Roleplaying during a D&D session is a lot like group writing. Everyone is writing one protagonist, except for the Dungeon Master, who’s in charge of writing everything else. You use dice to resolve actions of uncertain outcome and respond to the consequences. Over time, you and your group will weave a story about your party of adventurers.

If roleplaying is like writing with a group of other writers, then writing advice surely would apply to playing Dungeons & Dragons as well, right?

Right?

In this post, I’m going to talk about a pitfall I’ve fallen into as a D&D player who remembers the writing advice I got as an English major. Namely, I’m talking about the idea of “show vs. tell” and the iceberg theory. These ideas are helpful for writers, but they can lead to confusion at the D&D table.

What’s Show vs. Tell?

“Show, don’t tell” is a common bit of writer advice. The point is for writers to avoid just saying, “my character is angry,” and, instead, write something like, “their hands clench into fists at their sides.” Illustrating a character’s feelings instead of outright stating them to the audience makes for better prose. The audience imagines the scene, and your writing become more engaging.

The iceberg theory is related to show vs. tell. The writer Ernest Hemingway (who you may know from such hits as “Hills Like White Elephants” or The Sun Also Rises) coined this phrase to describe the minimal writing style he is known for today.

From the surface, you can only see a small portion of a large iceberg. Most of the weight of the iceberg lies below the surface of the ocean. While the text itself may be sparse, the reader can still get a sense of facts that the writer omits. The idea is to write as little as possible—only what is absolutely necessary—but to still know the facts you leave out. The reader can guess through context.

These ideas get thrown around when people talk about what makes for engaging writing. The advice has its merit, even if you don’t always agree with it.

Even until recently, I had those ideas about roleplaying my character in D&D. I thought that I should just give the details I needed to communicate the actions my character took. I put effort into fleshing out my character, but I thought I was doing something wrong if I had to actually explain his emotions and thoughts.

This doesn’t work. I mean, it won’t break the game if you do this. But if you want your fellow players to understand more about your character… you have to tell them. Yes, tell.

Why?

Writing a story is a multi-step process. The writer gets an idea. They might plan their story or do some research. They write the first draft, which is a mess. Then, the writer edits their story, and they might get other people to read it and give feedback. After however many rounds of editing, the story is finished.

Roleplaying a character? Not so much. The DM tells you the situation, and you react to it in-character. You can’t put your every response through editing and proofreading. It’s improvisation.

On top of that, you’re not the only author. Everyone else at the table is contributing to the story.

The Writer’s Room

You’re all writing a story together, and every player character is a protagonist in this tale. The DM is listening to what you’re doing, and they’re developing the PC’s surroundings in reaction to their actions. The other players are playing off what your character does, and vice-versa.

You don’t have to hold your character’s motivations close to your chest, we’re playing D&D, not poker.

As an audience, we love surprises. In D&D, we’re both the audience and the writers, so sometimes it really might be more fun to keep a tight lid on telling your fellow players what’s up with your brooding warlock.

But, you can also draw back the curtain. Your character can still be mysterious and withdrawn, of course, but telling your friends more can empower them to write with you—to roleplay more collaboratively.

By letting the players know what’s eating at your ranger, you’re giving them the chance to decide what to do with that. As you enable them to act on that information, you’re enabling their characters to do something about it… or not. But that response, in turn, tells us something about those characters as well.

So, what do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments—let’s discuss!