For those of you that find lore important for your games, what do you do for players unfamiliar with the setting? Do you try and bring them up to speed? Do you give them homework? Do you expect them to get invested?
I cry, mostly.
But jokes aside, in reality I just tell them a little about things on a need to know basis, nominally I do expect investment as a quality of a good player and a major component of my own enjoyment as a GM, but obviously some players are interested and some aren't as much, so that's just how it goes. It mostly comes up as its relevant to the game, so the only exposition is really when someone is considering a character and I have to step in to tell them what that would
mean in terms of the existing lore of the setting-- like magic system stuff, culture stuff, and some 'it isn't quite what the book says in this world' stuff.
In the end I just push a bit to make sure the ones who don't care have to care the minimum amount to not ruin it for the rest of the table, which is in line with other areas of the game, e.g. roleplaying, combat etc. Honestly I'd like more players who get invested in lore because it matches my style better as a matter of group curation, players are a dime a dozen, but that can make them hard to sift through to find the right vibe.
Honestly, rather than invested/uninvested I have players who are mostly happy to learn a bit about the relevant parts of the world in session zero, and then more as it comes up during play, except one person who is super judgey about anything I do in a way that they wouldn't, they never really have problems with it at the table, but if they hear about it in the abstract it raises their hackles and they argue about it as if it was some kind of big obstacle or turn off.
I've kind of just learned to ignore it because they're just very, very opinionated about everything and listening to them too much would be detrimental to my own fun, so instead I just make sure the setting includes elements and concepts they do like, and continue trucking on, even though they would prefer every campaign just be a vague fantasyland they can pull whatever crossover elements into that they want to. He's a good player in other ways, but boy doesn't do compromise very well at all.