Description Writing

As I settle into writing out adventures officially (I usually just store them in my head for another day, another time), I find myself puzzling over the way that adventure descriptions came to be written.

The style was Gygax's or Arneson's ... and it has stuck with us for decades.  I'll give an example, from 1989's Dungeon Magazine #16, p.7:

White Brick Road.  From the back of the docks, a white marble path zig-zags toward the palace.  The path is perfectly safe to walk on, although the mists that drift upon it make it appear unsafe.  The path is 15' wide, built of white marble bricks.  It is smooth and level, and there are no penalties in combat when fighting upon the road.

In part, the style respects a minimum of space, since this is a print publication and we are limited by the realities of publishing.  This being 1989, most low-stream publishing, including many regional newspapers with runs of tens of thousands, were physically "laid out" on cardboard stock ~ literally pasting text to cardboard sheets, so they could be photographed.  The special camera was mounted so that the sheet was placed underneath and a perfect picture was taken of the whole page, though that might be as large as 24 by 36 inches.  I know, because I worked in just such a shop in 1989, connected to my university paper.  Later, in the 1990s, I spent more time in the business; it was a big deal in the late 1990s, when computers were able to do the lay-out on programs like Adobe and Publisher (this is where I learned my Publisher skills, in journalism, laying out my own newspaper 'Zines).  It revolutionized the print industry.

All publications before the 1990s followed a structure where each "page" in the magazine or newspaper was a double-page on each side, and a quadruple page counting the backside.  These were then cut and folded so they could be stapled together.  To see this clearly in your mind, think of the center page in a porno magazine; the staples could be taken out and this page could be removed and hung up as a poster.  Ultimately, all the pages in the magazine worked this way.  Magazine pages always came in multiples of 4: the Dungeon Magazine quoted above has 68 pages (64 numbered, then 4 more).

If a writer wanted to add a few more lines to a story, this was almost impossible after it had been laid out, unless an advertiser dropped out, someone's story hadn't been turned in or was spiked, or some in-house ad was pulled.  Space was, therefore, at a premium: and adventure features were written specifically to fit in this very narrow, inflexible medium.  [incidentally, to add a little space to the column is probably the reason why the words "white marble" appear three times in the description.

I'm going to print the paragraph above again, only now I'm going to put some of it into italics:

White Brick Road.  From the back of the docks, a white marble path zig-zags toward the palace.  The path is perfectly safe to walk on, although the mists that drift upon it make it appear unsafe.  The path is 15' wide, built of white marble bricks.  It is smooth and level, and there are no penalties in combat when fighting upon the road.

The parts italicized are information intended for the DM; the rest may be read verbatim to the players.  You're expected to understand the difference, though many DMs will just read it all ~ what harm would it do?

The adventure writing style is designed to put words In the DM's mouth, to make it "easier" to run the adventure.  This mouth-stuffing process encourages dependency; it's unlikely the DM will change the paragraph structure or enhance it (though many do, realizing that it's a good idea to further describe the mist or the drop, to build tension).  This instructional style, based on limited space and economical sentence structure, is pervasive throughout the entire industry, even though space is no longer limited.  We still write modules this way.

Except, I'm finding I don't want to.  I'm not interested in putting words in the DM's mouth.  Rather, I want to write To the DM.  I don't want to instruct what to say, but why and how it needs to be said.  Let me give an example:

The players will look around for a way to move beyond the docks; they'll find a safe, white marble path that's about 15 feet wide.  I suggest a mist that drifts over the path; suggest that this gives the impression that the path's surface is uncertain or even dangerous.  Hesitate a moment if a player just boldly walks forward; ask, "Are you sure?"  And if they agree they are, let them go ahead.  You can build up a little more tension with die rolls, but this is cliche; I suggest instead that you ask about whether their order is single-file or abreast, and how fast they're moving.  Once you get someone saying, "We carefully move up the road," you know you've got them.

This leaves the actual description of the road up to the DM's imagination.  This forces the DM to practice the use of their imagination, which makes them a better DM ... while at the same time, the module becomes a teaching tool, instead of something that supplies information by rote.

Sorry I didn't think of this sooner.  I'd have written this post years ago.