Sandwich Mechanics with Story

Sometimes, when we're elbow-deep in the mechanics of our game, it's easy to forget that we're sharing a story. The more complicated the mechanics, the more tools or systems we use, the more we forget to stop for a second and imagine what's happening in the world.

When running your game, try sandwiching your mechanics with in-world descriptions. Begin by describing the situation going on in the world, then the mechanical situation or effect, and then the result back in the fiction of the world again.

You can often do this in one sentence. Here's a damage description for example.

"The ogre slams his club into you for 12 points of damage as your arm buckles under the blow."

Other more complicated situations might look like this.

"Bitter End hurls out a blast of lighting tearing through Aury, Intimidating Cake, and Tarch. Each of you need to make DC 15 dexterity saving throws taking 28 damage on a failure or 14 on a miss as the lighting blast hammers through you and into the back wall, racing along conduits of metal embedded in the wall."

Some DMs feel like such descriptions waste time. Combat can already take a long time, let's not bog it down with flowery narrative, they argue.

But this narrative is the point of the story. It's the result of the mechanics, not something to be tossed aside.

You might extend these descriptions to the beginning and end of each turn as well, narrating what's going on for each character from their point of view before their turn begins. This gives you a chance to reinforce things the player may have forgotten but the character surely hasn't.

The next time you're running your game, sandwich your mechanical descriptions with the narrative of the story happening in the world. It's a great way to remind everyone, yourself included, that our game is more than just dice rolls and math — we're creating worlds together.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

This week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on How Many Hit Points should a Monster Have and Chronicles of Eberron by Keith Baker.

Last Week's Lazy D&D Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy D&D Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things D&D. Here are last week's topics with timestamped links to the YouTube video:

13th Age Bundle of HoldingHow to Skip Content you Don't Want to HearThe WOTC OGL 1.1 AnnouncementAlternate Objectives by Sneak AttackPressFavorite Product of 2022Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patreons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

Connecting Published AdventuresWhen to Use Which Dials of Monster DifficultyThoughts on Owlbear Rodeo 2.0Making Failure Interesting with Ability ChecksPerforming Mid-Campaign Check-InsRevealing a Pointcrawl MapUsing AI Generators like Chat GPT and MidjourneyD&D Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last D&D game and write them up as D&D tips. Here are this week's D&D tips:

Set up musical playlists based on relaxing scenes, sinister and suspenseful scenes, and action-packed combat.Don't forget what makes this game great -- spending time with our friends and family creating awesome stories together.Spend extra prep time on the characters; their gear, their hooks in the campaign, and the secrets they haven't yet discovered.Keep a set of generic tokens (either physical or for online VTTs) handy for improvised combat scenes.Common D&D tropes become unique and fantastic with the lore we wrap around them.Bathe in the lore of big world sourcebooks. Take the ideas you love and drop them into your own campaign.Customize your campaigns with a focus on particular character options.Related ArticlesBuild Cities Around the CharactersReinforce the Theme of your D&D CampaignWrite Down Page Numbers on D&D Prep Notes and Character SheetsTwo Years Playing D&D OnlineBuilding Stronger Friendships through D&DGet More from Sly FlourishRead more Sly Flourish articlesBuy Sly Flourish's BooksWatch Sly Flourish's YouTube videosSubscribe to Sly Flourish's PodcastSupport Sly Flourish on PatreonBuy Sly Flourish's Books Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master The Lazy DM's Companion Lazy DM's Workbook Fantastic Lairs Fantastic Adventures: Ruins of the Grendleroot Fantastic Adventures

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