I know. You should hear my wife and my golfing. I'm sure she would rather me buy this. But she does say that golfing makes me a lot less stressed.
This is true and to some extent it's simply the nature of any comprehensive setting. Whether we're talking about Arkham for Call of Cthulhu, 1983 Greyhawk boxed set, or Harn, most of us won't be able to fit everything into a single campaign. There are some things we might not ever use. But someone might use it. It's just the nature of the sandbox.
Every piece of content enriches the setting. You can dive deep into just about any topic if it's been around long enough. Or not if you choose. That's why I don't understand those who object to the existence of content they don't want to use. Seems mean-spirited.
Fair observation. I like these world books/settings because I enjoy reading them as the game master, and I bring what I like, or what inspires me, into the game. The players don't need to know the whole lore thing unless they want to.
They don't need to know everything, but they need to know some things. What I've experienced the most difficulty with is getting people to abandon what they learned when playing Dungeons & Dragons. And just to be clear here, I'm not ragging on D&D here, I've played it for many, many years myself. It can become rather tedious to play if you don't have players willing to read up at least a little on the setting.
One thing you can do is give them a one page campaign overview. I learned this from @SlyFlourish. Tell them the 10 most important things about the campaign world that they need to know, and if they have questions, you can always do some kind of a roll, or just assume that they know because they live in that world and simply tell them. I have found it works really well!
Not in that edition... I've read some stuff I got in the bargain bin over the years...
↑ it me
(Dungeons & Dragons)
Rulebook featuring "high magic" options, including a host of new spells.
