Create Scenes with Detail

Details are the key to creating an engaging scene. (photo by Abraxas3D)

One of the more specialized (by specialized, I mean incredibly geeky) hobbies I’ve engaged in over the years is model railroading.  I’m not sure how many tabletop gamers are also model railroaders (even armchair model railroaders, like I’ve been for several years – since I moved out of the house with the huge attic), but I find model railroading to have a number of things in common with game mastering (GMing) a tabletop role-playing game.  A few months ago, I wrote about building an adventure like a railroad yard.  Actually, building an adventure and building a model railroad have quite a few similarities.

Setting the Scene

When you build a model railroad, in order to make the layout seem more believable and less like a toy train set, it is important to look at the train layout as a number of scenes through which the main characters, trains in this case, move.  Much like an adventure, you can’t think of the entire train layout, you have to take it in pieces.  View blocks are useful for keeping viewers in particular scenes and separating these necessarily small scenes (due to scale) from each other.  Similarly, when designing an adventure, you should build in some scene blocks and divide the adventure into small and interesting pieces.  In model railroading, a scene block can be a highway overpass or large industrial building.  In adventure design, these can be a change of location or the passage of small amount of time.  Just as the model railroader wants viewers to move through the scenes at the speed and scale of the main characters (the trains), the GM wants players to view the adventure at the same speed and scope as their characters.

This junkyard even has a dog. (photo by Abraxas3D)

Sweat the Small Stuff

Many novice model railroaders only detail the tracks on which the trains (the main characters) will be traveling and leave most of the rest of the world a stark and mostly empty canvas.  Novice GM’s also only detail things that are of dire importance to the main track of the adventure.  This can leave an unsatisfying world where suspension of disbelief suffers because there are no details on the periphery of the action.  The town butcher has a name and you can describe his appearance to the players because he is part of the sinister cult that is plotting to kill the mayor and bring the serpent king back from the netherworld.  Even if the town seamstress has nothing to do with the serpent-cult, she should still have a name and you should still be able to describe her to the players.  The mayor keeps an antique sword in a glass case on his office wall because it is, unbeknownst to him, a magical serpent-bane weapon.  Are there any other, less essential to the plot, accoutrements in his office?  How about a portrait of the sword’s previous owner?

The layout, or world of the adventure, should have enough little details to keep the players’ minds in the story-world.  Have an NPC in town stutter or give another NPC a tic (habitually looking at a watch, excessive blinking, a case of the “umm’s” when speaking) that is recognizable to the players.  Make sure to use that whenever players encounter that NPC.  If there is a lake in town, when the PC’s walk by, describe the local town fisherman casting his line into the shining water.  One thing that is always useful and often neglected when adding details to an adventure setting is children.  Any real town is going to have a number of children wandering about.  The PC’s should encounter them from time to time.  Maybe they follow the PC’s around waving toy swords and pretending to be the heroes.  Perhaps one of them is insatiably curious and just can’t stop asking questions of a particular character.

Beware: The Devil CAN Be In the Details

It’s easy to get caught up in an insane number of details, so just make a representative number of mundane details and allow them to represent the infinite number of details that would exist if the world were real.  The players will get it, I promise.  It will seem ultra-detailed just by adding in a small number of interesting quirks and scene details.  Some modelers get caught up in details as well and spend years building elaborate circus parades down the streets of the city on their train layout, but never get back to the important part of being a model railroader – the trains have to run.  As a GM, you can’t allow yourself to get caught up in the thread-count of the royal sheets and forget that your players want their characters to experience some action in this deep setting.

The barnacles make this scene. (photo by Uwe Mayer)

All Aboard!

Try adding in a few mundane details to the next adventure or scenario you GM.  You will see an increase in player engagement with the scenario and its setting.  If you already do this, what are some details you’ve added to a scenario to increase player engagement and suspension of disbelief?