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<blockquote data-quote="ninjayeti" data-source="post: 8566629" data-attributes="member: 6789120">Lore needs to provide interesting and relevant hooks for adventure writing and character building.&nbsp; It needs to inspire me and give me ideas I can use.&nbsp; And that's it. Lore does not need to be deep.&nbsp; I would rather have a location write up give me three relevant things that inspire me to make a cool character concept or write an interesting adventure than a 10,000 year history that has nothing to do with what is going on there now.&nbsp; The recent Eberron stuff is a pretty good at focusing on lore that can be directly used in the game (bullet points on &quot;interesting things about [place]&quot; or &quot;characters from [place]&quot;) as opposed to an encyclopedic backstory.Lore does not need an evolving &quot;metaplot.&quot;&nbsp; Write a cool setting then leave it up to individual DM's to figure out where the story goes from there.&nbsp; See the SCAG write up on Neverwinter as an example of how metaplot kills cool ideas:&nbsp; there was a chasm that was spitting out monsters...but it closed; there were orcs menacing the city....by they moved on; the dwarven city of Gauntylgrim is lost and....oh, wait someone found and restored it; Lord Neverember might be a usurper ....but nah, turns out he is cool.&nbsp; It is a laundry list of story hooks that are past their expiration dates. Lore does not need to be consistent.&nbsp; I know this is sacrilege to some, but if something is cool I really don't care if it contradicts a thing Ed Greenwood said in the 80's.&nbsp; Obviously you don't want to keep reinventing the wheel, but I would rather the focus be on making the best setting possible rather than on consistency for its own sake. I know other people will feel differently and respect that view.&nbsp; But the linked article strait up argues &quot;WotC should do lore the way I want and people can just ignore all the info dump they don't want&quot; as opposed to &quot;I'm just going to ignore the stuff that I don't think fits the cannon and not get worked&nbsp; up about it.&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp; The article also attributes &quot;threadbare&quot; setting books to bad writing as opposed to making a reasonable choice in what WotC is presenting. Again, I get your preference, but not catering to it does not make something objectively bad, and claiming otherwise just hurts your credibility.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ninjayeti, post: 8566629, member: 6789120"] Lore needs to provide interesting and relevant hooks for adventure writing and character building. It needs to inspire me and give me ideas I can use. And that's it. Lore does not need to be deep. I would rather have a location write up give me three relevant things that inspire me to make a cool character concept or write an interesting adventure than a 10,000 year history that has nothing to do with what is going on there now. The recent Eberron stuff is a pretty good at focusing on lore that can be directly used in the game (bullet points on "interesting things about [place]" or "characters from [place]") as opposed to an encyclopedic backstory. Lore does not need an evolving "metaplot." Write a cool setting then leave it up to individual DM's to figure out where the story goes from there. See the SCAG write up on Neverwinter as an example of how metaplot kills cool ideas: there was a chasm that was spitting out monsters...but it closed; there were orcs menacing the city....by they moved on; the dwarven city of Gauntylgrim is lost and....oh, wait someone found and restored it; Lord Neverember might be a usurper ....but nah, turns out he is cool. It is a laundry list of story hooks that are past their expiration dates. Lore does not need to be consistent. I know this is sacrilege to some, but if something is cool I really don't care if it contradicts a thing Ed Greenwood said in the 80's. Obviously you don't want to keep reinventing the wheel, but I would rather the focus be on making the best setting possible rather than on consistency for its own sake. I know other people will feel differently and respect that view. But the linked article strait up argues "WotC should do lore the way [I]I [/I]want and people can just ignore all the info dump they don't want" as opposed to "I'm just going to ignore the stuff that I don't think fits the cannon and not get worked up about it." The article also attributes "threadbare" setting books to bad writing as opposed to making a reasonable choice in what WotC is presenting. Again, I get your preference, but not catering to it does not make something objectively bad, and claiming otherwise just hurts your credibility. [/QUOTE]

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