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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7299821" data-attributes="member: 20323">Tons of options...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Interacting with villains without violence (e.g. via crystal ball, familiar, or courtly dinner)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Share info. when PCs call upon their background features (e.g. Sailor using ship's passage hearing about water elemental cult's activities)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Whenever the PCs use divination spells</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Instead of rolling on the magic item quirk tables in the DMG, use the cool backstory/history to inform your description of the item</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A pit trap, collapsing roof trap, or rolling boulder trap is sprung! PC falls into a "room revealing secrets" or boulder smashes wall revealing "room revealing secrets"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">When players ask you for more details about what they see, draw on backstory/history in describing architecture & environment</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Puzzling guardians who pose questions based on backstory/history (more about inspiring PCs to learn more)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ornate metal grate that, when backlit, reveals a key battle or other historical event with a map carefully hidden within the metalwork</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Slow it, spread it, sink it.</li> </ul>I'll give an example of "slow it, spread it, sink it" from my current Al-Qadim game, wherein I'm using an adapted published adventure (Blood and Fire by John Baichtal, Dungeon 63)...There's a lot of background about two warring tribes which just had a big battle & a missing prince that the adventure thrusts the PCs into with a huge chunk of exposition vis a vis a quest-giver NPC right up front. Instead, I sprinkled that information at a caravanserai with a "morally grey" NPC who escaped/fled the fighting...as well as with clues the PCs gathered while exploring the caravanserai and surrounding...and later the battlefield where the two tribes fought (which I greatly enhanced from what was in the adventure)...and finally with some potential encounters in the desert. Basically, I slowed down the flow of information, spread it among multiple sources, and let it sink in with the players who could pursue further information as they desired. Above all else, I avoided too much exposition, large hand-outs, or other "information dumps."</blockquote>

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