
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