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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8303985" data-attributes="member: 2629">There is room for different approaches, and this certainly can work, but there are also situations where players love exploring a world, lore and setting.  I've also been playing over 40 years.  For over 35 of them, I've had a primary homebrew world.  It has sat fallow at times, and I recently 'rebooted' it when I moved across the country.  However, with minor evolution and a bit of superficial overhaul to use published Gods instead of my homebrew Gods, it is the same world.When a player asks me a question about the lore of the world, I often know the answer.  I don't figure it out.  I know.  It came up in the 4000 hours of playing and 6000 of prep I've done for the setting.  There are major cities in the setting that I can navigate in my head as easily as I could navigate my hometown, telling you about what used to exist on that corner between the Battle of Baytown and the attack of Fyraxus.  I can tell you about 8 generations of a royal family, including all the plots against their rule.  When players come to play at my game, I can make it feel like a living world.  Think of it like video games in the 1990s.  You'd often reach 'the end of the map' or find doors that could not be opened in those games, and could go no further.  This ruined the suspension of disbelief.  It reminded you, "This is only a game."  Just as you get pulled out of a TV show by characters doing unrealistic things, having a world that doesn't feel lived in can make it harder to tell a great story within it.  Knowing your world so well that you either know the answer, or you have a real good idea how to come up with an answer that fits with everything else, makes this a lot easier.  Matt Mercer does not seem to have 40 years of history playing in Exandria.  He seems to have created it for the Critical Role group, but if you listen to him, he has spent a lot of time world crafting and you can see how much it benefits him.  When he needs an NPC to fill a role, he has people to call upon that have been established, referenced or hinted at before.  It feels like a living world in his skillful hands.  You don't need to go to these lengths - but when you do and you put some effort into it, it can be very rewarding.</blockquote>

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