You NEED to describe doors

Little details = better decision making

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Before we crack on today, in case you missed it… Inkvein now has a trailer!

Back to the task at hand. I love it when adventures include details about exits. This practice seems to be becoming a bit less common (from my perspective at least), so I want to draw some attention to it. First of all, what am I talking about?

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Exit details

I’m talking about modules that list exits in their location keys with sensory details of some kind or a quick description. Like the Iron Coral from Into the Odd:

Image Credit: Into the Odd (Remastered)

Borg’s Rotblack Sludge:

Image Credit: Mörk Borg

Or OSE’s Incandescent Grottoes:

Image Credit: Incandescent Grottoes

These keys present distinct details about the exits from the current location. We’re going to talk about why they are amazing… but first: lets talk about why they have fallen out of fashion in some keying practices (and my counterarguments).

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Page space, legwork, and maps

I think there are a few reasons why exit descriptions have slipped out of some keying styles.

First is that some really meaty old-school keys described exits in copious detail: to the point where they were not useful. This understandably soured folks. The good news is we can take a much more terse approach, as seen above.

Another is page space. In many cases, designers have decided it isn’t worth taking up space on the page with exit descriptions. Perhaps the argument is that you could glance at the key for the other room and derive a sensory detail from it. To me that’s a pain to do, and these descriptions are really useful: they are worth 2-5 lines on a key.

Writing exit descriptions is legwork. As with all legwork, adventure designers have to decide if it’s worth it or not. Designers could let GMs improvise all this stuff or prep these details themselves from the rest of the keys. But I think it’s worth it for designers to write exit descriptions for GMs to use.

Last, is the argument that a good map makes this redundant. I’m going to disagree with this for two reasons:

• Maps only convey limited visual information about exits. Using other senses is much better for providing variance of information for decision making. In terms of anticipating danger out of sight, humans use smell and hearing a lot. Maps can never give you that, which reduces capacity for decision making.

• Most maps don’t convey much more than door size or passage format: compare that to the handle-less iron door in Rotblack Sludge which is instantly more interesting and unique.

Decision making

Which passage do you take next from the current room? Well that decision is a lot more interesting for players if they have a sensory detail attached to each exit. Location keys (except dead-ends) in Inkvein have exit details:

The exit details from one of the first locations in Inkvein.

Many of the exit details in Inkvein are clues about what lies beyond. That enables players to make informed decisions and play the fun guessing game of what is in the next location.

It also helps with immersion. If something noisy or smelly is in the next location, the players should get a sensory warning before entering the location. It feels pretty dumb to stumble onto a pit of 100 corpses and not have smelled anything until you arrived at the pit itself.

But how do I know this works? Inkvein playtesting of course! Take a look at this snippet of one of my player’s maps:

Drawn by one of my wonderful Inkvein playtesters.

I didn’t tell this player to mark exit details… they did it naturally because it’s useful information! They also act like little rumours for repeat delves into the Inkvein: the sensory details keep players interested in places they haven’t explored yet.

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Describe exits

If you are homebrewing content for your table, I encourage you to write short door descriptions. They will help your players make informed choices and immerse them in the world.

If you are writing for publication: obviously do what you like… but I encourage you to describe doors in a way that makes for interesting decision making. I’ve been in positions where word/page count is tight and it’s just not possible, so I sympathise. But if you can, don’t underestimate how valuable this stuff can be.