Questions tagged [narration]
For questions primarily about narration, the act of describing the events that unfold in the game world, either as player or gamemaster.
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How do I keep the narrative alive during combats?
For years, I've had trouble keeping the players engaged in the narrative of combat and what happens during their turns.
After the first 4 turns or so, it becomes hard to imagine what everyone does and ...
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How to run a D&D urban campaign
I'm currently in the middle of DM'ing a city campaign. I've found it's quite a bit more difficult than a dungeon. I have the city mostly planned out (type of city, the ruler, the districts, centers of ...
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How to deal with an overly-specific GM
So we started a new game tonight, and only an hour in I was bored out of my brain. The GM kept ranting about where each of our characters were from, the heritage of the area, etc. It could be argued ...
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How can I be more descriptive about actions and events in my game?
Whenever I'm running or playing a game, I consistently run into an issue of setting atmosphere. I've realized the best way to do this is through more effective, engaging descriptions of settings, ...
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Balance between planning and improvising [closed]
What is the ideal balance between planning out an entire session of playing, complete with music scoring and conversation detailing, and winging the entire thing?
As an example, I'll cite one of the ...
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Mechanics and methods for playing a quantum-superposition of worlds [closed]
I'm looking for game mechanics and story telling methods that convey the atmosphere that characters don't just live in one world, but in a multiverse adhering to something similar to the many-worlds ...
- 4,005
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How to convey the tone of Shadowrun?
Reading the core book I realized how different Shadowrun is from my usual game of Dungeons & Dragons. We usually play the good guys saving a village from a tribe of goblins. Most of the time we ...
user4000
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Fantasy and magic in a primarily realistic setting
I'm running a game that's best described as "medieval fantasy," in the sense that we're actually trying to have the lives of people in the setting strongly resemble the historical Middle Ages. There ...
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How to fight the unseen, and still keep things interesting?
In a horror themed campaign with a Lovecraftian feeling, a big part of the game is a constant feeling of threat, but without any visual stimuli other than glimpses, or sounds vaguely heard of things ...
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How to become better at descriptions of what your character is doing?
A (very) common GM question is "What is your character doing?"
How do you, as a player, describe effectively what you character is doing?
What techniques do you use to evoke wonder and spark ...
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Co-operative story-telling mechanics
What are some existing or potential game mechanics that encourage players to "take the reins" a bit more and involve themselves in a story-telling perspective? Specifically, are there any examples of ...
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Narrativist Gaming: How do you transition more traditionally-trained players into them?
This was obviously inspired by the corresponding question on GM-less gaming.
For the past couple of years I've become really interested in RPGs that are less about dungeon-crawling and combat and ...
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What techniques can I use to improve flavor text?
I've been improving my GM skills lately, but there is one area in which my skills are very weak, and that is flavor text. For example, if my players go into the woods, I tend to say something stupid ...
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Tricks allowing continuous narration during a fight [closed]
I used a lot of tricks that allowed to skip the counting of every swing and blow and dodge.
I think people should share such solutions. My favourite tricks:
Roll a bunch of dice and just take look at ...
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Third-Person Limited Narration or Third-Person Omniscient Narration?
What are the advantages/disadvantages to using either a kind of "Limited Narration" or an "Omniscient Narration" style when running a game?
i.e. Does saying...
None of the characters notice the ...
- 6,969