The Rusted Colossus 03: | How To Prepare Room Descriptions in 4 Steps

By JimmiWazEre

Opinionated Tabletop Gaming Chap

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Now then. I was on Reddit the other day, poisoning my mind, as you do. I came across a really good question;

How do you parse dense descriptions?

The poster was asking in the context of a GM prepping for a game - having read a short story’s worth of prose for a room description, then wanting to transform this veritable word salad into short notes that can be quickly and effectively used at the table.

I have a really good answer for this, and I can’t take credit for it either. I think I absorbed this on a Youtube binge one time, but I’ll be squirrelled if I can remember where. Sorry, mysterious Youtube person.

As I prep room descriptions for my GOZR module The Rusted Colossus, here’s the method I’m using:

Step 1) The Room Title is an Important Reference Point

Room’s should have a short and descriptive title which reflects both their function [graveyard] and vibe [spooky]. You definitely need to pass this title on to your players too, because it enables them to internally reference similarly functioned rooms to quickly build up a picture of what the room looks like and what might be in there.

Let me give you an example, and I want you to decide which you think is the more efficient description:

“You’re outside, and it’s dark and foggy. The ground is covered in grass with occasional trees dotted about. There’s a dirt path weaving it’s way through the area, frequently splitting off into tributaries. Along this path, some 57 gravestones are spaced with rough regularity, 22 on the East side, and 35 on the West side of the central path. An owl can be heard occasionally hooting ominously.”

or

“You arrive at a ‘Spooky Graveyard’”

The answer is the second example. Players know what a spooky graveyard looks like, just ask them to imagine one. It doesn’t matter if one player’s graveyard is different to another’s, we’ll give them some details soon to make sure that everyone’s on the same page for the important stuff.

With the first example, I guarantee that the players have long since stopped concentrating by time you mention ‘gravestones’, which is the only really solid clue that they’re in a graveyard.

Step 2) Engage non-visual senses

OK, so this is almost clichéd advice by this point, but it’s no less accurate.

As fully functioning humans, two things are true. Firstly, when we’re experiencing the real world, we get a boat-load of sensory information sent straight to our brains beyond mere visuals. Secondly, when we’re describing things, we take all that stuff for granted and don’t think to mention our non-visual experiences. Consequently our descriptions fall flat as they fail to be evocative.

So what does fixing this look like? In your notes, you might have:

“Spare bedroom / home office.” [our room title]

“Still air, warm, sweaty man smell.” [our sensory information]

Which you’ll be able to quickly convert at the table to:

“You enter a ‘Home office, converted from a spare bedroom’. The air is still here, and it’s maybe a degree or two above a comfortable temperature. There’s a slight stale aroma of man in the air.”

Players should be imagining things like a computer, a messy desk with a chair, maybe a bookshelf too. They might even place a wardrobe or bed in there, depending on how complete they’re imagining the conversion to be. You don’t need to highlight these elements to them, The non visual stimuli should be anchoring them, triggering memories of when they’ve been in warm, sweaty, man rooms.

If a player then asks if there’s a radiator on the wall under the window, you say “yes”, because it makes sense that there could be. You’re encouraging them to build the room in their mind’s eye.

Step 3) Tiers of room element information

OK, this bit covers the important elements of the room that the adventure dictates worthy of highlighting, because they might contain clues, loot, traps, or environmental storytelling.

Make a list of room elements, each bullet should contain up to 3 tiers of information.

1. Free and brief information, given as the PCs enter the room e.g. “There’s a bookshelf containing old leatherbound tomes”

2. Detailed information that’s given as a result of the PC interaction with the element e.g. “A book catches your eye, The Necronomicon”

3. Gated information that’s locked behind a roll or some knowledge of some kind e.g. “You’re able to understand the swirling text for long enough to learn the ‘Speak With Dead’ spell“

In your notes, that should look like this:

Bookshelf of leather tomes > Necronomicon > ‘Speak With Dead’ spell

Closed Laptop > Username ‘Jenny’, enter Password > “PASSWORD” - Email from Jenny’s dad telling her to meet outside the brewery at 10pm

Step 4) Ancillary Guff

Other than a map if required, any other space on the page, usually at the sides or bottom, should be dedicated to ancillary information related to the elements identified in Step 3.

For instance, if there was a key within a box in the room, in the sidebar we might note what the key unlocks, to save the need to flip back and forth through pages of notes to find out.

Alternatively, if there was an important NPC in the room, we might list a few things that they know in the sidebar.

Other good uses for the sidebar might be random tables, stat blocks, small monologues etc

Hang on. Wasn’t This Meant To Be a Rusted Colossus Dev Diary?!

Yeah I know, it is. You see I’m practicing what I preach - I’m bringing all this together in how I’m going to present The Rusted Colossus’s room descriptions to you.

Here’s a WIP example for one of the first ‘rooms’:

Desert Camp Beneath the Colossus

Cool in the shade, load groaning metal of Colossus, stench of Mron guano, presence of military enforcers makes the situation feel tense

• Captain Vorkkol’s guarded tent > Angry muttering inside > Vorkkol venting about missing SPOOKS

• Patrolling Enforcers > 2 per group > 2 groups circling Colossus in opposing directions every 5 minutes

• plasteel lockbox in shelter of open air gazebo > locked > weird weapon inside

• The corroding Colossus appears climbable > covered in Mron guano > Circling Mron will attack exposed gooz

Special Protocol Operatives for Obsolete Kinetic Systems (SPOOKS) were due to arrive 2 days ago to relieve Vorkkol. They’re dead.

Enforcers that witness PCs either meddling with the plasteel lockbox or approaching the colossus without permission will attempt to stop them.

Conclusion

Other than an image, which will either be a map of the room or an illustration of it, I reckon this way of presenting information to GM’s gives them enough to work with without swamping them with small essay’s to digest. It means that they can run rooms straight form the book at the table. Wot do you think?

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