A great way to learn about DMing, especially if you're used to always being the DM, is to take a turn as a player, and noticing the things that other DM's do that you like or dislike.
Which brings me to the lesson I learned about DMing by playing in a game with my Dad as the Dungeon Master.
We were exploring an ancient underground city, as you do, and my wizard was walking around the edge of an open air, exposed atrium, on a covered walkway. The DM told me I spotted someone or something in the middle of the atrium square, and asked me what I wanted to do.
I told my dad I wanted to walk over to the object of interest and investigate it. He responded:
"You step off the walkway and fall 20 feet, landing on the ground, taking...(dice rolls) 14 damage"
Now some of my imaginary readers will be wondering why I was dumb enough to step off a second storey walkway. Hopefully a few others are wondering this 20 foot drop came from, as I was at the time.
I asked my dad what the hell just happened, and he told me I had been walking on the second floor of the atrium walkway. I told him I hadn't realised that, and thought I was on the ground floor, and asked if we could rollback the action. He's a bit more of the old-school, adversarial DM style, so my wizard, for no reason, faceplanted onto the ground.
This left me feeling like I'd been asked to do a trust fall with someone and they had walked away as I fell back.
Which leads us to the importance of descriptions. Let's say the players are searching a dungeon for a magic artefact, a green crystal.
You can over-describe :
"You are in a 20 foot by 15 foot room, a magical workshop of some kind. The stone brick walls are made of a dark stone, weathered with age, but the mortar is holding strong and not crumbling. On the floor is a periwinkle blue and gold carpet, going slightly threadbare in the right hand corner, with a depiction of 2 peacocks and 3 peahens in masterful embroidery. Lining the western wall are 3 bookshelves, crammed with books of various ages and colours. There is a desk in the western corner, beside the bookshelves, made of solid oak wood, with an alembic, mortar and pestle, hookah pipe, 3 books, "A history of herbology" in a green leather cover, "Wyverns and how to raise them" in a faded tan paper cover, and "Collin's Curious Cantrips" in a bright purple, and stacks of papers scattered across it, as well as a leather pouch of gems, some of which have leaked out, a brilliant tigers-eye, a few sparkling rubies, a green crystal, an opal, and four glittering emeralds. Hanging above the desk is a copper bracket with dried herbs hanging off it, lavender, thyme, frogwort, and sage. In the northern corner...."
I got bored of writing this, I wouldn't blame you for skipping that paragraph, or my players for tuning out either.
You can also under-describe:
" You are in a 20 foot by 15 foot stone room, a magic workshop of some kind. There is a desk in the corner and some bookshelves on the walls"
I tend to be guilty of under-describing, for two simple reasons:
1) I like to give players room to imagine their own version of the world I present for them. If I describe everything in too much detail, that gets lost.
2) I'm lazy
You can have a very clear picture of the landscape in your head, but if you don't effectively communicate it to your players, they will have a very different picture, so what's the solution?
For me, it's quite simple: If your player tells you they're about to do something that seems totally illogical (calmly stepping off a balcony) stop and re-describe the scene and ask them if that's still what they want to do.
This is slightly different to the DM code-phrase: "Are you sure you want to do that?" which really means: "You're probably going to die if you try that". This is just making sure your players have the information they should have before they make a decision.
You are the eyes, ears, hands, and nose of your players. If they do something insane, or seem to be missing something obvious, make sure they're seeing what you think they're seeing.
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