“You hit. You miss.”
Delivering dynamic description.

 Description is vital in delivering a great immersive game.

Even uneventful travel is an opportunity for scene-setting. Personification of weather or terrain features can be a useful tool to establish tone:

“Clouds glide across the sky above you, and a gentle breeze across the meadows causes a soft sussuration in the grass that almost seems to caress your legs”

vs.

“Clouds claw their way across the sky above you, while the biting wind across the wild fields causes the grass to hiss almost threateningly as it seems to drag and snarl at your feet.”

Engage players with interesting description, avoiding information overload or hooking player focus on unimportant trivialities (and be ready to ad-lib to meet expectations or develop further if this happens. For example, if you mention harmless wildlife and characters decide to attack it, it could be hunted by rivals frustrated at having their kill stolen, a messenger, companion or pet, offspring of a more dangerous foe, or a polymorphed humanoid).

Use description frequently to bring flavor and depth, and weave mood and atmosphere. Conversely, be cautious in dropping important details, masking them as if trivial, so players will learn to pay attention and feel rewarded for doing so.

Continue to breathe life into a scenario by adding description during action scenes or during interactions. Sounds can be especially useful (the whistle of a cold breeze or the cry of a strange beast) to sustain immersion and remind players of the scene if they’re taking their time to make a decision.

For combat scenes, avoided the dreaded repetition of: “You hit. You miss.”

Instead, mix things up a little with a thesaurus of violence:

• enemy: foe, adversary, opponent
• hit: strike, wound, injure
• pierce: impale, stab, skewer, gore
• slash: cut, slice, carve, gash, lacerate
• bludgeon: bash, crush, slam, crunch
• bite/ claw: rip, tear, rend, savage
• fire: burn, scorch, blast, immolate
• bleed: trickle, pour, spurt, spray, spatter, gush, fountain
• kill: drop, fell, slay, annihilate, obliterate, destroy

For misses: use language dependent on target’s primary defense strategies: he dodges, she parries, they defend, its armor absorbs the damage, the shield deflects the blow.

Enemy type, size and method of attack determines area targeted: small creatures strike mostly at legs and abdomen, medium biting creatures favor throat and face, flying creatures attack the head and upper body. It may not affect game mechanics, but it can be used in description.

Describe opponents’ demeanor: calm, confident, desperate, disciplined, furious, ferocious, frenzied.

Show their reactions to wounds and weakening confidence or physical state. Allow NPC personalities to show. Punctuate their actions with curses, threats, and prayers to their gods.

Throw in a reminder of the scene every round or two:

• (You kill it.) “Your foe’s dying gasp is lost in the howling gale.”
• (You miss.) “The clash of your blades echoes about the cavernous chamber as he parries your blow.”
• (She misses.) “Her arrow flies wide and clatters upon the scarred stone of the ancient walls.”
• (You hit.) “You strike the troglodyte heavily and it staggers, hissing in pain. Blood gushes across its moonlit scales and spatters over the cold stone floor.”

 If it’s cold, throw in some steaming breath. If it’s hot, mention a trickle of sweat. Add reminders of light sources, smells, and surface textures, and any applicable looming threats, even in something as simple as a missed attack:

• (It misses you.) “Your foe lunges for your throat with its jaws and you feel its fetid breath hot on your face, but you just manage to dodge the attack. Its claws tear at your midriff as it attempts to disembowel you, but it fails to penetrate your armor.”

Mix short functional language with more evocative descriptions. There’s no need to describe the poetry in every single arc of a blade, but add enough so that your players will be wiping off the blood afterwards.