GM question: How much info do you give to players?

[Shadow64]

Before you start a campaign how much information do you give your players? I've done a few one shots that didn't need much backstory other then "your in town x and this is what you have to do. converse among yourselves as you will and come up with characters of level x..."

I've started two campaigns; the first went very well, the second - not so well.

The first campaign was all homebrew and the only information i gave the players was: make a third level character, whatever you want. core rules + splatbooks + OA (i knew one player was going to be a monk). No real information about the world because i was still making the it and had no idea yet were i was going to start and no idea about what kind of adventures i was going to run (ie - dungeon crawls, city adventures, etc). I soon found myself facing a LE 1/2 Orc Fighter, a CW (Chaotic Weird) Mage and a LG Monk. Hey - i told them to make whatever they wanted. Anyway, Game Day arrives and I drop them into the game, they found out where they were (in a prison barge en route to prison), a generic where/what/why they were in their prediciment (which they all liked because i fitted what happend around their general character concepts and also around the players attitudes themselves), general information about the world, etc. They loved it, they went with my "story" about what was happening to them and then when i passed the story telling stick to them they kept me on my toes.

The second campaign was set in Rokugan. Once again, 3rd level characters, restrictions being that they had to take classes as allowed by Rokugan (which mainly took out Clerics and Wizards if i recall and replaced them with Shaman and Shugenja respectivly) with the option for 2 people in the party to play "western" style characters (so if they wanted to someone could play a cleric). As before I didn't give out much information about what they would be doing adventure wise. I figure most adventurers don't know what they are going to be doing the next day, let alone for the next few years. Game Day arrives and I drop them into the game. They already knew they were in rokugan, so no world issues there, i give them a breakdown of why they are all together (special enforcement squad for the city guard) and then tell them what their "assignment" is: go track some folks down and bring them back. They start the adventure and as it progresses past "stop some people and bring them back" to the standard "BBEG has escaped 1000 years of being trapped, now you have to stop him." BBEG happened to be something that could control dreams, cause nightmares, wreck havok on the whole kingdom, etc. At this point they realize that the game is going to be a bit more then a hack-n-slash, but something more then that. They will have to deal with non-standard monsters and other things. I get a few nods of: "that's cool. let's do it." But, also get a comment of: "Why didn't you tell us were going to do something like this? I built my character all wrong for this kind of stuff!" Thankfully, it was only from one player.

Anway, to make a long story boring*:

How much information should I give the players before starting what I hope to be a long running campaign?

I figure at the least you want to give them a basic overview of the world, a bit more detailed description of where they are starting out and a little history. But what else should you tell them? I know that this is probably very group dependent, but any hints/tips would be helpful.

Sorry for the rambling, i was thinking as i typed so i may be a bit long-winded.

*quoted without permission from Gospog

 

[Shirt Guy John]

Hey, what you've said sounds perfectly fine to me. You shouldn't have to give the players every little detail so that they can optimize for the situation... let 'em sort things out and think creatively with what they've got.

The only time I would give a lot of info at the start is if it was a hamebrew campaign setting, or if the players were just unfamiliar with the world... or maybe if they started out with ranks in Knowedge:History or Geography... then I could see giving out more info (just a tad)... hell, I could see giving out a few custom bits of info to each character who took ranks in a knowledge skill, just for flavor purposes (and to make those players like you... can't go wrong with that).

 

[Kriskrafts]

My rule of thumb is to give them a lot of information during the first few games, almost to the point of information overload. Then sit back, and let them put all of the pieces together.

Keeping too much information to the DM early on can also easily lead to frustration and disinterest by the players.

 

[clark411]

I think it's of utmost importance for a DM to explain, perhaps not fully, his or her "vision" of what the campaign will be like, including it's setting and history. Otherwise, (and this may be totally acceptible mind you), it'll be usually assumed that it's a European middle ages / high middle ages medium fantasy realm where adventurers are "adventurers" who make parties called "parties" usually who go off to fight things and kill them, gain experience and levels.

Going strictly by the PHB, that's what a player should be expected, without looking at their own individual case by case roleplay baggage, to do and understand without having anything explained. I mean- look at it chapter wise. Abilities, Races, Classes, Skills, Feats, Description (6 pages), Equipment, Combat, Adventuring, Magic, Spells.

Unless the above is exactly what yer going for, it's critical to explain things, or at least use the first few adventures to showcase what is expected / how things work. The smallest things, common forms of salutations that differenciate that world from the real one (instead of saying Hello, saying Juntari's Blessings upon you and your kin) will help people get a subconscious understanding of how the world works- and what's most important to the culture yer aiming at.

Also, I think it's important to guide players for awhile with how to act in certain situations, and be somewhat lax in strictness with regards to some knowledge rolls. I've seen new players to campaigns be required to make knowledge history checks to know what happened a year or two ago, and asked to make diplomacy rolls to approach somewhat properly when they're asking how to appropriately roleplay something as simple as saying hello in (to them) an alien culture.

Knowledge of how the world works is very empowering to players. Usually, being unsure means messing up, or inappropriately acting idiotic by keeping one's trap shut. This hardly means that a DM would be well served by saying "Okay, you're on a desert isle, and 500 miles away to the southeast on the mainland the duke plots the death of the king," but getting at least a sense of the world is absolutely KEY!

unless of course, it isn't for you, or your players. I guess it should go without saying that asking them for input on your input would be best.

 

[francisca]

I did a survey of the players in my current group before we started playing. The survey asked about rules system, genre, general feel (high/low magic for fantasy, campy/serious for Sci-Fi), type (Hack-n-Slash, problem solving, etc...), and whether to use a pre-fab or homebrew world.

We settled on 3E, medium-low magic, homebrew. During the discussion, I got the feel that they wanted a setting with some over-arching direction, but not being led by the nose, and mixture of hack-n-slash and mystery.

The first thing I did was draw up a document for myself. I wrote up a 1 page history, with just the big events of the last 200 years. I jotted down overall characteristics of geographical areas, consisting of one or two line statements on environment, economics, power centers, general disposition of the populace, and quick thumnail sketches of at least 2 potential allies and 2 potential adversaries. I ended up with about 4 pages. This document serves as the backbone, and helps me keep the settign consistent.

From that, I made up a page "general knowledge" doc for the players. Then we got together and rolled up characters. Afterwards, the players sent me a few ideas for each character, which I embellished and tweaked, giving each character a short history and background. I then gave each character a paragraph of specific information that the others would not know, and used those tidbits to generate about a dozen plot hooks.

And that's about it. All of the world building comes out of push/pull between me and the players. I have a general idea of how the populace will interact with the PCs everywhere they go (for now, I'll need to expand the world soon), and I have the tools to keep it consistent. With the introduction of a few major events (a high-level cleric/wizard figured out necromancy and an invasion from a kingdom to the southwest), we've been cooking right along, and the players don't even realize they are providing half of the world info/flavor.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Having been there first hand to witness the second adventure i feal safe in saying. We were givin all the info we needed to make characters approipriate to the setting.

It's not the DM's fault if the PC's aren't perfectly optimised for the adventure. Besides if you know enough to make your character perfect for defeating the adventure two things are going to happen. One it's not going to be fun because you'll walk right through it. Two on the next adventure when the scenario's differnt wimp guy is just going to complain that his character isn't built for that type of adventure.

Most of us enjoyed the adventure, it's a couple bad apples spoiled the bunch.

 

[nameless]

I agree with most of the opinions here, with one caveat. For an campaign with a relatively focused goal, certain characters become more necessary, and other become pretty useless.

In your case, the game seems pretty focused on the hunt, and probably a little fighting. A courtier wouldn't be able to do much in this case. In a more "balanced" Rokugan campaign, the courtier can serve an invaluable function in giving the group access to restricted locations and people, but in a game where the social rules are right out the window, the characters who make a living off those rules go right out the window also.

So my point is, they should have some history so they can fit into the world, but give the players a nugget of metagame knowledge so they can make characters who mesh together and who are appropriate to the planned adventure path.