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

[MGibster]

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

While I find that DMs (for most any game) typically care more about the setting than players, I have to agree that your statement is accurate. And I don't fault the players one bit for having that attitude.

 

[edosan]

Late to the party, but yeah - players never care about setting lore near as much as the DM does. If the lore does not directly impact them, they have little to no reason to care. (Also, exposition dumps are super boring)

 

[MGibster]

Ideally, I would like it if players knew enough about the lore in order to creat a character that fits the setting. I guess one of the beautiful things about D&D is that their kitchen sink approach makes that fairly easy.

 

[Hussar]

Ideally, I would like it if players knew enough about the lore in order to creat a character that fits the setting. I guess one of the beautiful things about D&D is that their kitchen sink approach makes that fairly easy.

I'm with you on this one. Just once I'd like to have a group of characters that is actually tied to THAT setting, rather than from somewhere else, mostly because the player can't be bothered learning anything about the setting before making a character.

 

[el-remmen]

Ideally, I would like it if players knew enough about the lore in order to creat a character that fits the setting. I guess one of the beautiful things about D&D is that their kitchen sink approach makes that fairly easy.

I specifically designed my current setting to get around this. The PCs come from the so-called "The Known World" (not to be confused with Mystara) and begin the campaign at the edge of distant islands after a perilous months long journey. They can make almost whatever kind of character (within the established limits of race and class) and backstory they want and make up stuff for it because the game is never going go back to where they came from - the only backstory requirement is that they have a reason for wanting to leave their old life behind to go adventuring. Thus, the characters not being connected to where they are adventuring is a feature - part of what they are trying to do is make new connections and most lore is learned in-game.

 

[guachi]

I think this is true and it probably has to be true. I will say, however, that my favorite campaigns as a player were campaigns I was really into the lore and cared about where we were and what we were doing.

I was into one campaign so much that when I moved away the DM made me an NPC.