Describing from another character’s perspective

How do you describe a character’s action in D&D? If we’re unsure of how to describe something, we can come back to see the world through the characters’ eyes: Describe the action from another player character’s perspective!

For example, we could just say, “The barbarian leaps forward and swings her sword.” Or, we look at the initiative order, see that the fighter is up next, and say to the fighter player, “Julianne, something large sweeps past you, and before you know what’s happening, your barbarian friend flies past you into the enemy. The last thing you see of her is your own reflection in the greatsword’s blade.”

Describe an action from another character’s perspective to engage multiple players in a scene, and to tie the D&D party together through descriptions!

Tie combat turns together

Coming up with descriptions for D&D combat can be stressful. As DMs, we always try to strike a balance between epic narration, and not too much talking between turns that already take a long time. Narrating actions from the perspective of the character who is up next in the initiative can tie combat turns together. In the above example, the barbarian acts first, and the fighter after her. We can smoothly move the spotlight from one to the other by narrating how the fighter sees the actions of the barbarian.

Engage more players in a scene

But also out of combat, this technique can be useful. We can engage more players in a scene by describing how their characters see another character acting. If the barbarian is attempting to walk across a rickety rope bridge, we can describe how the rogue feels the ropes strain under the barbarian’s weight. Perhaps the rogue then wants to stop the barbarian and go first themselves. But is the barbarian already too far gone, too eager to press forward?

Either way, by describing the effects of the barbarian’s actions on the rogue, we force the rogue player to react in some way. We foster interaction between characters, and engage more players in a scene.

Describing actions from another character’s perspective creates engagement between players, and can include more characters (and players) in any scene!