Quote from: rawma;938450Description of irrelevant detail is essential for world building, not the generally short fiction that Chekhov wrote. And world building is more an RPG thing than tightly plotted fiction is, especially around here.

True, though I'd say that description of irrelevant detail is of greater necessity for immersion than for world building.

If I'm building an RPG world, I'm not going to use non-essential information.

If I'm going to get flowery about the throne room of Princess Ella IV, then I'm likely to throw in something I consider irrelevant, from a plot standpoint (well, it will be irrelevant until someone reacts to it in some way).

"The hotel commode was of polished amboyna, edged in macassar ebony, fluted down into ormolu feet -- a tying motif to the ivory and mother-of-pearl marquetry upon the resting surface above...

"... yes, you may insert your used chamberpot into my irrelevantly detailed commode."

/dies a thousand deaths inside.

It seems like if someone is entirely doing away with the idea of plot (as in general path/goal of the game outside of immersion in an imaginary world) then there isn't any irrelevant details. Any detail could be come significant just like a real person might notice or even fixate on anything around them. The only difference is the degree of description the speaker/gm is comfortable with giving,.

Quote from: Nexus;938522It seems like if someone is entirely doing away with the idea of plot (as in general path/goal of the game outside of immersion in an imaginary world) then there isn't any irrelevant details. Any detail could be come significant just like a real person might notice or even fixate on anything around them. The only difference is the degree of description the speaker/gm is comfortable with giving,.

Ex-fuckin'-zactically.

And detail can become important if the player chooses to interact with it through the character. Frex, I probably won't describe the presence of a chamberpot or a spittoon where logical inference would suggest the characters will imagine it without my help. If the chamberpot or spittoon is full to overflowing or otherwise noteworthy, then it may earn a mention as catching the players' attention for being out of the ordinary.

In any case, a chamberpot or a spittoon is a resource, just like a trade blanket or a silk fan or anything else lying about a room might be, and I don't presume to know what the players and their characters will use from their environment.

I don't disagree entirely with the notion being presented here but I can imagine where a minimalist approach to description could, in some cases, result in misunderstandings. As long as there is sufficient description to insure both player and GM are imagining the same thing, then I agree superfluous detail is in the very least just an option and not necessary but it may require some dialogue to make sure this is the case. In the course of a typical exchange during a game that dialogue may or may not take place and the players continue playing with a faulty image in mind.

Lets say the GM minimally describes the tavern as a run down shack at the end of town. The players envision an actual shack, a tiny structure, four dilapidated walls, a leaning roof of leaking planks and a rusty length of pipe jutting from one side as a chimney. The GM however has the tavern set up as a weather beaten but still sound building of decent size with chipped paint, boarded over windows and missing a number of roof shingles. Unless someone starts asking for details or they come up for some other reason the players will have a very different and in this case errant view of the tavern. This may affect a decision where it is concerned at some later time or at least change how they are viewing a scene where it is an element.

I think this is the danger in assuming players imaginations are best left to forming their own scenes with bare bones descriptions. It may not be necessary to wax-eloquent on every scene but a few lines of apparently trivial description are a healthy part of GMing in my opinion.

Well, if I were the player, I would ask "How run-down do you mean?"

Everything I have ever said about description assumes that, when necessary, players will ask and referees will answer.

You need to give enough information that the players and GM are all working with *compatible* images in their heads.

[existential ennui] *[le sigh]* [/existential ennui]

Let's get this bullshit out of the way first.

Quote from: rgrove0172;938532. . . bare bones descriptions . . . wax-eloquent on every scene . . .

You could fit a [insert absurdly large object here] in the excluded middle between those two extremes.

And can we at long last agree that the 'warm spring morning' example isn't 'waxing eloquent' - it's first-degree prose-icide.

Quote from: rgrove0172;938532Lets say the GM minimally describes the tavern as a run down shack at the end of town. The players envision an actual shack, a tiny structure, four dilapidated walls, a leaning roof of leaking planks and a rusty length of pipe jutting from one side as a chimney. The GM however has the tavern set up as a weather beaten but still sound building of decent size with chipped paint, boarded over windows and missing a number of roof shingles. Unless someone starts asking for details or they come up for some other reason the players will have a very different and in this case errant view of the tavern.

And I think we're getting to the dark heart of this discussion at last: this is about CONTROL over the narrative, keeping an IRON GRIP on what the players know about the game-world because otherwise they could start gettin' all sorta uppity ideas of their own and not PLAY ALONG WITH MAH STOREH.

It also misses the 43-stone primate sitting two seats down on the right.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;938552Everything I have ever said about description assumes that, when necessary, players will ask and referees will answer.

Or the referee will correct a misapprehension, before committing the players to a course of action, say if I were, frex, to refer to something as a "shack" which clearly isn't a shack at all, as in the ridiculously contrived example quoted above.

Players miss shit, and in my experience, the more verbose and roundabout the description, the more they're likely to miss.

ROTFLMAO.

It took vulva a mere two sentences to go from stop using extremes to using an extreme.

And I think we're getting to the dark heart of this discussion at last: this is about CONTROL over the narrative, keeping an IRON GRIP on what the players know about the game-world because otherwise they could start gettin' all sorta uppity ideas of their own and not PLAY ALONG WITH MAH STOREH.

Well the original discussion possibly, control is certainly an element there but the recent turn of this discussion towards detail in description has nothing to do with that whatsoever. Unless the GM is leaning his descriptions in an attempt to sway the player's perceptions and thus influence or even cajole their choices its irrelevant. A thorough description is just that, a more lengthy and involved one than something simpler and direct. Good, bad, appreciated, hated... whatever but it has nothing to do with controlling the plot of the game.... in my opinion of course. I put as much time into my descriptions in my sandbox sessions as I do when Im..ahem.. railroading.

Quote from: rgrove0172;938532I think this is the danger in assuming players imaginations are best left to forming their own scenes with bare bones descriptions. It may not be necessary to wax-eloquent on every scene but a few lines of apparently trivial description are a healthy part of GMing in my opinion.

Hence why I note that theres a point where theres too little data to base from. Too minimalist.

Otherwise see me and Gronan's comments on the Q&A style of play where you give the players the "at a glance" data and then let them ask for details.

And the Q&A atyle can handle more description as needed. Sometimes at a glance you get alot of things. Like you walk into the villains office and you see her desk and its style, the rug on the floor, her very expensive statuette of Tiamat on the desk, her paperwork on the desk shes filling out, the villain herself, and other details like other exits from the room. Whereas the PCs walk into their guest rooms and see the bed, desk, window table and some chairs. Because thats all thats there.

Dont just say "You walk into your guest room."... The players should not have to quiz the DM on obvious details.

YMMV, But thats my view on that style.

Quote from: rgrove0172;938575And I think we're getting to the dark heart of this discussion at last: this is about CONTROL over the narrative, keeping an IRON GRIP on what the players know about the game-world because otherwise they could start gettin' all sorta uppity ideas of their own and not PLAY ALONG WITH MAH STOREH.

Well the original discussion possibly, control is certainly an element there but the recent turn of this discussion towards detail in description has nothing to do with that whatsoever. Unless the GM is leaning his descriptions in an attempt to sway the player's perceptions and thus influence or even cajole their choices its irrelevant. A thorough description is just that, a more lengthy and involved one than something simpler and direct. Good, bad, appreciated, hated... whatever but it has nothing to do with controlling the plot of the game.... in my opinion of course. I put as much time into my descriptions in my sandbox sessions as I do when Im..ahem.. railroading.

Heh-heh. Nice touch.

Quote from: rgrove0172;938532I think this is the danger in assuming players imaginations are best left to forming their own scenes with bare bones descriptions. It may not be necessary to wax-eloquent on every scene but a few lines of apparently trivial description are a healthy part of GMing in my opinion.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;938561And I think we're getting to the dark heart of this discussion at last: this is about CONTROL over the narrative, keeping an IRON GRIP on what the players know about the game-world because otherwise they could start gettin' all sorta uppity ideas of their own and not PLAY ALONG WITH MAH STOREH.

Quote from: rgrove0172;938575Well the original discussion possibly, control is certainly an element there but the recent turn of this discussion towards detail in description has nothing to do with that whatsoever.

On the contrary.  While I'll agree with you that it (probably) doesn't have anything to do with controlling "the narrative" or "MAH STOREH", you do seem to be somewhat concerned with controlling how the players envision the scene, to ensure that they see it exactly as the GM sees it (or at least extremely close to the same way).  But I doubt that most of us here are concerned with maintaining that degree of control over what the players envision.  I know that I almost never do (and, on the rare occasions that I do specifically want my players to see things the same way as I do, I'll find an appropriate picture online and show them that rather than trying to describe it in exacting detail).

If I carelessly describe a serviceable, but run-down, building as a "shack" and my players take me at my word and envision a dilapidated shack, then so what?  If they behave in a way that doesn't make sense in my conception of the surroundings, then I'll ask them about it, find out that they understood things to be different than what I intended to present, correct the misunderstanding, and move on.  And if it doesn't lead them to behave inappropriately, then the different pictures of the surroundings don't matter.

As long as I don't have to play "guess what I'm thinking!" with the GM I am fine. I will gladly take a GM who errs on the side of more description than not. Just please don't torture me with jargon fapping in public. (And that jargon fapping applies most often to guns, swords, and martial arts fans, IME, by a magnitude more than any other extraneous "irrelevant" detail, such as meteorologists, decorators, or fashionistas.)

Quote from: rgrove0172;938575And I think we're getting to the dark heart of this discussion at last: this is about CONTROL over the narrative, keeping an IRON GRIP on what the players know about the game-world because otherwise they could start gettin' all sorta uppity ideas of their own and not PLAY ALONG WITH MAH STOREH.

Well the original discussion possibly, control is certainly an element there but the recent turn of this discussion towards detail in description has nothing to do with that whatsoever. Unless the GM is leaning his descriptions in an attempt to sway the player's perceptions and thus influence or even cajole their choices its irrelevant. A thorough description is just that, a more lengthy and involved one than something simpler and direct. Good, bad, appreciated, hated... whatever but it has nothing to do with controlling the plot of the game.... in my opinion of course. I put as much time into my descriptions in my sandbox sessions as I do when Im..ahem.. railroading.

The way I feel is abpiy is presenting as detailed description is both helping immersion and presenting options rather emphasizing what's important. Making sure everyone is on the same page, IME, saves more time than doing the description "wastes" since players don't spend time acting on false impressions and assumptions drawn from them. MMV, of course but I don't think it has anything to do with controlling the "story" for most that go in for more detailed descriptions.