lol okay fine I'll bite
This seems like the same kind of thing as X-cards and safety tools. An idea cooked by the socially stunted because they're too autistic to have a normal conversation.
I can see this having a use if your an online, anonymous DM who cycles through players often, but other than that it's cringe.
DM's taking criticism is obviously a good thing (like any other person who makes anything), but this is unnecessary.
No, you're right. In fact, today I had an adult conversation with one of my players who hasn't been very engaged lately to ask him what he wants out of this game and if there's something I can put in more. We jammed about it and he told me he wasn't quite sure what he wanted himself and he'd need to do some reflection.
Meanwhile I'm in another game on Saturday and I talked to the GM afterward because I was frustrated with how little some players got to do over the last couple sessions. There's one new guy who has been sort of the focus of the recent arc and the story has lately been "follow this guy around". We talked and he agreed that he should be less tunnel-vision.
Not a bad thing. And neither of these conversations would have been better facilitated by a card response.
>ask a player what he wants >doesn't have a fricking clue
In other news, water is wet.
>my GM wastes away my life with laborious descriptions of utter insignificance >only options are "well done!" and "more please!"
No. No. Frick no.
You might even think I'm exaggerating, but he started a game not too long ago with a recap and spent five minutes describing the minute details of an outfit of a minor npc that we had met and talked with for less than a minute in the previous session, and whom we never saw or even thought of ever again. He does this often enough that every little NPC, place, object is slathered with so many details that even things that are supposed to be important get lost in the weeds.
And, the worst part is they're never good descriptions. I know it may be harsh to judge what's essentially improv, but they're always the same first-thought cliches that could have been summarized by "he looks like an old farmer" or "she looks like a pretty princess", but painstakingly extended for several minutes because "Less is More" was never explained to him.
Oh, she has long golden hair, carefully arranged in dramatic and intricate curls, with a dress of pink silk interlayed with layers of delicate lace and adorned with pearls and silver accessories? She's tall, serene, and stands with perfect posture and poise, greeting everyone with the carefully practiced and reserved smile of a princess?
What's that? There's guards to either side of her? They're wearing full suits or armor? Shiny armor? Shiny armor with delicate silver patterns that flow in graceful curves? And their boots are made of high quality leather with intricate metal plating that appears well oiled and maintained? Oh, these boots also have the delicate silver patterns the rest of the armor has? And the boots' rivets are small and finely crafted?
"More please?"
Remind your GM that Robert Jordan died before he could finish the Wheel of Time series.
You're a fricking moron, bro. You're dumber than a large-mouth bass. You need to return to the lake, bro, you need to be thrown back as small fry. That's not a real image. It's not even good bait. It's self-advertised as a bad joke and you still took it serious. There's no saving you.
Apparently, some Cyberpunk Red homebrew. By a GM.
Imagine being such a slave to your players. Shit if people give me this they better start paying yeah lmao. Or better yet, off themselves. What the frick is this shit.
I mean maybe if they're strictly by the books, only using what was preplanned or rolled on a table.
Stuff like making it so the hunch they told each other about actually goes somewhere even though it wasn't part of the module is technically metagaming without hurting the game. It's not all "this NPC knows you have 10 hp and he can only do 8 damage max and he'll die this turn so he's not even going to try to hit you" is also metagaming, but in a bad way.
I have only one question on my report card: >"Are you fine with my game?"
A) Yes
B) No*
*Picking this choice implicitly makes you available for running a game in my stead
>my GM wastes away my life with laborious descriptions of utter insignificance >only options are "well done!" and "more please!"
No. No. Frick no.
You might even think I'm exaggerating, but he started a game not too long ago with a recap and spent five minutes describing the minute details of an outfit of a minor NPC that we had met and talked with for less than a minute in the previous session, and whom we never saw or even thought of ever again. He does this often enough that every little NPC, place, object is slathered with so many details that even things that are supposed to be important get lost in the weeds.
And, the worst part is they're never good descriptions. I know it may be harsh to judge what's essentially improv, but they're always the same first-thought cliches that could have been summarized by "he looks like an old farmer" or "she looks like a pretty princess", but painstakingly extended for several minutes because "Less is More" was never explained to him.
Oh, she has long golden hair, carefully arranged in dramatic and intricate curls, with a dress of pink silk interlayed with layers of delicate lace and adorned with pearls and silver accessories? She's tall, serene, and stands with perfect posture and poise, greeting everyone with the carefully practiced and reserved smile of a princess?
What's that? There's guards to either side of her? They're wearing full suits or armor? Shiny armor? Shiny armor with delicate silver patterns that flow in graceful curves? And their boots are made of high quality leather with intricate metal plating that appears well oiled and maintained? Oh, these boots also have the delicate silver patterns the rest of the armor has? And the boots' rivets are small and finely crafted?
You are the problem here. You should take up solo gaming so you can get your fix rolling dice and briefly smiling or frowning at the number before moving on.
Look. If you want to listen to the sound of your own voice, record an album and just play it back to yourself.
If you want to run a game where people actually pay attention to what you say, be efficient and original with your descriptions. Don't describe basic shit like you think no one has ever seen boots before. Just because players are essentially a captive audience doesn't mean you get to abuse that fact to wax poetic about every little detail like you think that means you have a rich world.
Anyone can churn out braindead descriptions by the truckload. It's no great talent, no one is impressed, and you're cruelly punishing anyone who wants to pay attention by overloading them with meaningless nonsense that they have to sift through in order to find any kernels worth remembering.
Rich descriptions are a literary tactic to promote imagery. I bet the guy writes/types out his notes and reads from them that way. While yes, it can be hard to absorb all that verbally, it shows he wants a depth to the world.
I don't like how you talk down to the practice, but I do agree I haven't seen it work well and it may be a problem. I wonder what ways a player can interact with these details to give them purpose or greater meaning. Maybe the DM should practice paring down their descriptions to hit the sweet spot of just enough description.
I disagree with your example of "a pretty princess," as being preferable. Maybe something more like "A blonde woman of noble birth. Wearing an outfit of expensive materials tailored to her abnormally tall figure."
Just enough to paint a picture and a weird quirk (why is she so tall?) to either prompt a question or provide food for thought.
>Just enough to paint a picture and a weird quirk (why is she so tall?) to either prompt a question or provide food for thought.
going off the examples in the post that started this, I think his problem is his GM's descriptions fail to do that, while also being longwinded.
Super flowery descriptions should only really come in for particularly important things, not the random clothing worn by a random side character. The descriptions in question leading to the whole discussion are too much for tabletop unless it is the written description for your Macguffin. It needs to be descriptive enough to build a picture, but you don't need to go describe super fine details unless they are relevant to the game at hand. Things like hair color, texture, and length, skin tone, build, apparent height and other blatantly obvious features are good. Going into the detailing of the family seal sewn into a random guards custom gloves is dumb, unless that detail plays into something coming up later. You know, Chekhov's Gun.
If you go too much into description, people are gonna tune out, and miss some of the actual important, relevant bits, and cause frustration all around.
Your example is good, and what a lot of DMs should aim for as a quick description of a relevant figure. Paint a basic picture, and let everyone's heads fill in the details on their own, because that's what our monkey brains like to do. You don't need a paragraph of overly flowery prose to let your players know a person is probably noble, probably rich, definitely blonde and notably tall for her race. You can have extra details noted down like particularly important israeliteelry and stuff, but a lot of that you might only want to bring up if someone inquires. There is a Goldilocks Zone for this between too much and too little, and the person whose comment started this chain of stuff was a bit too much into the "A bit too much".
tl;dr: Brevity is the soul of wit, and it's pretty great for tabletop game descriptions too.
You're making the mistake of assuming that the princess is some important character. Understandable, considering that several minutes have been spent describing not just her but her guards.
What's being omitted is the descriptions of the ten other courtiers and nobles, alongside the room and its decorations. The Princess will not speak, the party will have no real opportunity to address her, and she will soon disappear from everyone's memory, including the GM's. You're offering him the benefit of the doubt, but let's just say he has other talents and providing good descriptions just doesn't happen to be one.
I've GM'd quite a bit myself. "A pretty princess" is a poor description, but it's at the very least succinct, compared to wasting several minutes without providing anything that actually makes the girl more than a pretty princess. If you're just describing her hair, her clothes, her stereotypical mannerisms, you're just wasting your breath confirming she's a simple stock character.
2/2
Even your revised description is lacking, because "being tall" isn't a mystery (people are born that way), and of course a noble will be wearing an expensive outfit that would fit them, unless otherwise stated. Saying she's a "tall princess" says all the things you said, but in two words rather than twenty, and neither offering anything other than a background NPC that could have just been described as part of a group.
Every player has the power of imagination. We all know what a stereotypical princess or noble looks like, so you can spend the time offering actual meaningful descriptions instead. Saying "the throne room is filled with nobles" holds just about as much information as "the oppulent throne room has walls covered in intricate and elaborate tapestries, with a gigantic gilded throne surrounded by fifteen men and women dressed in the highest fashions and covered in israeliteels and other expensive accessories." None of that description is surprising or even mildly interesting.
"The throne is surrounded by nobles, standing silent and well apart from each other, like statues in a gallery," offers a description that offers some insight into the dynamics of the court alongside a clear visual. It provides a hint of mystery, shows rather than tells, and is under twenty words.
>you can either have minutes-long pointless description of someone's clothes or a rollplaying solo game experience >nothing in between
Why are you homosexuals this way?
>their boots are made of high quality leather with intricate metal plating that appears well oiled and maintained? Oh, these boots also have the delicate silver patterns the rest of the armor has? And the boots' rivets are small and finely crafted?
I hope you stole those boots.
>Oh, she has long golden hair, carefully arranged in dramatic and intricate curls, with a dress of pink silk interlayed with layers of delicate lace and adorned with pearls and silver accessories? She's tall, serene, and stands with perfect posture and poise, greeting everyone with the carefully practiced and reserved smile of a princess? >There's guards to either side of her? They're wearing full suits or armor? Shiny armor? Shiny armor with delicate silver patterns that flow in graceful curves? And their boots are made of high quality leather with intricate metal plating that appears well oiled and maintained? Oh, these boots also have the delicate silver patterns the rest of the armor has? And the boots' rivets are small and finely crafted? >You might even think I'm exaggerating
if these are your examples of 'too much', then yes, I think you're exaggerating
This is too granular but I think feedback in general is useful. I just ask specific questions like about the pacing etc rather than having this kind of broad formula though.
I think a lot of those questions are very subjective if they're good in the first place.
If I were to formulize some kind of standard questionnaire it'd probably be: >A thing you thought was good >A thing you thought was bad >A thing you want to see in future sessions
After concluding a DCC game that lasted for around 9 weeks, my players told me they were glad I GM'd for them and that I was "built different" and that they'd love to play again next time I run a game. That felt pretty good. I think I'm going to run AD&D1e next time.
Last time I asked for in depth feedback (stuff beyond what they liked and if they had any problems post-session) I got wildly different info from the different players.
What are "Air Themes"
Hot air baloons, birds, wind. That sort of thing
Avatar?
Themes reminiscent of the classic Air Bud series of films.
lol okay fine I'll bite
This seems like the same kind of thing as X-cards and safety tools. An idea cooked by the socially stunted because they're too autistic to have a normal conversation.
I can see this having a use if your an online, anonymous DM who cycles through players often, but other than that it's cringe.
DM's taking criticism is obviously a good thing (like any other person who makes anything), but this is unnecessary.
No, you're right. In fact, today I had an adult conversation with one of my players who hasn't been very engaged lately to ask him what he wants out of this game and if there's something I can put in more. We jammed about it and he told me he wasn't quite sure what he wanted himself and he'd need to do some reflection.
Meanwhile I'm in another game on Saturday and I talked to the GM afterward because I was frustrated with how little some players got to do over the last couple sessions. There's one new guy who has been sort of the focus of the recent arc and the story has lately been "follow this guy around". We talked and he agreed that he should be less tunnel-vision.
Not a bad thing. And neither of these conversations would have been better facilitated by a card response.
>ask a player what he wants
>doesn't have a fricking clue
In other news, water is wet.
Remind your GM that Robert Jordan died before he could finish the Wheel of Time series.
You're a fricking moron, bro. You're dumber than a large-mouth bass. You need to return to the lake, bro, you need to be thrown back as small fry. That's not a real image. It's not even good bait. It's self-advertised as a bad joke and you still took it serious. There's no saving you.
You're talking about the "Listen Up! To Rob Mulligan," pdf right?
>Meta Gaming: too little is an option
What the hell is this?
So you can filter the players who select that. By filter I mean attack with a claw hammer after the game
Apparently, some Cyberpunk Red homebrew. By a GM.
Imagine being such a slave to your players. Shit if people give me this they better start paying yeah lmao. Or better yet, off themselves. What the frick is this shit.
Implying that a DM taking feedback is a bad thing? I've seen what the opposite does and it's worse.
>feedback
>only options are "Suck my Dick" or "Tongue my Anus"
You are what is wrong with the hobby.
I mean maybe if they're strictly by the books, only using what was preplanned or rolled on a table.
Stuff like making it so the hunch they told each other about actually goes somewhere even though it wasn't part of the module is technically metagaming without hurting the game. It's not all "this NPC knows you have 10 hp and he can only do 8 damage max and he'll die this turn so he's not even going to try to hit you" is also metagaming, but in a bad way.
>no "Less Please" on accents and mannerisms
I have only one question on my report card:
>"Are you fine with my game?"
A) Yes
B) No*
*Picking this choice implicitly makes you available for running a game in my stead
>my GM wastes away my life with laborious descriptions of utter insignificance
>only options are "well done!" and "more please!"
No. No. Frick no.
You might even think I'm exaggerating, but he started a game not too long ago with a recap and spent five minutes describing the minute details of an outfit of a minor NPC that we had met and talked with for less than a minute in the previous session, and whom we never saw or even thought of ever again. He does this often enough that every little NPC, place, object is slathered with so many details that even things that are supposed to be important get lost in the weeds.
And, the worst part is they're never good descriptions. I know it may be harsh to judge what's essentially improv, but they're always the same first-thought cliches that could have been summarized by "he looks like an old farmer" or "she looks like a pretty princess", but painstakingly extended for several minutes because "Less is More" was never explained to him.
Oh, she has long golden hair, carefully arranged in dramatic and intricate curls, with a dress of pink silk interlayed with layers of delicate lace and adorned with pearls and silver accessories? She's tall, serene, and stands with perfect posture and poise, greeting everyone with the carefully practiced and reserved smile of a princess?
What's that? There's guards to either side of her? They're wearing full suits or armor? Shiny armor? Shiny armor with delicate silver patterns that flow in graceful curves? And their boots are made of high quality leather with intricate metal plating that appears well oiled and maintained? Oh, these boots also have the delicate silver patterns the rest of the armor has? And the boots' rivets are small and finely crafted?
"More please?"
You are the problem here. You should take up solo gaming so you can get your fix rolling dice and briefly smiling or frowning at the number before moving on.
Look. If you want to listen to the sound of your own voice, record an album and just play it back to yourself.
If you want to run a game where people actually pay attention to what you say, be efficient and original with your descriptions. Don't describe basic shit like you think no one has ever seen boots before. Just because players are essentially a captive audience doesn't mean you get to abuse that fact to wax poetic about every little detail like you think that means you have a rich world.
Anyone can churn out braindead descriptions by the truckload. It's no great talent, no one is impressed, and you're cruelly punishing anyone who wants to pay attention by overloading them with meaningless nonsense that they have to sift through in order to find any kernels worth remembering.
Rich descriptions are a literary tactic to promote imagery. I bet the guy writes/types out his notes and reads from them that way. While yes, it can be hard to absorb all that verbally, it shows he wants a depth to the world.
I don't like how you talk down to the practice, but I do agree I haven't seen it work well and it may be a problem. I wonder what ways a player can interact with these details to give them purpose or greater meaning. Maybe the DM should practice paring down their descriptions to hit the sweet spot of just enough description.
I disagree with your example of "a pretty princess," as being preferable. Maybe something more like "A blonde woman of noble birth. Wearing an outfit of expensive materials tailored to her abnormally tall figure."
Just enough to paint a picture and a weird quirk (why is she so tall?) to either prompt a question or provide food for thought.
>Just enough to paint a picture and a weird quirk (why is she so tall?) to either prompt a question or provide food for thought.
going off the examples in the post that started this, I think his problem is his GM's descriptions fail to do that, while also being longwinded.
Super flowery descriptions should only really come in for particularly important things, not the random clothing worn by a random side character. The descriptions in question leading to the whole discussion are too much for tabletop unless it is the written description for your Macguffin. It needs to be descriptive enough to build a picture, but you don't need to go describe super fine details unless they are relevant to the game at hand. Things like hair color, texture, and length, skin tone, build, apparent height and other blatantly obvious features are good. Going into the detailing of the family seal sewn into a random guards custom gloves is dumb, unless that detail plays into something coming up later. You know, Chekhov's Gun.
If you go too much into description, people are gonna tune out, and miss some of the actual important, relevant bits, and cause frustration all around.
Your example is good, and what a lot of DMs should aim for as a quick description of a relevant figure. Paint a basic picture, and let everyone's heads fill in the details on their own, because that's what our monkey brains like to do. You don't need a paragraph of overly flowery prose to let your players know a person is probably noble, probably rich, definitely blonde and notably tall for her race. You can have extra details noted down like particularly important israeliteelry and stuff, but a lot of that you might only want to bring up if someone inquires. There is a Goldilocks Zone for this between too much and too little, and the person whose comment started this chain of stuff was a bit too much into the "A bit too much".
tl;dr: Brevity is the soul of wit, and it's pretty great for tabletop game descriptions too.
You're making the mistake of assuming that the princess is some important character. Understandable, considering that several minutes have been spent describing not just her but her guards.
What's being omitted is the descriptions of the ten other courtiers and nobles, alongside the room and its decorations. The Princess will not speak, the party will have no real opportunity to address her, and she will soon disappear from everyone's memory, including the GM's. You're offering him the benefit of the doubt, but let's just say he has other talents and providing good descriptions just doesn't happen to be one.
I've GM'd quite a bit myself. "A pretty princess" is a poor description, but it's at the very least succinct, compared to wasting several minutes without providing anything that actually makes the girl more than a pretty princess. If you're just describing her hair, her clothes, her stereotypical mannerisms, you're just wasting your breath confirming she's a simple stock character.
2/2
Even your revised description is lacking, because "being tall" isn't a mystery (people are born that way), and of course a noble will be wearing an expensive outfit that would fit them, unless otherwise stated. Saying she's a "tall princess" says all the things you said, but in two words rather than twenty, and neither offering anything other than a background NPC that could have just been described as part of a group.
Every player has the power of imagination. We all know what a stereotypical princess or noble looks like, so you can spend the time offering actual meaningful descriptions instead. Saying "the throne room is filled with nobles" holds just about as much information as "the oppulent throne room has walls covered in intricate and elaborate tapestries, with a gigantic gilded throne surrounded by fifteen men and women dressed in the highest fashions and covered in israeliteels and other expensive accessories." None of that description is surprising or even mildly interesting.
"The throne is surrounded by nobles, standing silent and well apart from each other, like statues in a gallery," offers a description that offers some insight into the dynamics of the court alongside a clear visual. It provides a hint of mystery, shows rather than tells, and is under twenty words.
>roleplaying is when you listen to the DM narrate an improv fricking audiobook
>you can either have minutes-long pointless description of someone's clothes or a rollplaying solo game experience
>nothing in between
Why are you homosexuals this way?
>their boots are made of high quality leather with intricate metal plating that appears well oiled and maintained? Oh, these boots also have the delicate silver patterns the rest of the armor has? And the boots' rivets are small and finely crafted?
I hope you stole those boots.
>Oh, she has long golden hair, carefully arranged in dramatic and intricate curls, with a dress of pink silk interlayed with layers of delicate lace and adorned with pearls and silver accessories? She's tall, serene, and stands with perfect posture and poise, greeting everyone with the carefully practiced and reserved smile of a princess?
>There's guards to either side of her? They're wearing full suits or armor? Shiny armor? Shiny armor with delicate silver patterns that flow in graceful curves? And their boots are made of high quality leather with intricate metal plating that appears well oiled and maintained? Oh, these boots also have the delicate silver patterns the rest of the armor has? And the boots' rivets are small and finely crafted?
>You might even think I'm exaggerating
if these are your examples of 'too much', then yes, I think you're exaggerating
This is too granular but I think feedback in general is useful. I just ask specific questions like about the pacing etc rather than having this kind of broad formula though.
I think a lot of those questions are very subjective if they're good in the first place.
If I were to formulize some kind of standard questionnaire it'd probably be:
>A thing you thought was good
>A thing you thought was bad
>A thing you want to see in future sessions
After concluding a DCC game that lasted for around 9 weeks, my players told me they were glad I GM'd for them and that I was "built different" and that they'd love to play again next time I run a game. That felt pretty good. I think I'm going to run AD&D1e next time.
Last time I asked for in depth feedback (stuff beyond what they liked and if they had any problems post-session) I got wildly different info from the different players.
>different people have different opinions
idk sounds normal to me
Do you guys have a report card in PDF you can share please?