DMing and visualization

[Tanarii]

How important a skill do you consider visualization as a DM? The ability to close your eyes and see the scene?

I ask because I can never visualize at-will. I've tried many times. I get nothing. I only visualize something in dreams, which happens about once a year, and very rarely involuntary flash backs from extreme drug abuse days. (do not recommend btw)

But I've never considered it an important skill to DMing. Important skills include, IMO, the ability to remember a whole metric crap-ton of details, ability to communicate effectively, ability to adapt on the fly, and most important ability to not burn out because you've spent too much time preparing. Visualization would occasionally be handy, but not a really necessary skill.

I ran across this on my favorite (okay only) D&D blog to read, and was shocked by the emphasis on visualization.
https://theangrygm.com/you-can-quit-encounters-2/
Half way down in the section titled "Come With Me; And You’ll Be; In a Land of Pure Imagination"

I tried his visualization (once again), completely disagree it's a learnable skille that practice can teach anyone to do it, and am now wondering if my complete lack of ability is really hampering me in some way. :smallamused:

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm entirely with you on this one. I'm so very verbally-oriented that I have at least moderate aphantasia, and always have. When I took an IQ test as a child, there was a notable difference between my other scores and my spacial reasoning scores, exactly for this reason--I can't visualize things graphically. For me, words are everything.

Yet I consider myself a successful DM, and have never felt that this hampered me. DMing is, for me, almost entirely about translating scenes (either written down or whatever) into words. Not painting them, but describing them well enough that people know what's going on where. And that's a verbal trait more than a visualization trait. Yes, you have to be able to hold that description in your head and examine it so you know who is where doing what to whom, but you don't need a mental picture for that (although it might help).

[Unoriginal]

How important a skill do you consider visualization as a DM? The ability to close your eyes and see the scene?

I ask because I can never visualize at-will. I've tried many times. I get nothing. I only visualize something in dreams, which happens about once a year, and very rarely involuntary flash backs from extreme drug abuse days. (do not recommend btw)

But I've never considered it an important skill to DMing. Important skills include, IMO, the ability to remember a whole metric crap-ton of details, ability to communicate effectively, ability to adapt on the fly, and most important ability to not burn out because you've spent too much time preparing. Visualization would occasionally be handy, but not a really necessary skill.

I ran across this on my favorite (okay only) D&D blog to read, and was shocked by the emphasis on visualization.
https://theangrygm.com/you-can-quit-encounters-2/
Half way down in the section titled "Come With Me; And YouÂ’ll Be; In a Land of Pure Imagination"

I tried his visualization (once again), completely disagree it's a learnable skille that practice can teach anyone to do it, and am now wondering if my complete lack of ability is really hampering me in some way. :smallamused:


I think that in term of DMing skills, being able to vizualise is far less important than being able to make the players imagine the scene, however the players do it.

EDIT (because I didn't get the question the first time):But like PhoenixPhyre said, not everyone's imagination is the same. Visual, verbal, tactile, etc, are all different kinds of imagination, and I agree with you, it's not a learnable "skill" to imagine things a certain way.


IF you have visual imagination, it's possible to train it. Otherwise it isn't.

As usual I'm not impressed by AngryGM's "my way or no way" approach.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think that in term of DMing skills, being able to vizualise is far less important than being able to make the players vizualise, but that not being able to vizualise likely make the game far less enjoyable for the DM.

If I may ask, what do you find enjoyable in DMing if you don't imagine the scenes as they happen (and/or when you're preparing them)?

Building a world and seeing how they react to situations.

Seeing what they do with the choices presented, especially when they find an unexpected way around things.

Feedback from their joy at success/failure/having their actions matter.

Building stories as a group.

That moment when the group says something about what's coming up and you just smile wickedly.

That moment where the group says something about what's coming up and you hurriedly erase what you had planned and substitute their idea, because it's way better. Same goes for worldbuilding things.

Describing the scene and seeing their reactions.

Describing the scene to yourself while planning to get all the details to fit nicely. This is the verbal version of visualization, and it's just as effective (for me).

Etc.

[Unoriginal]

Building a world and seeing how they react to situations.

Seeing what they do with the choices presented, especially when they find an unexpected way around things.

Feedback from their joy at success/failure/having their actions matter.

Building stories as a group.

That moment when the group says something about what's coming up and you just smile wickedly.

That moment where the group says something about what's coming up and you hurriedly erase what you had planned and substitute their idea, because it's way better. Same goes for worldbuilding things.

Describing the scene and seeing their reactions.

Describing the scene to yourself while planning to get all the details to fit nicely. This is the verbal version of visualization, and it's just as effective (for me).

Etc.

I edited my answer, I didn't get what Tanarii was asking the first time.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I edited my answer, I didn't get what Tanarii was asking the first time.

I can get behind the edit. Being able to imagine the scenes is important, but how you do so is up to you.

And I agree about AngryGM--I don't read his stuff because he's too abusively-opinionated. Not just opinionated, but unless you share his opinions you're wrong and a bad DM who should stay away from the game entirely. It's BadFunWrong all the way down. Or at least that's the attitude he projects.

[da newt]

We all think differently. Some of us have a strong preference to one sense or another, some of us float between all of them. Learning styles are like this too. There is no 'right' way to think - we all do it our own ways.

Personally I like a visual and something concrete for distances especially because spacial relations are important to me (grids and minis are my friend), but many folks don't give a flyingfox for any of that stuff, but if you tell them how a room smells or the emotions of the other people/creatures it really resonates with them ...

As DM I think it's best if you can cater a bit to everyone at the table - your visual folks love a picture, your audio/verbal folks will dive into theme music and prose, some folks want to know how musty or dank it smells/feels, etc. If as DM you can give each of them a bit of what they like/desire, it works well.

But there are hundreds of ways to DM well. You do you, but also do what you can to cater to your audience and you are good to go. Some paint in water colors, others prefer words, and yet others have almost no imagination at all ...

[OldTrees1]

Visualization is not required. There are many ways to achieve the same objective and it is way too easy to presume one's own framework has necessary components.


For example I like sandbox campaigns and I extremely value being able to cram the entire world into my head as an intuitive understanding of the world. This uses a lot of connections and being able to derive A from B for me to compress a world into my head. Sidenote: After a few layers of compression, visualization is no longer useful to me as a compression tool.

This has become so normal for me that I expect sandbox DMs have an understanding of their world as a means of having a consistent world that has verisimilitude. But creates a blind spot where I forget about the DMs that recorded 10 years of notes so their 10 years of notes can carry the burden of knowing / understanding the world and the DM just pilots that vast bank of knowledge. The difference from learning and remembering calculus vs creating a computer program that remembers calculus even after you forget.

Visualization is useful but not required. Just like compressing the world into your head is useful but not required.

[MaxWilson]

How important a skill do you consider visualization as a DM? The ability to close your eyes and see the scene?

I ask because I can never visualize at-will. I've tried many times. I get nothing. I only visualize something in dreams, which happens about once a year, and very rarely involuntary flash backs from extreme drug abuse days. (do not recommend btw)

But I've never considered it an important skill to DMing. Important skills include, IMO, the ability to remember a whole metric crap-ton of details, ability to communicate effectively, ability to adapt on the fly, and most important ability to not burn out because you've spent too much time preparing. Visualization would occasionally be handy, but not a really necessary skill.

I ran across this on my favorite (okay only) D&D blog to read, and was shocked by the emphasis on visualization.
https://theangrygm.com/you-can-quit-encounters-2/
Half way down in the section titled "Come With Me; And You’ll Be; In a Land of Pure Imagination"

I tried his visualization (once again), completely disagree it's a learnable skille that practice can teach anyone to do it, and am now wondering if my complete lack of ability is really hampering me in some way. :smallamused:

Like much of AngryGM's writing, he makes a few good and useful points, but the signal-to-noise ratio is terrible. In this particular case he's too hung up on visualization when what really matters is conceptualization, however you do it. The visualization exercise is noise, not signal.

It does not matter if you pictured a specific number of buildings originally in your head during a pre-visualization exercise, or a moat, or the absence of a moat, as long as you can generate sensible answers on these points when you need to. If a player says, "I ride my horse in from the west edge of town," at that point it has become important whether there's a moat or not, and the player clearly doesn't think there is one, so you either go with it from that point on (there definitely is no moat) or if you realize at that point that this town would logically have a moat you back up and apologize for not mentioning it sooner, "Sorry, I should have said earlier but this is a river town designed to be defensible--the only bridges over the moat are on the north and east sides. Coming from the west you'd have to swim or jump a 30' moat abutting a palisade fence, and the guards seem likely to abject. What would you like to do or ask me now?"

Conceptualization is a key skill, not just for DMs but for players too. To act effectively within a notional world, you must have some kind of model of that gameworld in your head already, and in order for the game to be fun the DM has to be skilled at synchronizing their mental model with your model using words/diagrams/props, and recognizing and resolving conflicts between models without disrupting gameflow. (This is one reason I generally stick with RAW even where I don't love the rules, e.g. the PHB rules for jumping and climbing. I wish strength-to-weight ratio mattered, but the PHB rules become part of a player's mental model of their own notional capabilities, and the game goes more smoothly if they don't have to stop and ask me how fast they or monsters can climb, or how far they or animals can jump. But I do make changes to RAW where the cost-benefit ratio is favorable enough, e.g. I don't care what RAW says, climbing requires at least one free hand, and animals without hands or an explicit climb speed are out of luck, because it would actually be _more_ surprising and disruptive to mental models if wolves could climb trees.)

But actual, vision-based visualization per se does not matter.

[Magicspook]

Since lockdown, I have been obsessively making maps using DungeonDraft. I cram my dungeons and villages full of details to make them not only functioning battlemaps and a strong visual guide to the options available out of combat, but also to carry over the theme of the scene. It's wonderful if the players interact with some little detail I put in the map as an afterthought (like a lockbox or somethig) or notice a hidden trap from some tiny clue I put onto the map.
I do wonder how this will change when lockdown is over...

To answer your question more specifically, I am a cery visual kind of guy myself (hence my love of maps), but that is not some prerequisite for being a DM. One of my DMs is actually really not visually oriented, but I construct an image of the scene in my own head based on the DM's description and crude drawings regardless. As long as your story is good, the players will experience their own version of it in their head in their own preferred way.

[Doug Lampert]

How important a skill do you consider visualization as a DM? The ability to close your eyes and see the scene?

I ask because I can never visualize at-will. I've tried many times. I get nothing. I only visualize something in dreams, which happens about once a year, and very rarely involuntary flash backs from extreme drug abuse days. (do not recommend btw)

I can't visualize at all. Some years ago, I encountered a claim that about 15% of the population is almost entirely or entirely non-visual in how they think, it made sense to me, as other people can see things in their head, and I can't. Not my mother's face, not my wife's face, not my own face. Nothing.

If I describe something in visual terms, it is typically because I've memorized the description. If I can't see it right now with my eyes, I don't see it. I haven't even had a dream where I remembered ANYTHING visual from the dream in the last 40 or more years.

I have a Ph.D. in Applied Math, with the main work being in Graph Theory. I do not consider inability to visualize things as pictures in my mind to be a problem. I have other ways of thinking about problems, and they seem to work, including for GMing.

[Zhorn]

The ability to visualise is a powerful tool, but I disagree that it is necessary to being a good DM, or that the idea of being able to do it inherently would make you a better DM.

Being said I am a very visual orientated DM. I've had players in the past with aphantasia, and so to make the game more inclusive for them I tend to avoid theatre of the mind style play. Be it using dungeon tiles, battle mat, or just a whiteboard and markers, I always make sure to have a physical visual aid present for those that are unable to visualise the description of the scene I'm setting up.

I've also been a player in games with zero visual aids, run entirely on descriptions of scenes and have had a blast in those.
Granted the players in that were taking very detailed notes constantly, as not everyone was on the DMs level of retaining so much in their head at any one time.

In short, it's just about how well you can use the toolkits you have, not which toolkits you have.

@Tanarii, do you have aphantasia or have been tested for it? Don't feel obligated to answer, I just have a mild curiosity. Supposedly about ~2-5% of people have it.

[MaxWilson]

@Tanarii, do you have aphantasia or have been tested for it? Don't feel obligated to answer, I just have a mild curiosity. Supposedly about ~2-5% of people have it.

My brother thought he had that until we finally convinced him that there are differences between a visualization in your mind and a vision with your eyes. His expectations for visualization detail and vividness were waaaay too high.

[Tanarii]

@Tanarii, do you have aphantasia or have been tested for it? Don't feel obligated to answer, I just have a mild curiosity. Supposedly about ~2-5% of people have it.
I'd never even heard of it before this thread. When I googled it, I'd have to say no, I don't have that. I looked at several picture tests for it and tried them. To pick the one that worked the best for me, my inability to visualize a "red star" would be best described as best result from trying really hard being "faded outline that vaguely resembles the shape being visualized" rather than completely nothing.

Conversely, I can easily imagine a dead adventure's skeleton at a hallway junction from some old D&D art. I can imagine captain incredible hiding behind gazerbeams skeleton. I just can't see them. They're abstract concepts, not visual. These are things I've actually seen before, so I'm recalling them without seeing them. I know how they existed and can describe them in detail without even a slight visual element on my part.

I certainly can't visualize a village seen from a hilltop nearby, even having seen plenty of art like that.

[MaxWilson]

I'd never even heard of it before this thread. When I googled it, I'd have to say no, I don't have that. I looked at several picture tests for it and tried them. To pick the one that worked the best for me, my inability to visualize a "red star" would be best described as best result from trying really hard being "faded outline that vaguely resembles the shape being visualized" rather than completely nothing.

Conversely, I can easily imagine a dead adventure's skeleton at a hallway junction from some old D&D art. I can imagine captain incredible hiding behind gazerbeams skeleton. I just can't see them. They're abstract concepts, not visual. These are things I've actually seen before, so I'm recalling them without seeing them. I know how they existed and can describe them in detail without even a slight visual element on my part.

I certainly can't visualize a village seen from a hilltop nearby, even having seen plenty of art like that.

This sounds totally normal to me. That's how visualization works: awareness, not actual sensory inputs to your visual receptors.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'd never even heard of it before this thread. When I googled it, I'd have to say no, I don't have that. I looked at several picture tests for it and tried them. To pick the one that worked the best for me, my inability to visualize a "red star" would be best described as best result from trying really hard being "faded outline that vaguely resembles the shape being visualized" rather than completely nothing.

Conversely, I can easily imagine a dead adventure's skeleton at a hallway junction from some old D&D art. I can imagine captain incredible hiding behind gazerbeams skeleton. I just can't see them. They're abstract concepts, not visual. These are things I've actually seen before, so I'm recalling them without seeing them. I know how they existed and can describe them in detail without even a slight visual element on my part.

I certainly can't visualize a village seen from a hilltop nearby, even having seen plenty of art like that.

I'm pretty sure that aphantasia isn't a binary thing--it's not just total inability, but has partial versions as well.

I'm much the same--I have a lively imagination. I've been telling myself stories since I was a little kid, often completely engrossing ones with lots of detail. But all in words, even in my head. I don't think in pictures, I think in words. Mental conversations with myself, with others[0], etc. I even dream in words, most of the time, despite seeing things. Most of the "tense situations" in my dreams involve talking about things, not doing things[1]. And only very rarely are there dreamscapes beyond those I'm intimately familiar with (even if distorted due to dreaming).

I don't know if I have aphantasia, but wouldn't be surprised if I had some form of it.

[0] Like rehearsing posts I'm going to make on the forums or elsewhere. Less so talking to imaginary or imagined people. I do think in the plural first-person a lot ("what are we going to do?")

[1] Odd note about my dreams--when guns (or other physical violence) are involved, it's more like kids playing cops and robbers. Guns don't make the right sounds, nor do they actually hurt anyone until I convince them verbally that they've been shot and should be dead. It often takes a lot of convincing. And yes, I have shot real guns so I know what they sound like. The dream ones actually literally say "BANG".

[Tanarii]

This sounds totally normal to me. That's how visualization works: awareness, not actual sensory inputs to your visual receptors.
Not according to the online tests I found. It's supposed to be closing your eyes and being able to get a visual mental picture of, as I said in the example, a red star. Not that I spent a whole lot of time researching, and of course they're online so accuracy is dubious.

What I get is an abstract recall I could turn into descriptive words or rules or map or sketch if needed. Or math/physics, or name and IP for a couple thousand servers, or even some scripting code, for less game related topics. They're all that same abstract awareness and recall.

I can make stuff up too obviously, but I'm not doing it based on a picture in my head is the point. Now internal talking? Yeah, I can do that no problem. :smallamused:

[da newt]

IMO - don't worry about it. We all think differently - No big deal. Some folks are drawn to / like / remember visuals, some love small facts (verbal, numerical, smell, visual), some prefer ideas / theories. Figure out what works best for you, try to help others by accommodating their preferences as best you can.

There are many schools of thought on these sorts of things in various fields like learning type, psychology, etc (MBTI - personality type for example).

My study partner in college was HARD core visual - she struggled with WHY, but she could read back her notes verbatim remembering what side of the page, color of ink, etc. whereas I am drawn to ideas / rules / why etc. but I suck at remembering specific facts. I never memorized my multiplication tables, I do the math every time.

There is no right way or wrong way - we each have our own ways that work best for us.

[Bigmouth]

I think that I 'visualize' scenes for gaming all the time, but I have pretty much total aphantasia as far as I can tell. I can't actually 'see' anything when I think about it. Not the faces of people I love or the simplest of objects. I see the inside of my eyelids while my brain kind of informs me that I'm thinking about it. Talking about brain processes is odd, but for me personally, it is almost like my brain pins verbal descriptions together.

I remember the first description of aphantasia I read used something like "visualize a ball on a table". For some people they get an actual visual. A specific ball on a specific table. Some people even fill in the room around that scene. I see nothing at all, but know that I am thinking about a ball on a table. If asked for details I can create them but it is something I do. My brain puts a note on the original "ball on a table" note that adds, "baseball, smeared with fresh grass stains."

I think I'm a pretty good GM and settings and visuals are probably one of my strong points. I wonder if some of that is because I don't actually see anything and have to have my brain describe scenes to me with words, descriptions. So for me, telling the players what they see is actually the exact same process that I use to imagine anything. I would like to think that my inability to actually see anything when I close my eyes or dream doesn't limit me. I have a pretty vivid imagination IMO. It might be why I draw. I create something in my head but can't see it if I don't draw it.

[cutlery]

I think being able to describe something visually is important. Whether or not you need to visualize it yourself to be able to do that I suppose doesn't matter, provided the descriptions work.

For what it's worth; the whole learning styles thing is mostly bunk. Use visual descriptors for things that they work for and mood descriptors for things they work for. Some folks will like knowing that so-and-so's sleeve is crimson, some folks prefer to know what sort of expression is on their face, and some folks will only care what so-and-so's AC happens to be.

[MaxWilson]

Not according to the online tests I found. It's supposed to be closing your eyes and being able to get a visual mental picture of, as I said in the example, a red star. Not that I spent a whole lot of time researching, and of course they're online so accuracy is dubious.

What I get is an abstract recall I could turn into descriptive words or rules or map or sketch if needed. Or math/physics, or name and IP for a couple thousand servers, or even some scripting code, for less game related topics. They're all that same abstract awareness and recall.

I can make stuff up too obviously, but I'm not doing it based on a picture in my head is the point. Now internal talking? Yeah, I can do that no problem. :smallamused:

If I asked you to mentally point to the top of the five-pointed star, could you identify the top point? I.e. is there a sense of spatial awareness? (Would you say, "It depends on how it's oriented?" or would it come with a default orientation already that's attached to the concept of "star"?)

I can't visualize a five dimensional hypercube with my eyes, but I have spatial awareness of those dimensions. If you can have spatial awareness of the object then you're normal. However, if you had to draw the star on paper before you could decide whether it has a top point or two top points (because it's oriented point-down), then you'd be more impaired than I realized--that is not normal.


I think that I 'visualize' scenes for gaming all the time, but I have pretty much total aphantasia as far as I can tell. I can't actually 'see' anything when I think about it. Not the faces of people I love or the simplest of objects. I see the inside of my eyelids while my brain kind of informs me that I'm thinking about it. Talking about brain processes is odd, but for me personally, it is almost like my brain pins verbal descriptions together.

I remember the first description of aphantasia I read used something like "visualize a ball on a table". For some people they get an actual visual. A specific ball on a specific table. Some people even fill in the room around that scene. I see nothing at all, but know that I am thinking about a ball on a table. If asked for details I can create them but it is something I do. My brain puts a note on the original "ball on a table" note that adds, "baseball, smeared with fresh grass stains."

I think I'm a pretty good GM and settings and visuals are probably one of my strong points. I wonder if some of that is because I don't actually see anything and have to have my brain describe scenes to me with words, descriptions. So for me, telling the players what they see is actually the exact same process that I use to imagine anything. I would like to think that my inability to actually see anything when I close my eyes or dream doesn't limit me. I have a pretty vivid imagination IMO. It might be why I draw. I create something in my head but can't see it if I don't draw it.

One of the things I really dislike about the online tests for aphantasia is that they tend to just give you an abstract verbal description and then rely on you to self-evaluate the vividness of what you see. This is a disservice to the way memory works: it's schematic, contextual. And self-evaluations are unreliable. They tend to ask questions like, "Think of a loved one. How vividly do you see their facial features? Abstract/Detailed/As Vivid as Real Life," which IMO are bad questions because they don't evoke any context (and also rely on self-evaluation). The way I'd write those questions is more along the lines of:

Q: Who is someone you are close to?
A: Laura.
Q: Imagine the two of you doing something together that you often do. What is it?
A: Eating pizza.
Q: Is she wearing shoes? Yes, no, or not sure?
A: Yes.
Q: What color are they? Say 'not sure' if you're not sure.
A: Red, with white rims.
Q: Does she have any jewelry on?
A: No.

And so on. Someone with genuine aphantasia will not automatically generate "default" mental imagery in these cases and will have to answer "not sure" for pretty much everything, especially stuff involving colors. But a normal person will by stimulated by the attention to specific detail and will lazily generate those parts of the mental image that the question draws attention to. The more additional detail the person volunteers without being asked (multiple colors for the shoes), the more vivid the visual imagination.

I think the online aphantasia tests are mostly just good for convincing normal people that they have aphantasia.

In any case, the things those tests are measuring (vividness of visual imagery in a context-free vacuum) are totally irrelevant to DMing.

[Tanarii]

If I asked you to mentally point to the top of the five-pointed star, could you identify the top point? I.e. is there a sense of spatial awareness? (Would you say, "It depends on how it's oriented?" or would it come with a default orientation already that's attached to the concept of "star"?)

Oh definitely orientation. Like I said, I get something vaguely resembling an outline. And now that you asked me about orientation, it kept flickering around / switching states when I tied to nail it down. And now my head hurts. :smallamused: But that definitively answers that as far as I'm concerned. My goal with these "are you this 1% of the population named-special-condition" is always to prove that no, I'm not. So thanks!

Btw I tried your idea of imagining someone (actually several someone's in a row) in a situation, and all I get are mental-verbal answers to questions. Probably because I'm mentally-verbally asking myself a bunch of questions. :smallyuk:

[MaxWilson]

Oh definitely orientation. Like I said, I get something vaguely resembling an outline. (A) And now that you asked me about orientation, it kept flickering around / switching states when I tied to nail it down. And now my head hurts. :smallamused: But that definitively answers that as far as I'm concerned. My goal with these "are you this 1% of the population named-special-condition" is always to prove that no, I'm not. So thanks!

(B) Btw I tried your idea of imagining someone (actually several someone's in a row) in a situation, and all I get are mental-verbal answers to questions. Probably because I'm mentally-verbally asking myself a bunch of questions. :smallyuk:

(A) I suspect what's really happening is just that you're good at abstraction, so you're basically visualizing a Heisenstar until enough details get nailed down to rule out the stars without a specific concrete orientation.

(B) Interesting. Could you give an example of these verbal-only Q/A sequences pricing that they really are verbal only?

One reason I'm interested is because in the example dialogue I gave (red tennis shoes with white trim), the visual impression came first and then the words--I was describing colors I had already had a brief impression of, not inventing words. (And there were some details that the words weren't able to convey, like the shape and size of the shoe and the texture of the fabric.) That is, this is interesting to me because it's the opposite of what happens for me with one of those online aphasia tests in a vacuum, where imagining "Laura" just gets me the concept of Laura in a vacuum.

In other words, I was describing for you a sequence of words which proved that I can visualize things even though the standard test seems to prove otherwise, and I'm interested in what word sequences you're using to prove or disprove the same fact about yourself. This person, can you imagine her crossing her eyes to make a funny face? What's something that proves whether or not there's a visio/spatial orientation to the concept of her doing so?

Tolstoy used to play a game with his brother where they would sit in a corner and try NOT to think of a bear. How do I know you're not visually "thinking of a bear", so to speak, before generating the verbal answer about the "bear"'s shoe color?

[Dork_Forge]

For me visualisation is a tool not a necessity, it's something that can help me convey the scene to my players. I think of this like the difference between describing something from a written description and describing a picture in front of you.

It's not necessary at all, especially if you're using other visual aids (minis, maps, art, terrain, fluff text etc.)

[Kurt Kurageous]

SMH It really helps to be able to visualize, so I disagree with most of the posters.

If visualization is difficult, try this:

Have a checklist of senses you want to describe.
You see...
You hear...
You smell...

By the time you finish these three items, your players will have the vision, even if you don't.

It may also help to have adjectives written down for those who must prep everything.

[Unoriginal]

SMH It really helps to be able to visualize, so I disagree with most of the posters.

If visualization is difficult, try this:

Have a checklist of senses you want to describe.
You see...
You hear...
You smell...

By the time you finish these three items, your players will have the vision, even if you don't.

It may also help to have adjectives written down for those who must prep everything.

Not everyone's imagination is visual. The players will only have the vision if their imagination is.

"You hear" and "you smell" are already two senses that are not involved in visualizing. Visualisation is solely the "you see" part, and even then there are other manners to imagine a visual.

I admit I misunderstood the subject the same way, at first, because many treat visualisation and imagination as synonymous, in day-to-day speech.

[KorvinStarmast]

How important a skill do you consider visualization as a DM? The ability to close your eyes and see the scene?

I tried his visualization (once again), completely disagree it's a learnable skille that practice can teach anyone to do it, and am now wondering if my complete lack of ability is really hampering me in some way. :smallamused: I think it is learnable, but maybe I make that assesement based on being able to do that. (Not sure if there's a left or right brain thing going on here).

I read a lot of stories that didn't have pictures. (Beyond a picture on the cover). I have no problem visualizing a scene. I wonder if people raised on comic books (I read some comics, to be sure, but mostly regular books) and the video intensive media of today may run into trouble with that. On the other hand, maybe all of those images makes it easier to visualize since one has seen so many. How the brain synthesizes all of that I'll not try to explain.

Is it - visualization - a necessary tool? Yes, IME.
If you play mostly ToTM, I think it's a huge help in arriving at a description that your players can use.

YMMV.

ETA: Max's point on conceptualization is a good add to this thread.

[OldTrees1]

SMH It really helps to be able to visualize, so I disagree with most of the posters.

If visualization is difficult, try this:

Have a checklist of senses you want to describe.
You see...
You hear...
You smell...

By the time you finish these three items, your players will have the vision, even if you don't.

It may also help to have adjectives written down for those who must prep everything.

Missing Context:
Visualization is the ability to Literally see images in your head. Close your eyes and try to literally see a red star. Now realize that some people can, others can't, and there is a continuum. For example I can vividly see part of a red star on a rotated plastic ball in my head by pulling on a memory. However when I try to create the image I get a fuzzy star shaped red tinted section of static against a background of black static. However I can describe a red star in great detail.


I think it is learnable, but maybe I make that assessment based on being able to do that. (Not sure if there's a left or right brain thing going on here).

I read a lot of stories that didn't have pictures. (Beyond a picture on the cover). I have no problem visualizing a scene. I wonder if people raised on comic books (I read some comics, to be sure, but mostly regular books) and the video intensive media of today may run into trouble with that. On the other hand, maybe all of those images makes it easier to visualize since one has seen so many. How the brain synthesizes all of that I'll not try to explain.

Is it - visualization - a necessary tool? Yes, IME.
If you play mostly ToTM, I think it's a huge help in arriving at a description that your players can use.

YMMV.

ETA: Max's point on conceptualization is a good add to this thread.

1) Why do you consider it a necessary tool if it is only a "huge help" at describing a scene?
2) I can describe a scene with much greater detail than I can "literally create & see the picture in my head". This is partially because I create the scene in my head without usually literally seeing an image of the scene in my head. Imagination =/= Visualization, even the ability to imagine what something looks like is not the same as your brain being able to literally see that image.

[Kurt Kurageous]

Not everyone's imagination is visual. The players will only have the vision if their imagination is. "You hear" and "you smell" are already two senses that are not involved in visualizing. Visualisation is solely the "you see" part, and even then there are other manners to imagine a visual. I admit I misunderstood the subject the same way, at first, because many treat visualisation and imagination as synonymous, in day-to-day speech.

I'm in the same place, visualization but not literally. I'm trying to help the struggling DM set the stage for the encounter. I've gone through several iterations of templates for encounter descriptions, and (see, hear, smell) they are just one part of that description.

The other parts? Exits and incitements.

My players have not always learned to wait for the incitement before asking questions, so I try to say it last. Someday they will get it.

[KorvinStarmast]

1) Why do you consider it a necessary tool if it is only a "huge help" at describing a scene?
Next time, please read the whole sentence. :smallwink:

Yes, IME.
IME is short for In My Experience.

This is partially because I create the scene in my head without usually literally seeing an image of the scene in my head. I fail to see a distinction. :smallwink: There appears to be some hair splitting going on here.

[Segev]

Human minds work sometimes radically differently from one another, and yet, through agreed-upon media transmitted through sensory interfaces (e.g. language), can communicate complex concepts that are largely mutually-understood between them.

On "picture a red star," I know what one looks like without having to see one. I would not describe what happens when I 'picture' it as anything resembling literally seeing it.

I also don't have a visualization that's as good as a real image or picture. In my head, it feels like it is, but when I actually attempt to pin it down to a page, the gaps in my visualization are made readily apparent. I hate drawing and doing other art because of how crappy it always looks and my inability to create the results I think I picture in my head.

When people talk about visualization in running a game, the important thing they're trying to get across is being able to hold in your head the state of the game. To imagine how it will play out. To model what the mechanics are trying to represent as a scene that could theoretically play out in a comic book or on a TV or movie screen. You wouldn't need to have a practically-a-hallucination image in your mind to direct a scene; you just need to be able to model a "realistic" set of events based on the state of the scenario.

Note that "realistic" doesn't mean "as if it really happened IRL," but rather "believable given the rules established by the setting and the events up 'til now."

[OldTrees1]

Next time, please read the whole sentence. :smallwink:

IME is short for In My Experience.

I had read the entire sentence, I was wondering why, even in your experience, you considered it a Necessary tool instead of a Sufficient tool. Especially since you were answering a broader question about capability and then using a qualifier to scale it back to only your experience. If you lost the ability to literally see images in your mind's eye*, would you find yourself unable to DM or would you just rely on your imagination of the visuals rather than visualization?

* You could still imagine a red star and know what it looks like but you would not be able to mentally create that image in a way you would literally see it rather than just imagine it.


One reason I ask is because I have a mental tool that is critical to my current DMing style of sandbox, however if I lost that tool I would still expect to be able to run a sandbox, despite needing to adapt to a new method. So I am skeptical that Visualization is a necessary tool even for you (especially since there are DMs without the ability to literally see in their mind's eye).


Edit: Your edit

I fail to see a distinction. :smallwink: There appears to be some hair splitting going on here.

Here is a distinction:
I know what a red star looks like. I know how it would look from every angle. I know what it would look like if I deformed it or altered it. Despite mentally doing that while writing these sentences, my brain did not produce an image I could see. I can change the scene and know how it would look without my brain deciding to literally paint in front of my eyes.

On the other hand I can close my eyes and try to see a red and yellow clown ball. After a bit of concentration I literally can see a fuzzy image of a plastic ball with red and yellow stripes. I am not a neuroscientist but I expect it involves the brain sending inputs to the inputs of the visual center just like the eyes do. The static might be the normal static the eyes see when closed merging with the image I am visualizing.

On a third hand I can dredge up a memory of a clown ball and post that in front of my eyes. Although it readily disappears if I look towards it. I am not a neuroscientist but I expect it involves the brain sending inputs to the inputs of the visual center just like the eyes do.

[Keravath]

Not according to the online tests I found. It's supposed to be closing your eyes and being able to get a visual mental picture of, as I said in the example, a red star. Not that I spent a whole lot of time researching, and of course they're online so accuracy is dubious.

What I get is an abstract recall I could turn into descriptive words or rules or map or sketch if needed. Or math/physics, or name and IP for a couple thousand servers, or even some scripting code, for less game related topics. They're all that same abstract awareness and recall.

I can make stuff up too obviously, but I'm not doing it based on a picture in my head is the point. Now internal talking? Yeah, I can do that no problem. :smallamused:

At least for me, visualization does not replicate the same image I would see with my eyes. It replicates what I would remember seeing with my eyes. If I look out the window at a scene then close my eyes, then when I visualize a scene it looks like the memory of seeing something and not actually seeing it.

It likely works very differently for different people.

---------

On the topic of this thread, the ability to hold a scene in your mind either visualizing it or imagining it and how all the pieces fit together is a useful but not necessarily essential skill.

As long as a DM can keep all the elements of the scene in mind, describe them to the players and work out how these elements interact to create the story then it doesn't really matter whether the DM is using a visual method of imagining it, whether they just keep the pieces discrete like building blocks, whether they use words to describe it to themselves in their mind ... all that matters is keeping track of the details and transferring that information to the players usually using descriptive words and sometimes props like maps and miniatures to help the players (and sometimes the DM) imagine or visualize the scene.

A related issue is that the DM always needs to be mindful of the players stated actions and how they interact with the scene. I've had it happen where I've described a scene quite clearly (4 out of 5 players more or less understood and imagined the situation the same way) and then one player decides to take an action that is very risky or stands a good chance of not working IF the player understood the scene I described. In these cases, it is essential for the DM to ask the player and clarify to make sure that they are on the same page and are imagining the same scene as the DM.

I've run into DMs who take the players stated action at face value and them impose a penalty since the action didn't make much sense the way the DM was imagining the scene resulting in the player complaining that this didn't make sense and getting irritated. It is MUCH better for the DM to clarify the situation for the players BEFORE implementing results based on the player's stated actions that may well be due to them misunderstanding or misinterpreting the DMs descriptions.

[Man_Over_Game]

Some years ago, I encountered a claim that about 15% of the population is almost entirely or entirely non-visual in how they think...

This is the reason it's important.

Is visualization of a scene used in Chess? No.
Is visualization of a scene used in DnD? Almost definitely.

A lot of us probably fall into that 15%, but there is also a lot of players that don't. And the only way of playing DnD badly is when your players are wanting to play a different game than each other. Some of us come to play Super Chess, but others don't.




Visualization of a scene is one of the big reasons I had to drop out of our last group. When my COVID depression hit, my ability to visualize the environment was the first to go. I could write up awesome monsters, perfectly balanced encounters, reactive environmental effects. I could even answer questions about the environment, but none of it was proactive, and none of it felt "organic".

It was too hard for me. Hell, it was making DMing not fun.

And yet, my wife can draw a scene instantly, from the boisterous drunk laughing in the corner with his friends about something nondescript, to the individual styles of the mismatched dining chairs in the bar.

I can, too, but it takes me 10 minutes where it takes her 10 seconds.

It's like I'm viewing everything through a telescope from really far away: I can see all the details, but it takes a lot more work than it should. No amount of practice has made it any easier, unfortunately. The best I can hope for is a group that's willing to pick up the slack on that aspect of the game, and is still interested in playing the game that I'm naturally good at.



Tanarii and I don't really agree on a lot of topics, but I am really glad she brought this up. I've tried searching for help on this exact topic for my previous group, but it never gained traction and there's a lot of good conversation here.

On a personal note, it also gave me some perspective, reminding me that two people that disagree often can still be very like-minded. Even if I don't always agree with you, Tanarii, and other folk like KorvinStarmast, I still find myself impressed by you guys.

[Tanarii]

I also don't have a visualization that's as good as a real image or picture. In my head, it feels like it is, but when I actually attempt to pin it down to a page, the gaps in my visualization are made readily apparent. I hate drawing and doing other art because of how crappy it always looks and my inability to create the results I think I picture in my head.

Interestingly, I am very good at drawing ... from reference picture. I'm not that good straight from my imagination.

[Unoriginal]

Funny part for me in that conversation is that when it came to the "picture a red star" part, I pictured a star like the ball-of-ignited-hydrogen-and-a-few-other-stuff celestial kind, but red, and it is only when I read the part about where it's pointing that I imagined the drawn-star-with-points kind.

Which IMO illustrates that visualisation is less important a skill than communication, in order to get everyone on the same page.

[MaxWilson]

Tanarii and I don't really agree on a lot of topics, but I am really glad she brought this up. I've tried searching for help on this exact topic for my previous group, but it never gained traction and there's a lot of good conversation here.

@Tanari'i, can you please clarify whether Man_Over_Game is correct in referring to you as female? I've been calling you "he" for ages...

=========================


Funny part for me in that conversation is that when it came to the "picture a red star" part, I pictured a star like the ball-of-ignited-hydrogen-and-a-few-other-stuff celestial kind, but red, and it is only when I read the part about where it's pointing that I imagined the drawn-star-with-points kind.

Which IMO illustrates that visualisation is less important a skill than communication, in order to get everyone on the same page.


A related issue is that the DM always needs to be mindful of the players stated actions and how they interact with the scene. I've had it happen where I've described a scene quite clearly (4 out of 5 players more or less understood and imagined the situation the same way) and then one player decides to take an action that is very risky or stands a good chance of not working IF the player understood the scene I described. In these cases, it is essential for the DM to ask the player and clarify to make sure that they are on the same page and are imagining the same scene as the DM.

I've run into DMs who take the players stated action at face value and them impose a penalty since the action didn't make much sense the way the DM was imagining the scene resulting in the player complaining that this didn't make sense and getting irritated. It is MUCH better for the DM to clarify the situation for the players BEFORE implementing results based on the player's stated actions that may well be due to them misunderstanding or misinterpreting the DMs descriptions.

I strongly agree with Unoriginal and Keravath here. The essential skill is synchronizing your players' mental models with each other and with your own so that your players can act effectively within the game world. As DM, your words/drawings/props are their only eyes and ears in the game world. Try to avoid making the players feel like a blind person tripping over an unexpected piece of furniture. Sometimes this entails accepting a world element that the player sees in their head instead of rejecting and correcting them ("I go over and start talking to one of the bar patrons" => accept that there are bar patrons, even if you as DM originally imagined the room as empty, unless it's important that there be no bar patrons).

[KorvinStarmast]

Even if I don't always agree with you, Tanarii, and other folk like KorvinStarmast, I still find myself impressed by you guys. Right back at you! 👍😁

The essential skill is synchronizing your players' mental models with each other and with your own so that your players can act effectively within the game world.

As DM, your words/drawings/props are their only eyes and ears in the game world. Try to avoid making the players feel like a blind person tripping over an unexpected piece of furniture. Yeah, and it can be done in a lot of ways.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I strongly agree with Unoriginal and Keravath here. The essential skill is synchronizing your players' mental models with each other and with your own so that your players can act effectively within the game world. As DM, your words/drawings/props are their only eyes and ears in the game world. Try to avoid making the players feel like a blind person tripping over an unexpected piece of furniture. Sometimes this entails accepting a world element that the player sees in their head instead of rejecting and correcting them ("I go over and start talking to one of the bar patrons" => accept that there are bar patrons, even if you as DM originally imagined the room as empty, unless it's important that there be no bar patrons).

I'll third this, and second the part starting "Sometimes this entails..."

[Segev]

@Tanari'i, can you please clarify whether Man_Over_Game is correct in referring to you as female? I've been calling you "he" for ages...Heh, yeah, my reaction was, "Tanarii is a girl!?" when I read that, but then I decided it only mattered if it mattered to Tanarii that I got the pronoun right. (I am interested in doing so, though. I like precision.)


I strongly agree with Unoriginal and Keravath here. The essential skill is synchronizing your players' mental models with each other and with your own so that your players can act effectively within the game world. As DM, your words/drawings/props are their only eyes and ears in the game world. Try to avoid making the players feel like a blind person tripping over an unexpected piece of furniture.Exactly. It was asked in a thread in the Roleplaying Games subforum above this subforum why anybody uses modules. One advantage of them can be that they provide handouts, pictures, and maps you can share with your players. While I resent the lockdown that keeps me from seeing my friends in person, one good thing about roll20 as our medium for meeting to keep running the game has been that the maps are very useful for making things visible to the players.

The DM absolutely needs to assume that the PCs know as much about what is visible, tactile, smellable, etc. in the world as he does, and if the players say their characters do something the DM thinks is a bit weird, he should take a moment to describe the action as he sees it, and ask them if that's what they're doing. If there seems to be an obvious reason this would be foolish, he should point that out. It's not that he has to hold their hands and tell them when they're about to trigger a trap, but if there's a big red set of concentric circles underneath a piano hanging from a flimsy rope with a goblin standing next to an obvious lever, and the player says his character goes to investigate "the strange marking on the floor," the DM might want to triple-check that the player is aware of what the PC can clearly see regarding the goblin manning the lever and the flimsy rope barely holding a piano from falling onto that "strange marking."


Sometimes this entails accepting a world element that the player sees in their head instead of rejecting and correcting them ("I go over and start talking to one of the bar patrons" => accept that there are bar patrons, even if you as DM originally imagined the room as empty, unless it's important that there be no bar patrons).For all its flaws, one thing Exalted does very well in my opinion is encourage "stunting." Stunts give bonuses to the roll based on how well the stunt describes the action and integrates it into the setting. A one-die stunt is literally anything that makes it more than "I roll X to achieve Y." A two-die stunt is where it starts getting interesting: it has to incorporate the environment somehow. This can be incorporating other creatures' motivations or desires, working with the presence of low-hanging fans in a tavern, or even adding elements to the scene that could logically be present but which weren't described by the GM. Such as the bar patrons in MaxWilson's example, here.

[Asisreo1]

I'm so visually inclined that I can actually see music. It's a bit different than "seeing music" but certain melodies, pitches, and rhythms stimulate the same visualizations that I get from dreams (I have dreams every night). When I first started driving, I actually had to put on very basic music or else I would start blanking out in something that could be described as "trance-like."

I'm not a spiritual person or anything. I think my visualizations are just a bit atypical.

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm so visually inclined that I can actually see music. It's a bit different than "seeing music" but certain melodies, pitches, and rhythms stimulate the same visualizations that I get from dreams (I have dreams every night). When I first started driving, I actually had to put on very basic music or else I would start blanking out in something that could be described as "trance-like."

I'm not a spiritual person or anything. I think my visualizations are just a bit atypical.

There is a neurological condition for that, called Synesthesia. Basically, it means your mental senses aren't wired as separately as most other peoples', so you "feel" things or "see" things that most people wouldn't.

My wife has it. Certain music makes her body feel sensations, like a piercing sensation in her shoulder, or a thumping on the back of her neck, or the sensation of grass across her arm.

Because of how vivid everything is, they often have a powerful sense of memory. My wife can describe everything about her home from when she was 3, down to the color of the doorknobs.



Unfortunately, they're often social pariahs, either considered too eccentric or too reserved to have consistent relationships. They often don't realize people don't usually feel things the same way (since it's so innate and consistent) that it's hard for them to understand social norms and to get people to understand them in turn.




You could say it's something like Autism, I guess, but it's mostly just related to sensory being tied into things it normally wouldn't. So words have a taste, songs have a feeling, and people have a color. It's not something a lot of people are aware of. Heck, a lot of people who have it don't even realize they're any different.

[MaxWilson]

I'm so visually inclined that I can actually see music. It's a bit different than "seeing music" but certain melodies, pitches, and rhythms stimulate the same visualizations that I get from dreams (I have dreams every night). When I first started driving, I actually had to put on very basic music or else I would start blanking out in something that could be described as "trance-like."

I'm not a spiritual person or anything. I think my visualizations are just a bit atypical.

Heh. While we're on the topic of dreams, I want to mention that a large minority (maybe a majority?) of my dreams are in the third person. I see colors sometimes--I know this because occasionally it's a plot point, like a red light--but there are also clearly non-sensory inputs including raw knowledge (e.g. the definition to a word used in the dream, which when I wake up turns out to be a nonsense word; or information about what happened "yesterday" before the scene that is currently playing in the dream).


Unfortunately, they're often social pariahs, either considered too eccentric or too reserved to have consistent relationships. They often don't realize people don't usually feel things the same way (since it's so innate and consistent) that it's hard for them to understand social norms and to get people to understand them in turn.

Random factoid: photic sneezers (people who feel like they want to sneeze sometimes when looking at a bright light) typically have no idea that it's not a universal human condition, and people who aren't photic sneezers typically don't even realize that photic sneezing is even a thing.

[micahaphone]

The scene setting and visualization is one of my favorite parts of dnd and DMing! I keep this little article bookmarked as a reminder/mid-session refresher.

https://petermorwood.tumblr.com/post/621917255571210240/do-you-have-any-suggestions-on-how-to-make-dungeon

[Magicspook]

I had read the entire sentence, I was wondering why, even in your experience, you considered it a Necessary tool instead of a Sufficient tool. Especially since you were answering a broader question about capability and then using a qualifier to scale it back to only your experience. If you lost the ability to literally see images in your mind's eye*, would you find yourself unable to DM or would you just rely on your imagination of the visuals rather than visualization?

* You could still imagine a red star and know what it looks like but you would not be able to mentally create that image in a way you would literally see it rather than just imagine it.


One reason I ask is because I have a mental tool that is critical to my current DMing style of sandbox, however if I lost that tool I would still expect to be able to run a sandbox, despite needing to adapt to a new method. So I am skeptical that Visualization is a necessary tool even for you (especially since there are DMs without the ability to literally see in their mind's eye).


Edit: Your edit


Here is a distinction:
I know what a red star looks like. I know how it would look from every angle. I know what it would look like if I deformed it or altered it. Despite mentally doing that while writing these sentences, my brain did not produce an image I could see. I can change the scene and know how it would look without my brain deciding to literally paint in front of my eyes.

On the other hand I can close my eyes and try to see a red and yellow clown ball. After a bit of concentration I literally can see a fuzzy image of a plastic ball with red and yellow stripes. I am not a neuroscientist but I expect it involves the brain sending inputs to the inputs of the visual center just like the eyes do. The static might be the normal static the eyes see when closed merging with the image I am visualizing.

On a third hand I can dredge up a memory of a clown ball and post that in front of my eyes. Although it readily disappears if I look towards it. I am not a neuroscientist but I expect it involves the brain sending inputs to the inputs of the visual center just like the eyes do.

I consider myself a reasonably visual guy and you've just described how I visualise something too. I don't think you cam expect anything more, really. If you could make yourself see vivid and sharp images at will, why would anyone ever use hallucinogens?

[Magicspook]

There is a neurological condition for that, called Synesthesia. Basically, it means your mental senses aren't wired as separately as most other peoples', so you "feel" things or "see" things that most people wouldn't.

My wife has it. Certain music makes her body feel sensations, like a piercing sensation in her shoulder, or a thumping on the back of her neck, or the sensation of grass across her arm.

Because of how vivid everything is, they often have a powerful sense of memory. My wife can describe everything about her home from when she was 3, down to the color of the doorknobs.



Unfortunately, they're often social pariahs, either considered too eccentric or too reserved to have consistent relationships. They often don't realize people don't usually feel things the same way (since it's so innate and consistent) that it's hard for them to understand social norms and to get people to understand them in turn.




You could say it's something like Autism, I guess, but it's mostly just related to sensory being tied into things it normally wouldn't. So words have a taste, songs have a feeling, and people have a color. It's not something a lot of people are aware of. Heck, a lot of people who have it don't even realize they're any different.

I can't say that I have experienced the same, but I tend to associate words, concepts, colours and suchlike with certain feelings. The only person I know who didn't raise an eyebrow when I mentioned a taste having a certain colour or a word being filthy is my mom.

[Unoriginal]

If you could make yourself see vivid and sharp images at will, why would anyone ever use hallucinogens?

Some people can do it, not everyone.

[OldTrees1]

I consider myself a reasonably visual guy and you've just described how I visualise something too. I don't think you cam expect anything more, really. If you could make yourself see vivid and sharp images at will, why would anyone ever use hallucinogens?


Some people can do it, not everyone.

Yeah that 2nd and 3rd example are the limits of my capability for visualization. As Unoriginal said, some people can, but not everyone can. Even what you and I can do is on a spectrum where some people don't even get that much of an image.

However that just goes to show that visualization is not needed. That 1st example is not visualization but still does the job more than sufficiently. Imagining what something looks like without seeing what it looks like is good enough for designing and describing complex environments (provided your communication skills are high enough to communicate it to others).

[KorvinStarmast]

The scene setting and visualization is one of my favorite parts of dnd and DMing! I keep this little article bookmarked as a reminder/mid-session refresher.

https://petermorwood.tumblr.com/post/621917255571210240/do-you-have-any-suggestions-on-how-to-make-dungeon Nice link, thanks.


why would anyone ever use hallucinogens? Because they do the work for you. :smallwink: (Learned from waaaaaaaaaaaaay back a long time ago; no longer on my list of things I'll try or do).
Have a friend who dropped out of college back in the 70's who had a saying that still makes me laugh when he says it:

*reality is for those poor souls who can't handle drugs*

IIRC, he first read it on a bathroom wall in college.

Yes, he's still using recreational substances, and (amazingly) is still alive. His is not a life choice I'd recommend, but I guess Keith Richards is still alive ...

[Segev]

I have never considered myself poor at visualization, because I know what it is I'm "picturing," but I can't even do as much as OldTrees1 describes: no matter how much I concentrate on any mental image, I never literally have that image "appear" in my perceptive field. It's never "as good" as looking at a picture or the real thing. I know it well enough that I could describe it, and I like to think that, if I had any artistic skill at all (I don't), I could draw it faithfully, though I know sometimes my mental images are "shifty" enough that there's movement or a hidden three-dimensionality to them that can't be captured from any one 2D viewing angle. Closing my eyes, I see mostly-dark with random moving overlays of very dim color that have no rhyme nor reason but probably are related to a combination of my rods and cones trying to normalize from whatever I last saw, maybe some blood vessels in my eyes, and general light-patterns splayed across my eyelids. Or maybe just random firings of my optic center. But picturing "a thing" doesn't bring an image of it to my perceptive field; my "mind's eye" is its own separate visualization zone and only in dreams and that liminal state where one is about to shift to or from sleep does my brain ever convince itself that what's there is actually being perceived.

This has the effect of making things seem "sharper" or "clearer," but since I really never remember my dreams, I suspect they're not actually as vivid as genuine perception.