D&D General "In My General Experience Playing D&D, DMs Care More About Setting Lore Than Players Do" (a poll)

[el-remmen]

Here is another poll bound to dissatisfy some folks because it is asking about a feeling or general sense based on experience rather than any actually quantifiable data. . . my favorite!

True or False: "In My General Experience Playing D&D, DMs Care More About Setting Lore Than Players Do"

 

[iserith]

I would say that DMs care more in general because they have to in some sense, but for my part, I don't actually care about setting lore unless it's an actual published setting in which case I will try to cleave to the canon as much as possible. I just think that's part of what you're signing up for when you explore a published setting. When I'm not running in a published setting though, nothing is set in stone except which was already established before or during play. Over time, the details build upon themselves to create the world.

 

[Umbran]

IME, players care about setting lore if it directly impacts their activities, and otherwise don't usually give a hoot.

 

[RuinousPowers]

I always say, worldbuilding is the gift the DM gives himself.

 

[WarDriveWorley]

I'll admit I'm kinda spoiled in that the core of my group is very exploration-centric and love to devour lore.

 

[delericho]

Yep. Which was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn, but which was quite liberating when I did: it meant that I was free to do as much or as little worldbuilding as I liked, and also that I was free to focus on those areas that I found of interest.

 

[Retreater]

Unless I'm misunderstanding the question, this is disturbing that so many DMs seem to focus on "their" world than the other participants of the game. These are DMs who should be writing fantasy novels or scripting TV shows and have missed the most important part of the hobby - that it's a social experience with friends.

 

[RuinousPowers]

Unless I'm misunderstanding the question, this is disturbing that so many DMs seem to focus on "their" world than the other participants of the game. These are DMs who should be writing fantasy novels or scripting TV shows and have missed the most important part of the hobby - that it's a social experience with friends.

I think you are misunderstanding the question. DMs are the ones who would buy books with setting details, but no player-facing mechanics. DMs are the ones who buy GURPS books, or research obscure topics like medieval beekeeping because they want to present it authentically.

Players tend to show up, say "that's cool" and say things like "what was that name of the king that we have lived under for the past 30 years that we talked to yesterday?"

 

[Stalker0]

IME, players care about setting lore if it directly impacts their activities, and otherwise don't usually give a hoot.

nailed it.

 

[tetrasodium]

In my experience players other than novelists really only care about the setting as far as they need to on order to get something from it.... Of course they care much more/less depending on how much room the system grants the gm to fill with things for the players to want for their pcs. The gm needs to use the setting both as a structural framework to hand the world around the players and as a thingto aid them in adventure & story support.

Novelists who are a gm rarely have players willing to return as long as they expect to remain novelists making them something of a self excluding group of gns. Novelist players who roll in with a bsckstory pre-written in isolation pretty much never care about the setting one iota because they tend to bring a toxic expectation that it will conform exactly as they wrote.

 

[iserith]

I think you are misunderstanding the question. DMs are the ones who would buy books with setting details, but no player-facing mechanics. DMs are the ones who buy GURPS books, or research obscure topics like medieval beekeeping because they want to present it authentically.

Players tend to show up, say "that's cool" and say things like "what was that name of the king that we have lived under for the past 30 years that we talked to yesterday?"

In one recent campaign, I had a trickster cleric villain called "What's His Face." It worked perfectly.

 

[Guest 7034872]

In one recent campaign, I had a trickster cleric villain called "What's His Face." It worked perfectly.

See that, folks? Always work with gravity; never against it.

 

[Maxperson]

Here is another poll bound to dissatisfy some folks because it is asking about a feeling or general sense based on experience rather than any actually quantifiable data. . . my favorite!

True or False: "In My General Experience Playing D&D, DMs Care More About Setting Lore Than Players"

I voted false. In my experience there are four sorts of players.

1. The player that loves the setting lore and reads up on it so he can recognize it when I use it. I have one of those at my table.
2. The player that really appreciates the lore, because it gets used in the game and adds to its depth. He can tell from description and use that the setting lore is in play. I have two of those at my table.
3. The player that doesn't care all that much about lore, but likes it better than nothing. He's just not very invested in seeing it happen. I have one of those at my table.
4. The player that couldn't care less about lore at all. I don't think I've ever played with one.

As you can see, three of my four players care about the lore at least as much as I do, and I love lore. This is my typical experience across all games that I've played in or run since I left high school and hack 'n slash behind.

 

[payn]

This is the thing that really pushed me into adventure paths. I found my players were surface level setting hounds. Meaning, they only cared about what was immediately in front of them. What can they encounter now, and will worry about what they can encounter then, later. I'll sing players guides praises yet again, but its the perfect amount of light reading that marries chargen with campaign setting and engages players.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My experience generally? False.

DMs absolutely do care. But I haven't been in a group where most players didn't also care. There's the odd one-off who literally couldn't care less and usually one person who is just super casual about it. But discovery and uncovering history are big parts of the adventure for the players in my game, and in pretty much every game I have played, over a fair range of time.

I frankly find it baffling that there are apparently so many players who literally just could not give a flying coitus about anything in the world other than the literal immediate situation in front of their PC and (presumably) the expected paycheck at the end.

 

[Professor Murder]

Players are going to always be primarily concerned with lore that affects their character. The DM has to juggle ALL lore.

 

[payn]

I frankly find it baffling that there are apparently so many players who literally just could not give a flying coitus about anything in the world other than the literal immediate situation in front of their PC and (presumably) the expected paycheck at the end.

I wish I knew a few less of them. I had one guy who cared about nothing but leveling up the axe his dorf had. We used to joke he was playing a battle axe with a dorf familiar. Guy just let everyone else drive the game and just wanted to be woke up when the fighting started. Or, I suppose, when loot divy time came up so he could get that axe better.

I gave up on homebrewing because of those types of players. Even the ones that do like setting info, dont seem interested at all in homebrewed stuff.

 

[SkidAce]

Is the question that they care more about the LORE than PLAYERS, or that they take lore more seriously (i.e. care) than players do?

@el-remmen

 

[CleverNickName]

I voted "True," and I'm counting myself in that number of DMs.

I'm not trying to say that DMs don't care about the players in their game. It's just that in most cases, the lore of the game world will shape (or be shaped by) the player characters. So for any amount of focus the DM puts on the player characters, they will have to put in just a little more focus into the lore of the world--if only to incorporate those characters.

And the more "serious" or detailed the character, the more of an impact it will have on the lore.

 

[Yora]

I think that's pretty much a given.

GMs are in a position where players might ask them questions about what exists and doesn't in the world around their characters, and how some things work specifically so they can work that into their next plans, and GMs typically want to be ready to give answers to these things.
For players, it's that anything you need to know about the world will either be revealed to you when it becomes relevant, or you just ask the GM if you need information on something in a specific situation. As players, you can let the setting come to you when it's relevant. You don't need to put any thought into it beforehand.

Some players can be really curious about a setting, but that's a personal preference and curiosity. GMs have to be informed about the setting of their campaign as a necessity of running the campaign.