What makes setting lore "actually matter" to the players?

[Lanefan]

I remember everyone at one game wanted to kill Drizzt when he showed up one time.

I second the motion.

All in favour?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Babylon 5 tried to touch on to all of this (and I think that may be what I love about Sci-Fi over fantasy = Sci-Fi appears to try and create compelling and functional settings where the purpose of tech or alien is deeply tied to the core function of its setting and their limitations guide principles of purpose and stakes). Not all Sci-Fi does this well, but if I were to put my opinion out there, 0/10 fantasy does that, where as 9/10 sci fi does.

And that is the problem... Fantasy settings are just really really shallow.

Then you're reading the wrong fantasy. The Discworld, Earthsea, and the Curse of Chalion series all say hi.

 

[innerdude]

I remember everyone at one game wanted to kill Drizzt when he showed up one time.

I second the motion.

All in favour?

I laughed the one time I used the EEKeeper mod tool on Baldur's Gate 1 on PC to "superpower" my PCs and then killed Drizzt when he showed up in the one mountain area. Your party reputation instantly drops to the lowest possible value (3 I think?) and my entire good-aligned party instantly left.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Then you're reading the wrong fantasy. The Discworld, Earthsea, and the Curse of Chalion series all say hi.

I am also not talking about novels

Two of those do not have ttrpg games. And while Discworld does, its far far from standard adventurer roleplay, so it does not apply to my conversation at all.

 

[Bill Zebub]

And of course some people just coast along with a casual approach for decades.

Thank god for them.

 

[Reynard]

The more people like that, the more likely the hobby will turn that way in general. And I don't want that.

The more people that enter the hobby, the more likely you are to find new players that share your preferences.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I laughed the one time I used the EEKeeper mod tool on Baldur's Gate 1 on PC to "superpower" my PCs and then killed Drizzt when he showed up in the one mountain area. Your party reputation instantly drops to the lowest possible value (3 I think?) and my entire good-aligned party instantly left.

I was in a game of The One Ring where we accidentally let a young Ranger named Estel die.

Oops.

 

[Aldarc]

Scientists have recently discovered a new question that was previously hypothetical: What makes setting lore "actually antimatter" to the players?

 

[Micah Sweet]

The more people that enter the hobby, the more likely you are to find new players that share your preferences.

I'd like to think so, but simulationists are a rare breed these days.

 

[zakael19]

I'd like to think so, but simulationists are a rare breed these days.

"average TTRPG is deeply invested in simulation and lore" factoid actually just statistical error. average TTRPG player cares minimally about lore and simulationism. Simulations Micah who lives on ENW & reads 3000 pages of lore a day is an outlier adn should not have be counted.