"Show, don't tell"

[Nornagest]

I believe - and this is after some considerable thought applied to the problem - that it's essentially impossible to procedurally generate descriptions that're actually aesthetically enjoyable.

If it's just a matter of conveying information to players in grammatically valid sentences, then yes, procedural generation can do that. But I can't think of a way to get procedurally generated descriptions to imply information, let alone master the black arts of allusion, sentence flow, and non-dictionary connotations of particular constructions. There's a strong analogy to the classic AI scenario of conducting a conversation with a computer; therefore, just as with ELIZA-style chatbots, I suspect the only real way to make it sound even halfway convincing is to cheat and lean heavily on human-written formulas for various description elements.

The problems with this approach show up quickly. The quality of description is still never quite good enough to pass for human-written (even incompetently human-written), and repeating elements tend to show up easily (especially if a particular player spends a lot of time in a narrow set of environments). The number of rooms you can make is essentially unlimited, yes, but I've never seen a procedurally generated description that didn't effectively read just like the thousands or millions of others generated by the same ruleset.

Again, there's a tradeoff here, and I can't universally condemn one option. From the perspective of gameplay, aesthetics be damned, it's true that static descriptions don't have anything like the kind of depth that dynamic descriptions can. That said, the idea of relegating builders to the role of controlling the input parameters to an algorithm that'd write most of the actual descriptions, viva la revolucion, only seems like an option if you want to derive effectively all the flavor and thematic depth of your world from gear and NPC interactions. Not a very attractive concept in my opinion, and there is a Third Way - it just takes longer and involves learning a markup language.

[shasarak]

[quixadhal]

[shasarak]

I think the initial post in this thread was a little misguided, TBH. "Show, don't tell" can be a reasonable guide when dealing with rather abstract descriptions, but as the quality in question becomes more concrete it becomes steadily less and less applicable.

For example, if you wish to depict a character in a work of fiction as "evil", it is probably not a good idea simply to say "he was an evil man"; it will be far more effective to depict him carrying out some kind of evil action, such as casually stepping on the face of a fallen child in order to enter his carriage. But that's only true because "evil" is a highly subjective, abstract concept. It's also rather a vague concept: the information that this is the kind of man who steps on children's faces is much more precise than saying that he is "evil".

But, at the other end of the scale, if something is "red" then it is nonsensical to talk about "showing why it is red" as opposed to "saying that it is red" - it is red, and there's nothing wrong with saying so. There may be more effective and evocative ways of phrasing it (it might be "the colour of fresh blood", or "a deep, sensual crimson") but none of these are allowing the reader to deduce what colour the object is, they're simply stating it.

I suspect "intricate" is much closer to the "red" end of the scale than it is to the "evil" end.

[Deadsoul]

What always worked for me.

If its not there do not tell it. Do not tell them how they feel, thats for them to discern. Describe what they can see, or what obscures views of other things. Whats in the distance, the ground. Do not use the word you. Do not show mobs in the room desc that pop in the room. The crux, is showing mobs in the distance that could be in the distance, but have moved since they moved.

Assume above all else, that who ever is looking at the room just teleported into the room in question. They dont know where they are, nor do you.