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

[pemerton]

I'd suggest it also matters whether a player gets into the game interested in playing in faction politics and the like in the first place. It may well be you screen out people who don't (either directly or by simply not offering the kind of play they're interested in), but some will go in expecting your example here to be what they care about anyway and ignore the rest.

Yes. I don't know why you think I (or anyone else) would think otherwise.

 

[pemerton]

I think I'm safe in assuming this information wasn't info-dumped on the player, it was accumulated through play, which is what makes it matter.

The campaign went for around 11 years, from the beginning of 1998 (or thereabouts) to the end of 2008. My estimate is that we played for somewhere over 1000 hours. (In the neighbourhood of 300 sessions.)

The player who prepared this chart joined in the second or third year (I can't remember now). At a certain point - I think some time in 2007 - he decided to write up the chart in order to consolidate his and everyone else's notes, about who everyone was and how they were all related to one another.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I think the question is driving precisely around (or through) what you're saying---what properties must lore possess to make it such that the players cannot ignore it because it represents a real, tangible material aspect or aspects in play?

Of course if the "lore doesn't matter" then "caring about the lore" is purely a matter of preference.

I'm asking to dig deeper---what properties of setting lore make it so that "the lore does matter" and that players are compelled to care about it or play cannot continue?

It depends on what the players care about. It depends on the style of play that the players are looking for.

Players of a simulationist bent want setting lore that's solid world-building and that they can hook their PC into, to make their PCs part of that world, as opposed to characters who might as well be (and in some cases actually are) player-run random Outsider encounters from some unknown dimension.

Players of a narrativist bent want setting lore that has thematic and dramatic meanings and implications, where a PC's background (race, 'heritage,' ethnic origin, heck even sex - whether the PC is male or female) has significant and meaningful effects on the stories that can or can't be told about the PC.

Players of a gamist bent want setting lore that opens up tactical and strategic options for, and imposes interesting limitations on, the challenges that their PCs face.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes. I don't know why you think I (or anyone else) would think otherwise.

Because I've seen people act like its unfathomable? I'm surprised you haven't seen that too.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

Depends on what level of lore you are talking about as well. Some of my lore "matters" but not in a global/politics sense.

Currently, the party is going through a massive sidequest, because of a motivation to destroy a cursed sword, remove curse is only temporary at best. The lore behind the sword's creation, the demon's true name, reading and writing Abyssal, have influenced where the party is going, what they will fight, and personal motivation. The fighter carrying the sword is one of the few characters that can read Abyssal (without slow magic) when it revealed its' text, the wizard saw through the illusion on the sword & snow discussing summoning the demon who forged it.... needless to say the characters "in the know" with the lore are going to have some different motivations, preparation, and actions. The Warlock's patron also has a journal that carries a passage regarding the "protocol of demonic counsel", so we will see if they come together to cast the right prep spells based on lore