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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rothe" data-source="post: 3024597" data-attributes="member: 39813">Although I'd love to have a 10 page write-up of the setting as a player myself, I agree with the first posts that many find that to be too much information to start with.  I think many players are turned off by such things because of experiences where such information makes no difference in game.   Whizbang is spot on IMHO with limiting initial character creation choice.  I tend to temper this with the starting region IMC allowing for a wide variety of choices that are equally viable.  On family background I tend to set that for PCs but will take some player input.  All to increase versimilitude, you may get to pick your friends but you don't get to pick your relatives. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I very much agree with the sentiment that having player actions impact the setting (at least locally), and how they are reacted to by the NPCs, develops interest in setting.  I can say from my own very recent experiences this works.  Initially I tried to read my 4 page summary of world history, players didn't really care at that point but humored me.  Well as we've been adventuring the PCs actions have altered the political dynamic in the adventure.  Their killing of the warriors of faction #1 has tipped the balance of power of in favor of faction #2.  Which led to an alliance between faction #2 and faction #3 as faction #3 wished to take out faction #4, in exchange faction #3 will support faction #2s quest to exterminate faction #1.  The best thing is I didn't plan any of this but just reacted to the PCs actions.(i.e., had the NPC react in the way they would based on the info they had).In addition, when the players actually remembered a piece of setting information and acted on or used it, it had an effect.  So I try to make setting history matter in game, be it via interaction with NPCs or as useful (but not necessary) information in overcoming challenges in an adventure.Setting knowledge I often convey through NPC exposition / gossip and also via situations where character knowledge is used (e.g. trying to identify a magic item, looking at a tapestry etc.).  I make use of PC knowledge-based skills quite a bit and knowledge can give players information and clues that can turn a difficult encounter into an easy one.  Parley is also plays an important role IMC so setting details can be useful there as well.  Since I award full experience for "overcoming a challenge" be it by sword, stealth or simply talking your way out of a situation, there is no disincentive to roleplay or use knowledge based approaches to adventure.Anyway, we've gone from a player saying they are not really interested in campaign history to actually asking me for the next adventure to be an exploration of the setting to get a feel for the land and people.  Now that brings a tear to my GM eye.</blockquote>

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