2.4.2 Running the Dungeon^🔗

Your players should have a good understanding where and what the place they explore is. They should be aware of known entrances and exits (often there is only one), how the boundaries work, why it is a dangerous place, and why they are there.

Is it something they need to make safe for others, are they there for the treasure, or do they just need to get through?

Make sure that your group knows this before they actually enter. You can either narrate this in a quick rundown, or make it a prelude where they play through the initial research and travel.

If you have set a theme for the place, use it in your descriptions of the place as often as possible. Make liberal use of the clichés, to set the mood. Describe the sense of the place, the temperature, the air, the noises and smells.

Do not describe what the player characters are feeling, but ask them about it!

In the chapter about Information flows I've already outlined the importance of knowing what to explain when and in what depth. Keep that in mind when your players enter a new area or room. Describe things from broad first impressions first, then drill down into details as prompted by the players.

Try to always narrate these first impressions in the same theme as you've chosen for the whole dungeon. Of course, sometimes you want to deliberately break that theme, because there is an oasis of calm during their monster bash, or an especially horrific space of cosmic horror during their pulp adventure.

I found it best if each room you describe in any sort of detail is distinct to the dungeon as a whole. The group should explore "the library of the mad archmage", not just "a library".

On the other hand, don't be afraid to have boring rooms that the players just walk through. Make it clear to them that these are just there for the architecture to make sense, but not to be explored in detail.

Work your cliché words into the descriptions of the rooms, try to have at least one important thing that fits into the theme of your Dungeon^🔗 in each room you describe.

Running combat in a roleplaying game can be a confounding experience. Time passes at the same time very quickly in the game world where a fight can be over after a few exchange, and very slowly in the real world. Everyone needs to think about and describe what their character and the monsters and other opponents do.

Doing that smoothly is a skill one has to learn and adapt to. Don't be daunted by it though, even if you do it careful and slow at the start, it'll be fine!

The initiative system for Raiders of Arismyth^🔗 is deliberately set up to ease the burden on the referee. They only need to have the monsters and NPCs react to what the players do, when the relevant monster has been "activated" by a player character acting against it or in its vicinity.

Encourage players to make on-the-spot decisions fast. You do that by asking them quick and pointed questions, but also by not punishing them harshly for making a hasty decision. If a single player character leaves combat to do something else, don't feel obligated to try to keep them inside the normal combat order. Figure out how long it would roughly take, tell them when they'll know the result, then return your attention to the combat.

When a monster gets out of sight of the player characters, feel free to stop counting its step in detail, but instead use random tables or countdown dice to roughly determine the outcome of its actions "behind the scenes". If combat moves into until know unexplored rooms, give only brief descriptions of it - no one has time or attention to really explore it in the middle of a fight!