How to Describe a Scene in Dungeons & Dragons

creatures and enemies get described dead last dead last always always always always always describe what the room looks like what objects there might be in the room first first and then you mention if there are any creatures monsters that sort of thing in the room and here's why do i have a description algorithm meaning a particular order of describing a scene yes i do this is a good question this is a good question there i have a very specific thing that i do when i am describing a scene to my players there's a very particular order and this is how it goes creatures and enemies get described dead last dead last always always always always always describe what the room looks like what objects there might be in the room first first and then you mention if there are any creatures monsters that sort of thing in the room and here's why if you say the players they're like they open the door and you say in this room there is a hydra everything else you say after that will be ignored ignored 100 because your players brains are immediately like hydra how are we gonna fight it what are we gonna do are we gonna run are we gonna fight what are you gonna do are you gonna rush in am i gonna cast a spell even if they're quiet their brains are fixating on the fact that there is a hydra in the room and they will it doesn't matter what you say it doesn't matter if you're like there are piles of gold all over the place there is there's boots of flying there's legendary magic items and they they it won't matter none of it will matter because their brains will be fixated on the fact that you said there's a hydra in the room and everything else is a waste so that's the algorithm it's very very simple but it is intentional very very intentional you describe the room the environment anything like that first and then you describe the hydra or any monsters or things there are in the room boom there it is and here's another thing too very very important tip about describing a scene in the game you do not want to give tons of description for a room or a scene a little bit you give a little bit of information a little bit of description with more information available upon request and this is very important i noticed this in modules a lot they tend to go into very explicit details about the room the curtains are aged and worn and the mantelpiece has like illustrations of this and carvings of that and there's a statue carved of this and it looks to be fairly old and has a smear of blood on it and they go into these intricate details this they have this read aloud text that's like a mile long with all these details your players cannot process all of that they will forget it they will fixate on maybe one thing you say in there that interests them and the rest is out the door so you do not want mile long descriptive texts you don't want to bore them with that you don't want to over burden it it's an information dump is what it is and you don't want to do that you want to give them a little bit of information about that room just a little bit you walk into the room you see there's a fireplace with a fire burning in it there's a table over there and sitting at the table are two men wearing big huge swords strapped across their backs and they're playing dice boom you're done that's it now if if so they're gonna have something's gonna happen in there whatever let's pretend there's a battle they fight the guys okay after the battle's over they'll probably explore the room somebody's gonna go check the fireplace out and then you're gonna tell them about the portrait of this guy smoking a pipe above the fireplace then you're gonna tell them about the gold coins that are scattered inside the fire itself and that are currently melting that's when they when they so you give them a basic description and then when they request more information that's when you give them the details and that's how you describe a scene it's also how you run exploration that right there's exploration in a dungeon i just now i'm poking around the room i'm finding little things that that interests me and i'm exploring more about it and then you as the dungeon master are doling out more information to them as they explore that room and that's how you do it so great question and there's your response i am now publishing a monthly pdf full of resources such as villains npcs traps encounters with maps entire adventures uh every single month my patrons are going to get this pdf we are about ready to roll out the second volume of it right here in february it's over 30 pages of stuff for dungeon masters using their games and you can see on screen a whole bunch of the little images from the february pdf that's going to be rolling out so lots of cool stuff there we have homebrew look these are all villains that you can use in your game with stat blocks that go along with them and then here is one of the adventures here and has high quality maps designed for virtual tabletops there's one of them right there so lots of cool stuff in there the idea here is that it's going to help reduce your prep time for games and possibly hopefully improve the quality of your games so if you're interested in checking that stuff out there's a link down below somewhere

Channel: the DM Lair

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Keywords: d&d, d&d 5e, dnd, dnd 5e, dnd 5th edition, dungeons and dragons, dungeons & dragons, rpg, role-playing game, roleplaying game, dungeon master tips, DM tips, dungeon master advice, DM advice, the dm lair, luke hart, how to set a scene in D&D, how to describe a scene in D&D, dnd describing a scene, dnd how to narrate, dnd how to narrate a scene, dnd scene setting, dnd description, dnd never describe enemies first

Id: EM6E7qyBiLY

Length: 6min 0sec (360 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 06 2021