Player narration lies at the heart of top-class game sessions. As the Bakers say in Apocalypse World, roleplaying is a conversation, and when only one side (or neither side) are contributing much, it can feel flat. Even in the most trad game, when players describe their characters actions, it lands better if they add some flavour to it. Compare:

• I pick the lock to the door with the demon face #rollsd20
• We see Cherbol pressed against the door, his face to the carved demon, as he carefully rotates the picks in his hands, elf-ears pricked up to hear the click #rollsd20

Deeper player narration, or even action description, leads to a more engaging and exciting table. So what techniques can we use to foster it?

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Start Simple

I’m going to try for some definitions here. I’ve written previously about giving players more narrative weight in games, and some of these techniques foster a different kind of player narration.

Action Narration is where a player describes what they’re doing – it can be as simple as the first example above, or developed further. 

• I step towards the door and, mindful of the demon face, slip my greased lockpicks into the lock and begin to turn.

Scene Narration is where the player sets the scene as well. The second example above is a possibly over-flowery example of this.

Some players, tables, and GMs don’t like scene narration from players. That’s fine, to a point; although if you’re playing a game like Feng Shui or FATE some scene narration is embedded in the game mechanics so I’d strongly advise you to use it – but some people prefer a harder distinction between player and GM. Occasionally people talk about “Immersion” and say that scene narration is ruining gaming, and they take issue with other people using it – these people are idiots, so back away slowly and ignore them.

If your table doesn’t want to push towards scene narration, start them out with action narration – and use some of the techniques below to encourage it. If they’re brand new, and/or you’re happy with it, go straight for scene narration – even completely new players will often find it just as easy to work with

Techniques to Use

There’s no one fix for this, but there are a few you can try to encourage this. I’m not at all a fan of 

Ask For It – any time a player wants to half-ass some action description, you can always ask for a bit more from them. I use this particularly if they’ve given almost no description at all, or if they’ve stated a game action instead of fiction

• Can I roll Acrobatics?
• Of course you can! What are you doing when you roll it?

Ask for a Bit More – particularly in open-skill challenges or extended tasks, asking for more flavour is also allowed – particularly if there’s a stretch to it

• I’ll try and find a cure for the virus
• Great, it’s probaly Reason+Science – can you give me a bit of flavour about what we see your PC doing?

Describe Locations Loosely – make the setting of scenes you describe flexible and open to player input. This includes using theatre of the mind whenever you can – there are some GMs online who’ll put out gridded maps all the time, even for non-combat encounters, and it’s really hard to not take the details on those maps as immutable fact (hey, there’s three barrels to the north- what’s in them?)

• You’re in the back of the warehouse. You can see the goons are about to unload. There’s teetering piles of boxes, shelves, an idle forklift truck, and a workbench with some tools on it. You look like you’ve got the drop on them – what do want to do?

Give Permissions Generously – if a players asks if they can do something, with any sort of narrative justification, default to YES unless you think it’ll grate with the rest of the table. Want to use Command to inspire the science team to help defeat the virus? Of course you can. Want to Force open the door instead of picking it? Yeah, that works – a skill roll’s a skill roll. 

If you’re worried this will lead to players using their best skills all the time, the fix for that is that unusual approaches usually only work once – and sometimes I’ll even (with players with particular penchants for stretching) say they can only do it once per session. I also have some hard limits on what can be done. When I’m running Star Trek Adventures, you can pretty much use whatever on an Extended Task if you can narrate it in – but when you fire a phaser in combat, it’ll always be Control+Security.

What To Avoid

There’s some other approaches I’ve found less successful, and in particular one very common one. Don’t give bonuses for extra description or exciting narration. Your mileage may vary, but my experience is that player rewards for “good roleplay/narration” just reinforce a GM-in-charge attitude that undermines the other approaches. It’s not a good-roleplaying doggy biscuit. Cool player narration should be the standard, not some unusual extra effort they’ve made so they get an extra dice.

An exception to the above is where games come with some sort of ‘fan mail’ mechanic where the whole table has a resource they can use to reward – this can really work, and gets everyone engaged in the process.

Similarly, where possible default to the same difficulty and approach as if they’d made the roll normally. If they want to get past the guards by causing a distraction by spooking the horses with Animal Friendship, cool – it’s the same difficulty as the Stealth check they’d make to sneak past, or the Deception check to lie to them. You’ve got to apply a reasonableness test at times, of course, but if you’re defaulting to yes and being generous, your players will realise this is only a one-off ruling and it won’t put them off being more inventive in future.

So, some ideas for encouraging player narration. What do you do at your table? Let me know any that I’ve missed.