How do yall handle environmental effects or just have a sense of Dread.

[Throne12]

So how do you handle stuff like. The area is just spooky or have a spell casted upon it causing anyone in the area to have a strong sense of Dread or doubt. How do you handle heavy down pour of rain.

The whole point is there are times where giving any of the Conditions, disadvantage.

[Man_Over_Game]

So, if I understand correctly, you're saying that how do you go about setting the atmosphere without overly describing things that tend to presume things have Dis/Advantage?

Well, for starters, if it adds tension, drama, or humor to the fight, and it seems relevant enough, I would say that those things do matter, if they were to come up. If you describe the area as having a heavy rain but only for dramatic effect, and you forget that Wood Elves can hide in heavy rain, don't come up with a reason for it not to work due to lighting or "how heavy the rain is" just because you didn't account for it. Part of the reason fear or tension works is because part of the time, it's real. Someone, somewhere got attacked by something in the dark, so now we're afraid of the dark.

Just try to be consistent with it.

Otherwise, you can honestly just listen to Matt Mercer on Critical Role. He does a stand-up job of describing things you can easily feel, transitioning in-and-out of the player's perspective and giving a whole image of the scene.

For a cheat-sheet solution, first pay attention to when you have transitions between scenes. During those moments, envision the two biggest physical sensations they should be feeling.

For instance, they are teleported to a boat, and the things the characters would most likely feel is the taste of the crisp, salted air of the sea, and the warm heat and wind on their backs that billows their clothes.


Then, once you've got what senses you're using, start your sentence with "You feel a..." or a "You tasted the..." And then just fill in what comes naturally. It's easier to know what to say when you know how the sentence starts.

For things like dread or horror, don't describe much of the environment, but how the characters already physically feel about them. Hair standing up. Cold air. Foggy breath. You hear an echo in the air...after a moment, you realize it sounds like...laughter. Stuff from the character's perspective.


You describe parts of the world to give information to the players to use, and you describe parts of the character to generate tension and fear. When players want more information or more clarification, they'll ask about that part of the world, and then you go into more detail and explain if or how those things might be relevant.