D&D General D&D, magic, and the mundane medieval

[Hussar]

That sounds incredibly… sad.
I'd have told the players something along the lines of "if you cba to care about the setting, I cba to DM for you guys".

To be perfectly honest, it did eventually come down to that. It took me far, far longer than it should have, but, eventually I did have to walk from the group because I was just too frustrated.

My new group is a bit more engaged, although, again, it's hit and miss. About half the group actually had any ties I could work with and half the group didn't. But, half is enough for me. But, again, even with the pretty deep dumpster dives I've been doing into FR lore for my Candlekeep game, I know that the players don't really care all that much.

And, frankly I can't say I blame them. This string of gobbledygook proper nouns is pretty much the same as that string of gobbledygook proper nouns and, after a while, it just sort of fuzzes all together.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

To be perfectly honest, it did eventually come down to that. It took me far, far longer than it should have, but, eventually I did have to walk from the group because I was just too frustrated.

My new group is a bit more engaged, although, again, it's hit and miss. About half the group actually had any ties I could work with and half the group didn't. But, half is enough for me. But, again, even with the pretty deep dumpster dives I've been doing into FR lore for my Candlekeep game, I know that the players don't really care all that much.

And, frankly I can't say I blame them. This string of gobbledygook proper nouns is pretty much the same as that string of gobbledygook proper nouns and, after a while, it just sort of fuzzes all together.

yeah this is why I generally use the rule that what they show interest in is what I detail out... I start with a lot of broad strokes and see what the players key into... when I used to have new players I a few times got "Oh wow you planed this?"

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Completely- why else have a world? I strive to make the setting coherent, you're not going to find an arctic culture in the tropics. You might find culturally arctic merchants in a tropical port, however. Aspects are determined ahead of time; who lives where, Ophir has the gold, the Equon penninsula is reminescent of India, &c. But if someone has a real interest in Ioun stones and wants to find some, I know where they are. If someone is a third child of a noble, here's a list of possible parentage.

I wasn't asking about coherency, I was asking about the interests of your players.

Seeing through their character's eyes, players don't see enough of a setting to be able to tell if it's coherent or not. I was taking about things like going into detail about architectural styles because you have a player who is an architect, or clothing fashions, because a player is a fashion designer.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This string of gobbledygook proper nouns is pretty much the same as that string of gobbledygook proper nouns and, after a while, it just sort of fuzzes all together.

From my Call of the Netherdeap campaign, Exandria is much worse than the Forgotten Realms for unpronounceable proper nouns!

 

[Tonguez]

I wasn't asking about coherency, I was asking about the interests of your players.

Seeing through their character's eyes, players don't see enough of a setting to be able to tell if it's coherent or not. I was taking about things like going into detail about architectural styles because you have a player who is an architect, or clothing fashions, because a player is a fashion designer.

one of the benefits of the narrative first approach in modern games is that it takes the burden off the GM and shares the load. Your mention of architecture reminded me of the game where I was GMing the PCs as working for the city utilities department and one of the players was a real life civil engineer.
luckily it was fantasy so I could pivot those elements but when they were repairing the city walls and later when they went to explore the sewers - description of those things was left to the engineer to discover, with me asking the questions - it was really fun.

its also why (using the example from @Baron Opal II) if a player wants to be the 3rd son of a noble family from the Plains of Farzi then I’m not going to provide a list rather I’m going to ask the player to name their family and give me notes about their main holdings and relationship with the local Ruler

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

From my Call of the Netherdeap campaign, Exandria is much worse than the Forgotten Realms for unpronounceable proper nouns!

It is. Probably because Netherdeep takes place in two non-English-inspired continents/regions of the world (Xhorhas and Marquet).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It is. Probably because Netherdeep takes place in two non-English-inspired continents/regions of the world (Xhorhas and Marquet).

This is true. It doesn't make it less of a pain when running the game.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This is true. It doesn't make it less of a pain when running the game.

Trust me, I know your pain. Try explaining the difference between the Kryn Dynasty, Thri-Kreen, and Krynn to your players if you want to confuse them.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Seeing through their character's eyes, players don't see enough of a setting to be able to tell if it's coherent or not.

Re: coherency, the amount of the setting they see is dependent on how far traveled they are. As I mentioned previously my players like to explore. However, I see your point.

I was taking about things like going into detail about architectural styles because you have a player who is an architect, or clothing fashions, because a player is a fashion designer.

Yes, of course. Do you?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Re: coherency, the amount of the setting they see is dependent on how far traveled they are. As I mentioned previously my players like to explore. However, I see your point.

You would have to travel an awful long way to be comparable to how much modern people see, yet they are still only aware of a tiny fraction of the world. Which is why people believe weird conspiracy theories: in order to try and find coherence they fill in all the blanks with wild guesses.

Consider your arctic culture in the tropics. Players encounter it and think "that's weird, why is this here, there must be some story behind it?" And they come up with all sorts of conjecture. Now, if you are like JJ Abrams you pick on the best theory and say "that's right, it's what I intended all along!"

Yes, of course. Do you?

I haven't been bothered with world building since the 1980s.