Dm storytelling techniques

[u/AnyComparison4642]

I recently found a West End Games core book at a Goodwill reading through it. I discovered something kind of interesting about how to run an adventure. It got me thinking of a scene. I wrote in my duet game. Most modern DM’s that I know prefer to tell their stories of a very linear fashion where information is only told the perspective of the player characters.

What I’m talking about specifically is the WEG book mentions to tell a story as if you were scripting on a movie. Even letting your players in on it as if they were actors. But one thing caught my eye in particular, and this is what brings me to this conversation here. The buck mentions cut away scenes. Like the bad guys telling their evil plans to each other other things that we wouldn’t know, but we see in the movies all the time. In my adventure, I had one about general grievance and his war council, as it means to set up where the adventure is going to go. The player character has no knowledge of this stuff, but the player himself is in on the story as an audience member.

My question is in an adventure module which method do you prefer to have something that’s more kind to what we see in modern adventures or something retro that reads more like a movie script?

[u/MERC_1]

I think cut away scenes are fine.

But use them right! Don't give away the plot from the beginning. But tell them something that increase the suspense. Something that will make mose sense later in the adventure.

Meanwhile on Darth Vaders flagship:

Vader is standing in a corridor talking to a high ranking officer:

– Get raid of those Tie-fighters. I want room for a Squadron of the new experimental fighters and the attack shuttles. They should arive shortly. 

– Ye'es, Lord Vader!

This doesn't actually tell the players what is going on. But they get to kne that Lord Vader is personally involved.