As a dungeon master, your narration stops when players understand enough of a situation to make a decision or to act. The best narration invites action, which circles back to the goal of shorter descriptions that lead to more back-and-forth with players. The quicker a description baits players to act, the sooner DMs can stop talking and players can do something. Most players like their turn to talk best. This gives the screenplay for Your D&D Game—The Movie an optimal shape, with lots of back-and-forth dialog.

When the players enter a new location, I withhold some easy discoveries from my first description. This gives players more to learn as they talk and investigate. This rewards action and leads to a more interactive game. For example, if the room has a mosaic, I’ll skip a detailed description, and instead assume someone will take a closer look.

Much of the key to having shorter descriptions comes from baiting short descriptions with details that inspire action or at least follow-up questions. For fantastic locations, the bait comes easy, but for more ordinary places include one or two unexpected details that can lead players to intact. A kitchen might seem wholly uninteresting, but if the chef snores on the floor and birds have entered an open window to peck at bread, then the players take an interest. Even something like a burning pan spurs action. In more ordinary situations, aim for two unexpected details that might interest players. This doubles the bait and gives players a choice.

When players take the bait and look closer, try to reward their interest with some tidbit of information, perhaps a useful clue or some of the story behind the adventure. Really any discovery no matter how small will encourage curiosity. Sometimes though, if you want players to feel uneasy or you aim to build a sense of mystery, you can raise questions without answers.

How well such tantalizing descriptions lead to action depends on the players. Some groups eagerly follow every reveal with activity or at least with enough curiosity to ask follow up questions. Other groups just listen patiently for the words, “Roll initiative!” For those groups, you must adjust by giving longer descriptions that skip the small choices and instead stop at the big decisions that steer the adventure. Players: If your DM keeps giving monologues, that could be your fault. Perhaps your character should become more eager to interact.

A good introduction to a scene starts with an invitation to action, so a description that fails to inspire action might predict a weak scene. You may have a dull location if you have to ask, “What do you do?” Some locations deserve two interesting details that inspire action, but many locations only deserve a summary.

Traditionally D&D players explore locations room by room, so we DMs dutifully let a party poke through all the numbered locations in a site, even when none include obstacles or require decisions. If the characters kill the monster in the attic, and then start exploring the rest of the house, and if you know the investigation requires no meaningful choices, then just summarize and skip to the next choice. “You search the house and only find rubbish and cobwebs, but a scroll case from the library captures your interest.”

Another warning sign comes when a description ends with a choice that leaves players indifferent. A simple option between two, interchangeable doors feels like no choice at all. The players have no basis for a decision. Worst case, they discuss the non-choice for five minutes because no one wants responsibility for picking heads or tails. But describe metallic scraping past one door and water seeping from under the other, and the small details make the choice interesting.

Ending descriptions with the one or two things you expect to inspire action gives insightful players metagame clues about what’s important. This fits with how DMs give more description to things of interest or importance. This is not a bug. Think of this as good and useful. That focus keeps adventures from becoming mired in minutiae.

Sometimes you might intentionally use metagame clues to draw attention. If you want someone to notice the secret door, you might even make eye contact with the dwarf as you describe some newer stonework. To players, the clue seems like the reward of having a dwarf’s keen eye for masonry. Even if the party lacks a dwarf, a lavish description of bricks will likely lead a player to look closer. Your descriptions acknowledge that the characters live in the game world and bring experience and perception that the players and your mere words cannot match—even when you include all five senses.

Next: Describing the outcomes of actions.