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Message: <blockquote data-quote="maddman75" data-source="post: 3655238" data-attributes="member: 2673">Again, they'll only pay attention to what matters.  If the exposition matters, they'll pay attention.  Otherwise no matter how florid your prose, its nothing but a +2 long sword.  A handout can be cool, but if its just presenting the same information with no other context just in a different format this isn't going to change anything.  You should never make your players feel like they're doing homework, and that's what expecting them to learn a bunch of background information that isn't immediately relevent feels like.Now the subject of the thread is should DMs get to have fun too.  Of course they should.  I'm not getting paid for this GMing gig, so if its not fun I'm not going to do it.  But what is fun to a GM.  The OP suggests that for him creating a world is fun.  That's fine, if the creation of the world and little details are really your payoff, then what's the problem.  Create to your heart's content, and if your players don't care, who cares?  You still got to have fun creating it, right?Because the real issue is what I think most if not all GMs are going for, to run a really awesome game.  To see their players get all interested in the scenario put before them, to fervently plan how to deal with it, to see them pump their fists when the villian finally falls.  To have everyone excitedly talking about what happened in your game.  Now the creator GM I believe is in a fallacy.  He creates all this detail because he thinks that will make for a good game.  And it can.  But the delivery falls flat, the players never see it, and he feels resentful.  He's done all this work, and they don't appreciate it.  It isn't good to feel unappreciated.The work he's done beforehand, honestly, is irrelevent.  Just because you spent hours writing up NPC descriptions and magic item histories does not obligate your players to be fascinated by it.  The only way to fascinate your players is during delivery.  The manner in which this exposition is laid out, the context, the previous events of the game, the interests of the players, and even the time of the night where it is described all contribute to how well it is recieved.  Its better to deliver minimal uninspired information well than to have the most creative stuff put out badly.Make it matter, and where possible show, don't tell.</blockquote>

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