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General Tabletop Discussion
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Do players REALLY care about the game world?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8305233" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Absolutely. Setting matters a ton for my engagement. I definitely DO want to kick butt, sure, but JUST kicking butt in a narrative vacuum gets boring <em>real quick</em>.</p><p></p><p></p><p>My players, thus far, have been pretty distinct from that. They like learning about the history of the world for its own sake--and when that happens to become useful later, that's even better. Of course, I do my best to make that history <em>relevant</em> to them in one way or another, so that it's not JUST me info-dumping them. But I've had plans in motion pretty much since the beginning of the game, and the players have been learning the cosmology, geography, history, etc. both because it's directly relevant and because it simply is interesting to them. E.g., they did some genealogy research for one of the characters, purely because they were curious....and then it turned out that that family history is <em>probably</em> more interesting than it seemed at first.</p><p>[SPOILER="Aside"]That is, the Bard is a tiefling from both of his parents, one with devilish blood, the other demonic; on his mother's side, he has a succubus great-grandmother, but on his father's side, they've been tieflings as long as anyone can remember....and, indeed, as far back as there are genealogy records, which is quite some time due to incidental other relatives of his. Except, it's clear documented fact that his paternal line doesn't <em>branch</em>: every generation, one and ONLY one child has ever produced children. Many times there have been celibate siblings or siblings who died young, but there's never been cousins on that side of the family, <em>ever</em>. That's really weird! And it made them curious about why that would be the case, so they dug deeper, and found <em>more</em> mysteries. They've since narrowed down the Bard's devilish ancestors to one of two options: Glasya, Prince of the Sixth Circle of Hell and daughter of Asmodeus; or Baalzephon, former Prime Minister of Dispater, Duke of Hell and general of the Blood War. AKA, <em>really scary</em> no matter which one it is.[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>Of course, it helps that one of my players is fanatical about his own world-building for the book he's writing, and another is a trained anthropologist, so "learn about a culture/location" is right up their alleys. The third player, I have to work a bit harder for, and perhaps he is only interested in things for the "foreground," but he's also really really new to TTRPGs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8305233, member: 6790260"] Absolutely. Setting matters a ton for my engagement. I definitely DO want to kick butt, sure, but JUST kicking butt in a narrative vacuum gets boring [I]real quick[/I]. My players, thus far, have been pretty distinct from that. They like learning about the history of the world for its own sake--and when that happens to become useful later, that's even better. Of course, I do my best to make that history [I]relevant[/I] to them in one way or another, so that it's not JUST me info-dumping them. But I've had plans in motion pretty much since the beginning of the game, and the players have been learning the cosmology, geography, history, etc. both because it's directly relevant and because it simply is interesting to them. E.g., they did some genealogy research for one of the characters, purely because they were curious....and then it turned out that that family history is [I]probably[/I] more interesting than it seemed at first. [SPOILER="Aside"]That is, the Bard is a tiefling from both of his parents, one with devilish blood, the other demonic; on his mother's side, he has a succubus great-grandmother, but on his father's side, they've been tieflings as long as anyone can remember....and, indeed, as far back as there are genealogy records, which is quite some time due to incidental other relatives of his. Except, it's clear documented fact that his paternal line doesn't [I]branch[/I]: every generation, one and ONLY one child has ever produced children. Many times there have been celibate siblings or siblings who died young, but there's never been cousins on that side of the family, [I]ever[/I]. That's really weird! And it made them curious about why that would be the case, so they dug deeper, and found [I]more[/I] mysteries. They've since narrowed down the Bard's devilish ancestors to one of two options: Glasya, Prince of the Sixth Circle of Hell and daughter of Asmodeus; or Baalzephon, former Prime Minister of Dispater, Duke of Hell and general of the Blood War. AKA, [I]really scary[/I] no matter which one it is.[/SPOILER] Of course, it helps that one of my players is fanatical about his own world-building for the book he's writing, and another is a trained anthropologist, so "learn about a culture/location" is right up their alleys. The third player, I have to work a bit harder for, and perhaps he is only interested in things for the "foreground," but he's also really really new to TTRPGs. [/QUOTE]
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