Show, Then Tell
Show, Then Tell. Start with the concrete—what happened—and after, when appropriate, riff on your thoughts about consequences.
— Rule 26 from Good Writing by Anne Lamott and Neal Allen
Check this video out. Never seen Constantine. My siblings and I demolished five seasons of Supernatural in the recent months. While watching, more and more crazy stuff happened. The demon and angel stuff was a little strange at times, but the character interactions and (of course) Dean and Sam kept us clicking next episode. A part of me constantly thought of my relationship with them while watching.
For some odd reason, I’ve found less and less enjoyment watching Critical Role recently. This is by no means a critique on Brennan Lee Mulligan. Nevermind, it may very well be. My personal experience of watching the most recent season involved active efforts to understand the scene in my mind. Most of the time—and I’m more than happy to be corrected on this—it’s listening to Brennan narrate some complicated relationships and events. I hadn’t had so much trouble with Matt.
Running Descent Into Avernus taught and still teaches me many lessons. I loathed the portion of it that involved learning the lore revisions made by Justin Alexander in his remix; I thought that it was simply a necessary evil, part of the work every aspiring Game Master does—what Brennan Mulligan does.
Imagine you're a devil in Avernus. If some hero punks ganked your best friends, you might probably drive around and try to gut em. Not cause it's good—I mean, to you it'd be good, recreational, and enjoyable/pleasurable—but because that's all you know and you've been taught, for the past hundred or two years. If you were a passionate angel and some humans you served and whose lives you saved betrayed yu, you would probably be hurt, fester a great grudge, and be compelled to seek vengeance upon them.
But rather than explain that, I show roving devils with an eye for a specific golden haired elven paladins. I show a great big island of people who have no idea why the big sun that a nice angel gave them is now black, and oh yeah, why the town itself is now plunged into a land of death and suffering.
I don't really know much about storytelling. I'm no philosophy major storytelling writer master. Sure I've been in theatre and choir in high school and college, but I'm not so sure that the soft skills from that transfer to this hobby, maybe they do.
But I do know one thing—I tend to prefer to feel like I'm a part of the cool stuff with the players, than to be the master guy telling the players the cool stuff. Or maybe reword that to say, the players remember more about how you made them feel than—eh whatever. You get the point.