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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 2427826" data-attributes="member: 5100">No.  It doesn't just sound like a lot.  It is a lot.  Eight pages of history will fry pretty much any (read: 98.5%) player's brain.  If you're giving them more than one page of text -- two if they're a particularly ambitious group -- for background on stuff that isn't core to their character concept, you've lost them.  Better yet, sum that page or two up in words.  Then you can give them the eight pages to them "as referrence". I can guarantee you that your players are significantly less interested in all the details of your world than you are.  Casual players care about little beyond their character concept, and may even expect the world to conform to their needs.  Serious players will probably not care about much beyond a very small amount of info on the town in which they start and stuff they can use to conform the characters to your world.  The absolute cream of the crop will want to know about a handful of things beyond that which immediately impacts them -- or that they can see being an impact relatively quickly. Feed it to them slowly.  If they need all eight pages of info to function reasonably well, that's an elephant they aren't going to be able eat, let alone what happens when you give them 30.  Your view is definitely a factor.  My degree is in political science.  When I was in college, I played in a game in which the climactic chapter saw the fall of three nations' governments.  I was also playing a very political character, so I felt fine in using my own knowledge.  Within 15-20 minutes of learning the governments had collapsed, I'd worked out a way to replace each one, with people who were favorably disposed to us, and that the DM could not find any reason for any NPC political "player" to object to.   Now, turn that around to me DMing.  When I set up a scenario based on political intrigue that I thought was "challenging, but workable", how quickly do you think the players figured it out?  That's right: never.  It was doubly damning because the player who tended to act as leader was decidedly anti-political.  Even if it interested him, his brain doesn't work that way.  I ended up feeling like I had to narrate the entire adventure for them.  I was frustrated because I couldn't understand why they didn't get anything, while they were frustrated that I gave them no information on which to act. Of course, that player later got me back, unintentionally.  He's a natural sneak.  So, when we played a stealth-oriented group and he acted appropriately, he could not understand why we didn't see all the clues right in front of us, and his game eventually crashed because no one could compete with his sneak tactics.  Empasis added.  One of the hardest things to learn as you're becoming a really good GM is that not everyone is looking for the same thing.  Not only that, it isn't that they'd have more fun if they just tried the game a certain way.  There are seriously different types of players.  DMG2 does a decent run-down, if you can get ahold of that book.  Ideas of what people seek are: build an epic story, explore different modes of thought, escape to somewhere else, wield power they can't IRL, exercise their brain, and just blow off steam. If you're looking to explore and develop some other where and you've got great players who are more interested in creating interesting characters, there's a disconnect.  If you want that player to get involved, you can't present the prophesies/campaign/whatever as a puzzle to be solved.  That player will only get interested if you open a door to exploring how his character will react to what's going on around him.  On the other hand, a problem solver will jump at the chance to decode the prophesy.  If you've got a tactician, you might be able to get their attension by having some way to work in organizing allies.  Someone who is in the game to fulfill either a "coolness" or "power" fetish could be put in the forefront as a named player in the prophesies -- the other characters will provide critical aid, but the "cool" character gets a lot of the rep.   Make sure you're using the right hook for the right player, though.  And that's harder than it sounds.  After a couple of decades of DMing -- almost a decade with a lot of the same people -- I'm still working on this.  It's really easy to only view things through my own lens and assume something I think is cool will fire up everyone else.</blockquote>

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