How much background is too much?

[MerakSpielman]

Knightcrawler, I can see setting up such a thing if a campiagn is centered in a specific city, but I'm sure you don't want to go through that level of detail when/if your characters start roaming to other cities, spending no more than a week or two in any given location...

 

[maddman75]

One of the first rules of Storytelling is "Show, don't Tell." Handing out ten pages of background material is definately the latter. Background is good, but the relevence needs to come out in game-play. There's nothing wrong with just feeding the players tidbits that their characters would know. Consider two approaches, telling and showing.

Telling - Before the game, the DM hands out a 20 page dossier on his world, detailing the politics, peoples, regions, customs, and power groups. His players, not knowing that D&D apparently involves homework, either don't read it or just skim it not understanding them. The DM is then frustrated when they don't know that the Knight of the Hawk that they met is sworn to defend the city of Evershine to the death when it clearly said so in the campaign guide.

Showing -
"As the knight approaches he confidently displays his crest marking him as a Knight of the Hawk. They are known for being both brave and stubborn, sworn to defend the city of Evershine with their lives"

Which of these is the better approach? Unless some bit of information about the world is relevent to what the PCs are doing, they really aren't going to care.

 

[Knightcrawler]

Knightcrawler, I can see setting up such a thing if a campiagn is centered in a specific city, but I'm sure you don't want to go through that level of detail when/if your characters start roaming to other cities, spending no more than a week or two in any given location...

The party is based out of Silverymoon and the current part of the campaign is going to take place almost exclusively within the city. Now the party has spent much of the time earlier in other parts of The North. They've been hunting raiders along the Silver Marches various trade routes and this part of the plot only required that I detail the raiders and the various caravans with their routes and schedules.

They also spent some time in and around Quaervarr. For that I started with just a one page handout, basically what the party would find out about the town in 1 day. The party spent 2 or 3 weeks of game time up there cleaning out the People of the Black Blood. As time went by I added more and more to what and who they knew in Quarvarr.

The party will also be spending some time around Darkarrow Keep, the High Forest and Evermeet. I will have each of these areas detailed for my own use and from this pull what the players know, what they learn, etc, etc. Like I said I give each the players a handout that updates what they know and what they have heard at the beginning of each session.

 

[Henry]

...I played an adventure a while back in a homebrew world. Before we started playing the DM made us all read a ten page history of the region we were adventuring in. Not only was it extremely detailed, but it was also a very dry and complicated read.

GM's need to remember Lucas' lessons of Star Wars.

It began with a scroll that had all of 86 words in it. Those words told what we needed to know at the time, and then starting with the magnificent chase sequence between a tiny little ship and a HUGE one.

The rest we picked up by living the adventure.

 

[Knightcrawler]

One of the first rules of Storytelling is "Show, don't Tell." Handing out ten pages of background material is definately the latter. Background is good, but the relevence needs to come out in game-play. There's nothing wrong with just feeding the players tidbits that their characters would know. Consider two approaches, telling and showing.

I use what I give them as a framework so that I can work on making a better story. If the framework is setup I have to worry about the details less. If I know that X NPC acts in a certain way and has a certain relationship with a player then when the party runs into X NPC I know exactly how that NPC will react. Also if the party goes into Y tavern I know what side-plots can be followed.

For example: Y tavern has a secret room that is a saferoom for the local thieves guild, a childhood enemy of one of the characters also frequents the same tavern, and an important contact that the party needs to solve an important meta-plot point is also there. If the party just goes in for drinks then there's a possibility that nothing happens but they might also run into the chracters childhood enemy thus starting a side-plot that could keep them busy for several sessions. If they start trying to gather information they could find their needed contact but they could also bring themselves to the attention of the thieves guild. And if the characters have been involved in foiling the thieves guild and hunting them down just them being at that particular tavern could get the party into trouble.

Now like I said, I never made my players read the material I gave them. THey can just quickly look it up if they need to. It also sets up that a player might forget of miss something that would help the party just like they would in real life. Now this is also why I have update handouts at the beginning of each session. If something important is occuring I'll be sure and remind the players of this. This has worked very well for me through several campaigns and my players have never complained about it. In fact I am usually told that my campaigns are some of the best ones that they have ever played in.

I look at it this way. Its more a matter of personal taste. Some people work better off-the-cuff with no preparation what so ever. Then some like to be prepared. Each uses what works best for their game and their players.

 

[Gundark]

One of the first rules of Storytelling is "Show, don't Tell." Handing out ten pages of background material is definately the latter. Background is good, but the relevence needs to come out in game-play. There's nothing wrong with just feeding the players tidbits that their characters would know. Consider two approaches, telling and showing.

Telling - Before the game, the DM hands out a 20 page dossier on his world, detailing the politics, peoples, regions, customs, and power groups. His players, not knowing that D&D apparently involves homework, either don't read it or just skim it not understanding them. The DM is then frustrated when they don't know that the Knight of the Hawk that they met is sworn to defend the city of Evershine to the death when it clearly said so in the campaign guide.

Showing -
"As the knight approaches he confidently displays his crest marking him as a Knight of the Hawk. They are known for being both brave and stubborn, sworn to defend the city of Evershine with their lives"

Which of these is the better approach? Unless some bit of information about the world is relevent to what the PCs are doing, they really aren't going to care.

I agree that this approach is better. There is a certain amount of reading that I am willing to do for a campiagn, but who has the time. it is much easier to just tell the players what they would know as they go along rather than handing this book to everybody to read.

 

[mmadsen]

Exposition vs. Living the Adventure

I've come to the conclusion that sometimes DMs put to much background in their worlds, at least from a player's point of view. [...] Before we started playing the DM made us all read a ten page history of the region we were adventuring in. Not only was it extremely detailed, but it was also a very dry and complicated read.

There's a world of difference between composing ten pages of world history (or 100, or 1000) and making the players read all that history. As maddman75 pointed out, one of the first rules of storytelling is "Show, don't Tell." If a pulp swords & sorcery author tried to make you read ten pages of background before getting to the story, his editor would -- rightly -- drop those ten pages in the trash. As Henry pointed out, the players should pick up any background by living the adventure.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Remember, your homebrew world might be alive and fascinating to you (the DM), but your players will almost always be less enthusiastic.

 

[Bloodsparrow]

I agree that there can never have enough background information on a world, but it's important to not require your players to know EVERYTHING.

I lived in my hometown from the time I was born until I was 24 and I don't think all the information I know about that areas history and important community figures would fill 10 pages... Okay, maybe ten pages and then some, but that's just me. Not to mention that I accumulated that knowledge through 24 years of living there. I certainly wouldn't want to sit down and read through all that crap in one sitting.

IMC, the DM made several, categorized and bulleted lists of various things that we needed to know. The lists and items on them were all quite brief, and it took me hardly any time at all to learn everything I absolutely had to about the city in which my character was born and grew up. Players could read them or not as we pleased and if we had questions beyond what was covered, we could send an email to the DM and he would elaborate based on what we would know. We also have a website where we keep track of what we know about the world. This works really well for us.

 

[Knightcrawler]

IMC, the DM made several, categorized and bulleted lists of various things that we needed to know. The lists and items on them were all quite brief, and it took me hardly any time at all to learn everything I absolutely had to about the city in which my character was born and grew up. Players could read them or not as we pleased and if we had questions beyond what was covered, we could send an email to the DM and he would elaborate based on what we would know. We also have a website where we keep track of what we know about the world. This works really well for us.

I also do this. E-mail/instant messenging lets me talk with each player individually away from the game. But I give them such a large handout so most of these questions are on current events happening in the game or rumors that their characters just heard and not about basic knowledge about the city/area that they have had from the beginning. Most of my players will look through their handouts before asking me a question. Like I said before it lets me work more on the story itself and lets the players figure out things on their own without me having to be their to hold their hands through it.