D&D General Do players REALLY care about the game world?

[Doc_Klueless]

Over the decades of playing and running games and creating what I think of as fascinating worlds, I was informed in a non-insulting "yeah, cool. Nifty. Uh, when can we kick ass?" sort of way that my players don't really care about the world except in the context of having a place to adventure. The reasons why the world is the way it is are cool and all, but seem to not really have a huge impact (I have a reason why there are only three gods and a host of saints/apostates, for example). I could just as easily run using any world as long as the adventures are cool.

And I find, unsurprisingly, that I'm the same way. Oh, sure. I like cool worlds. But I'm also fine with bog-standard fantasy worlds as long as the adventures are fun. And, at times, prefer it as I don't want to remember all that esoteric stuff and just wanna play. Yah know?

Got me thinking about just running Sword Coast stuff and not taxing my brain anymore.

So, as PLAYERS (as DMs, sure, as that's where a lot of our fun comes from), do you really care that much about the game world?

 

[commandercrud]

Yes. If I don't care, the game is boring.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Over the decades of playing and running games and creating what I think of as fascinating worlds, I was informed in a non-insulting "yeah, cool. Nifty. Uh, when can we kick ass?" sort of way that my players don't really care about the world except in the context of having a place to adventure. The reasons why the world is the way it is are cool and all, but seem to not really have a huge impact (I have a reason why there are only three gods and a host of saints/apostates, for example). I could just as easily run using any world as long as the adventures are cool.

And I find, unsurprisingly, that I'm the same way. Oh, sure. I like cool worlds. But I'm also fine with bog-standard fantasy worlds as long as the adventures are fun. And, at times, prefer it as I don't want to remember all that esoteric stuff and just wanna play. Yah know?

Got me thinking about just running Sword Coast stuff and not taxing my brain anymore.

So, as PLAYERS (as DMs, sure, as that's where a lot of our fun comes from), do you really care that much about the game world?

I do.

I have a DM whose worlds have significant depth and secrets, and I've spent countless hours going over the clues, trying to riddle out the mysteries of his setting.

That said, I don't expect that, and I'm perfectly happy with just a basic fantasy world to run around in. But that DM's talent for crafting depth into his world really sets him above most DMs in my estimation. It's the kind of DM I aspire to be.

 

[Marc_C]

I discovered quickly that players only care about what the campaign world does to (and for) their characters.

I've played D&D for 41 years with home-brew worlds that fit on 2-3 pages of description.

As long as you have a detailed starting location, interesting villains and a god for the cleric you are set. Everything is on a 'need to know basis' in relation to what the characters are trying to do.

Setting depth is developed over time. Not beforehand.

 

[Morrus]

For myself, to a limit. I guess more importantly, it's how that info is delivered to me -- a big info dump, no, I find that hard to digest. But info revealed organically through play which slowly builds an immersive world? I'm all for that!

 

[DEFCON 1]

I discovered quickly that players only care about what the campaign world does to (and for) their characters.

This has been my experience as well.

Which actually is good in a way... because that disinterest keeps them from finding the campaign setting books and reading them like a novel, thereby spoiling all the stuff I'm pulling out to create the stories and adventures for them.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So, as PLAYERS (as DMs, sure, as that's where a lot of our fun comes from), do you really care that much about the game world?

My experience as a player is that it varies absolutely freakin' hugely.

It can be anything from "Ooooh this is mysterious and fascinating!" to the point where I'm really wanting to know more, to "Okay fine w/e let's kill stuff".

Two things which make people care more in my experience as a player are:

1) The setting has some kind of central mystery/big premise to it.

2) The setting actually has stuff for PCs themselves to engage with and influence - i.e. it's not "too big" for the PCs to be significant.

A good example of a D&D setting where I, as a player, cared about the setting would be Dark Sun - there's the mystery of how exactly this happened and what exactly is going on, and the game is clearly set up so you're on the way to being one of the movers-and-shakers.

Two things which make people care much less about a setting in my experience as a player are:

3) Generic fantasy. Especially if it's generic fantasy with some hilariously minor twist that thinks its a big deal.

4) The power structures of the setting are basically hostile/unattainable to the PCs. This is true of the Forgotten Realms, for example - most of it is set up with very static power-structures, most of which are simply hostile to adventurers unless they're directly useful to them, and indeed Greenwood himself basically had to detail a new area to give people a place where the PCs might actually get in charge fairly recently.

The biggest killer in caring about the game world? The DM doesn't care. If the DM doesn't care, I definitely don't care.

However my overall experience is different to yours. 30+ years of DMing and playing, and I'd definitely say it does matter what setting we play in, unless we're just playing in some rando generic fantasy setting which doesn't want/expect the PCs to gain much power, which would very much include the FR, Dragonlance, Wildemount, some implementations of Greyhawk and so on. In that case it doesn't matter a great deal, and any engagement with the world will be down to the DM creating elaborate plots to engage us with it.

This was actually a very helpful thread because I hadn't been thinking about his but I am writing up a new campaign setting ATM and I will ensure I make it engaging on these terms.

 

[schneeland]

My experience is mostly that of @Marc_C - with the exception that at least some of my players care for the consistency of the world and locations appropriate to the genre*, and that over time there might be certain prominent NPCs they care for.

* this is mostly for non-fantasy things, though

 

[pogre]

I think you are going to get a skewed response here because folks who post are really into the game and most of us are at least part time DMs. IMO players care only as far as the campaign lore directly effects them. For the most part, players do not care. I have one player out of my regular six who does care to a greater extent.

My approach to sharing campaign world background and history I try to use the Mad Max: Fury Road as my guide post. Sprinkle bits of lore in a short, meaningful cameos revealing only what is relevant to the campaign at that time.

Expecting most of your players to invest in your world is a path to DM burnout IMO.

 

[Steampunkette]

For myself, to a limit. I guess more importantly, it's how that info is delivered to me -- a big info dump, no, I find that hard to digest. But info revealed organically through play which slowly builds an immersive world? I'm all for that!

100% Yes.

When I create a campaign setting it's not all at once. I give names and rough identities to far off lands, I give fairly detailed information to neighboring lands, and I give a lot of information to the places the players are in/from. And then I go from there.

As an example: The Ashen Lands has 12 gods. 6 of them are concepts, 3 of them are ideal adventurers who slip through the world in disguise with no core identity, and 3 of them are "Manifest" entities with explicit names. Only 1 of which I've actually -bothered- to name. The other two of the 3 gods with names just haven't come up.

"Info Dumps" come in the hands of players. "Can I roll a History Check to learn about this thing?" and then based on what they get, they get the information -they- want, not the information -I- have as I continue to expand my setting in the background.

My experience as a player is that it varies absolutely freakin' hugely.

It can be anything from "Ooooh this is mysterious and fascinating!" to the point where I'm really wanting to know more, to "Okay fine w/e let's kill stuff".

Two things which make people care more in my experience as a player are:

1) The setting has some kind of central mystery/big premise to it.

2) The setting actually has stuff for PCs themselves to engage with and influence - i.e. it's not "too big" for the PCs to be significant.

A good example of a D&D setting where I, as a player, cared about the setting would be Dark Sun - there's the mystery of how exactly this happened and what exactly is going on, and the game is clearly set up so you're on the way to being one of the movers-and-shakers.

Two things which make people care much less about a setting in my experience as a player are:

3) Generic fantasy. Especially if it's generic fantasy with some hilariously minor twist that thinks its a big deal.

4) The power structures of the setting are basically hostile/unattainable to the PCs. This is true of the Forgotten Realms, for example - most of it is set up with very static power-structures, most of which are simply hostile to adventurers unless they're directly useful to them, and indeed Greenwood himself basically had to detail a new area to give people a place where the PCs might actually get in charge fairly recently.

The biggest killer in caring about the game world? The DM doesn't care. If the DM doesn't care, I definitely don't care.

However my overall experience is different to yours. 30+ years of DMing and playing, and I'd definitely say it does matter what setting we play in, unless we're just playing in some rando generic fantasy setting which doesn't want/expect the PCs to gain much power, which would very much include the FR, Dragonlance, Wildemount, some implementations of Greyhawk and so on. In that case it doesn't matter a great deal, and any engagement with the world will be down to the DM creating elaborate plots to engage us with it.

This was actually a very helpful thread because I hadn't been thinking about his but I am writing up a new campaign setting ATM and I will ensure I make it engaging on these terms.

Oh, oh hell yes. All of the this.

It's also setting dependent. Some settings -lend- themselves to the violence. Usually through specific sessions. If I'm playing a Psionic Warrior on Athas and we're making a long trek through a dangerous wasteland I'm -just- looking for fights. If you have an NPC pop up with important quest information in the middle of nowhere there's every chance that as invested as I am in the game I'm going to miss half of what that NPC says trying to look for the ambush/battle that needs to come because you've hyped up the area as a Dangerous Wasteland. Not a place to hang out and talk in the open.

And because sometimes the situation feels skeevy because presentation and expectation don't line up, there's every chance I'm going to distrust this NPC like a 6 year old girl with advanced physics textbooks walking the streets of the Bronx at 3am.