Vision

I'm going to deviate a bit from my normal policy of posting campaign-specific notes that, frankly, are only of interest to my own group of players. The reason is because I've noticed an irritating trend among DMs.  I'm not sure what the cause is, or if it's always been there, unnoticed by me. Maybe it's just because I'm getting old and cranky, and I think my way is the right way.

In any event, this fairly new irritation is this tendency to describe things from a top-down perspective. By that I mean describing a room, cave, building, whatever as it looks from above. A literal top-down view. I don't know if it's because so many people play MMORPGs, where your camera is always above the character, if it stems from battlemats and minis, if it's from watching television and movies, or if it's not a new thing at all and I was just never bothered by it before.

Don't do it. Unless the characters are actually above the place, of course.

When a character or group enters a location, and you give a description, describe it from the character's point of view. Think about what the characters see, hear, smell, and feel. If the tallest character, as an example, is 4' 5", the party isn't going to be able to see what's on the other side of that 5' high bookshelf unless it's something taller than 5'! Instead, tell them there's a bookshelf to their left that is obstructing the view of part of the room, and be ready to give more detail about it. Let yourself see the room from the door, and describe it that way.

Vision isn't the only sense characters have. Perhaps there is a faint creaking sound, heard only when the characters stand still for a moment, coming from behind the bookshelf. Maybe there's a scent of roses overlaid with the stench of rotting meat and burning tallow. The air might feel warmer, or colder, or more damp in here than it did in the hall. There could be a slight vibration of the floorboards in time with the creaking sound.

The same applies for your monsters or NPCs. They have blind spots too. Unless they are flying, they can't see everything from above. If one of the characters is silently drawing a sword, the zombie child in the rocking chair certainly isn't aware of it without some magical means to see on the other side of the bookshelf.

Sure, as the DM, you know where everything and everyone is, but none of the fictional characters or monsters do. Use that. It builds suspense. It invokes a sense of reality. It draws your players in, and gets them more deeply involved. Don't squander the opportunity because it's easier just to toss everything on a battlemat for everyone to see.