PDA

View Full Version : On the subject of storytelling



shadow_archmagi
2010-02-28, 11:21 PM
So, D&D is about making stories, yes? I mean, it's about a lot of other things too, but one of the important things in D&D (well, USUALLY important, obviously not everyone has identical values) is storytelling.

I don't mean storytelling like the difference between "You walk into a cave" and "You cautiously tread your way into the fetid caverns as putrid algae drips from stalagmites"

I mean stories like "Well this one time we were playing and the DM threw a dragon at us. At first we thought we were dead, but then we managed to hit it with an antigravity spell, so the direction that its head said was UP was actually DOWN so in an attempt to escape it dived directly into the ground and crashed."

What tips do the playgrounds have for

1. Making sure your game runs in such a way that afterwords it makes a decent narrative?

2. Actually narrating the story to your friends and sounding like a person telling an interesting story instead of someone telling a boring story about their weird hobby.

One thing I've found is to never tell a story about yourself. If you were a player, you want to tell a story about some clever thing the DM did. If you were a DM, tell about what the players did.