Do players really care for the campaign setting?

[Lord Zardoz]

Players usually dont care much about setting specifics

There are a few things that a given setting might provide that matter to the players.

1) Setting specific monsters (ie: Draconians in Dragonlance, the Awnsheileign in Birthright)
2) Setting specific classes (Artificer in Eberron, Knights of Solamnia, Wizards of High Sorcery of Dragonlance)
3) Setting specific races (Warforged, Shifters, and Changlings in Eberron, Kender in Dragonlance)

Beyond that, the players usually dont care much about who rules where. Game settings will give you all sorts of info about places the PCs never get to or NPC's they never meet, unless the DM is truly and insanely exhaustive in his efforts to use the setting.

The only real use that the setting details provide is they allow a DM to better run a campaign.

1) You have ready made bad guys and villians and often plot hooks if your stuck for ideas.
2) Things will remain internally consistent with respect to where things happen / who the players have spoken with.
3) With a published campaign setting, the players are not entirely witless about the world around them. If someone speaks of Vecna, the players dont need you to explain who Vecna is. If the players learn they are opposed by the Zhentarum, they will know who they are up against. It is very, very difficult to reach that point in a home brew campaign.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Monkey Boy]

I care about the setting when playing.

Being an occassional DM I appreciate the effort of other DM's and contribute bits and pieces to make help build the world.

Investing in the world enhances the DnD roleplaying experience for me as a player.

From a DM's perspective nothing discourages me more than players who couldn't give a crap about the world and the NPC's in it. <a topic for another thread perhaps?>

 

[Eosin the Red]

I am all about setting. Put me in a silly inconcieved randomland of evil wizards delving deep into the earth because we don't have enough sink holes and I am hittin' the door. I want a cohesive setting that makes some sort of sense to my internal guide of right and wrong ~ i.e. MIDNIGHT, BIRTHRIGHT, 7th Sea, and Delta Green all work well for me even though they are waaaay different because internally the parts cling together and seem logical even when they present something internally illogical. [That means when you can say, "that doesn't make any sense at all. What is a X doing here/ He seems like a nice Legate / The goverment men say they are here to help us." the setting has done its job ~ you grasp what is internally correct for the setting.]

 

[havard]

When I am a player, I care about the setting. As Lord Zardoz mentioned, players care more about things that affect them directly, as PC options and things the PCs are likely to encounter, than things that wont affect the game at all. This is especially true for homebrew IMO.

I have also found that players care more about a homebrew setting if they are allowed to participate in the world creation and/or if they feel that their PCs can affect the bigger picture of the setting.

Havard

 

[McBard]

I think this thread's poll makes a great distinction between setting and genre: for our group, setting doesn't matter that much, but genre is very important. Magical trains crisscrossing the land are an absolute, stomach-turning, huge no-no (you know, "Star Wars and Dragons"); but anything at the Middle-earth end of the spectrum...yes.