When a DM sits down and designs the layout of a world, it usually occurs top-down and in the form of maps. This encourages DMs to process (and explain) every moment from overhead. And it makes the players view things from the same angle. Thus, the DM misses out on details that real people in the players' situations would notice.

When something wounds a monster or player, other players would be able to smell the blood. When a goblin fires an arrow at a player in the dark and nicks their ear, they won't know that it was an arrow until a few moments after they got hit. The first thing they'll notice is a sharp hot pain on their ear. They'll wince, and as they put their hand up to their ear and hear the arrow land behind them, they'll piece it all together.

As a DM, you have the most knowledge of your world.  You're free to choose your perspective. You're not constrained to the perspective of an omniscient. Instead, consider imagining yourself as an invisible body walking alongside the party. Imagining the moment, look around you. Seeing only the things that the players would see, notice the situation as only someone would while standing where you are. A few examples:

What does the floor feel like to the players walking over it? Is the room they're in echoey? If they're in a dungeon hallway, is it narrow and claustrophobic? Do players take psychic damage for that or do they attack at a disadvantage? When a player encounters an enemy, are they looking up at the enemy? Or are they looking down? Does the enemy stink, does it slur its words, can you hear or see or feel its breath? When a PC blocks an enemy sword strike with a metal shield in a dungeon, does the ring hurt the ears of everyone nearby? What does a potion smell or taste like? It's impractical to address all these sensory experiences all the time when playing. But it's valuable to remember that these experiences can help immerse the player, as well as the DM.

By injecting life and personality into encounters, goblins and orcs suddenly stop being interchangeable to the players. Every fight is a different sensory experience, against enemies with different personalities, presences, and bodies, all which make for a more satisfying experience.

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#dnd

In D&D, humans don't have their own language. Instead, they only speak Common. This is also true in Lord of the Rings, and to a lesser extent, World of Warcraft.

It seems safe to assume that this is because the “human” race in these media properties is modeled after Brits and/or Americans, whose language (English) has become the global lingua franca. This tracks with our understanding of racially coded fantasy races: Tolkein's elves are Scandinavian, WoW's trolls are Rastafarian, dwarves tend to be a combination of Nordic and German, and humans tend to be predominantly white and eastern European.

In an effort to step away from a fantasy universe where humans are merely a default, I propose that humans know a language of their own as well. Suggestions:

• Common is a simplified and constructed language designed to facilitate communication between races for trading and political purposes. It would probably use the script of the most powerful race from when the language was invented, or the script of the language's inventors, or maybe it can be written in any script, phonetically.
• The depths of some ideas get lost in Common, since it's rather matter-of-fact, giving players a reason to resort to or learn other languages.
• In addition to Common, just like elves speak Elvish, and dwarves speak Dwarvish, humans speak Human.
• Alternatively, Common could be a primarily culture-sharing language, designed to share art, the spoken word, and poetry. Maybe it's richer than every other language in the world and most other languages have died out. Maybe only older dwarves know dwarvish.

#dnd #worldbuilding