Player hand-outs?

[Paradoxish]

I was just working on the little information packet I'm going to give the players in my new campaign and I realized that it's becoming fairly long. Besides a short section on my house rules (which most of my players are aware of anyway) it has pages upon pages of background information for the world. It's mostly compressed or vague versions of the information I've already done for myself, but I didn't realize how long this was going to be. Since this is going to (hopefully) be a very long-term campaign I'm going to stick it all in a binder and hand that out as a "Traveller's Guide to Araedus".

So, does anybody else do something similiar to this when they launch a new campaign? Or have I just gone way overboard here?

 

[Bagpuss]

I have done, but its never really been worth the effort to give it to the players. Most of them want to get on with playing and not reading a big essay. I've found it easier to leak information to them a bit at a time, never more than one or two sheets of A4 a session. That way they are likely to read it.

 

[cofbaron]

What I did was divide it up into two packets: One dealt exclusively with house rules, character generation guidelines, class/race restrictions, etc. That one had only brief explanations for certain rules. The other packet was the background stuff, divided up into chunks of 3-4 paragraphs each, which is (I hope) a nice bite-sized digestible chunk.


Cecil

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

I like to use them, even if it's just my house rules. It seems to excite the players too. At least in my experiance.

 

[Paradoxish]

The other packet was the background stuff, divided up into chunks of 3-4 paragraphs each, which is (I hope) a nice bite-sized digestible chunk.

That's basically what I did with the background information, but I just stuck it together with the house rules for convenience. I don't really expect my players to read it all at once since an RPG shouldn't really be like homework, but I guess I feel better letting them have the information at once. I hate to admit it, but it's really just to make my life easier. If the players are planning a long trip they can open up the binder and see what a town they'll be passing through is like instead of asking me "So what's over here?"

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

If your starting something new or have new players then the full packet is probebly a good thing. Gives the player an idea of things and can help in generating characters. If you have people that you have been gaming with for awhile then you can probebly shorten it a bit. I like the idea of the player handout. Lets ya know where the campaign is heading and that the dm is working to mke it a good campaign. It is alos helpful to have all house rules in writing that way players can refer to it easily if it conflict with the general rules.

 

[willpax]

I had a 12 page house rule section (I run some serious variant rules--that hand out didn't even include my magic mods, which I worked out with the one wizard in the group) and an 8 page campaign handout. What I made sure to do was label the sections in the background handout clearly, and begin each section with clearly stated "here's what you need to know" type sentences. I also don't assume that they have committed it to memory, but reinforce a sense of "what someone living in this world would probably know" whenever it needs to come up.

That would be my bit of advice: do it so the players who want to get into it can, but plan on people needing the same information over the course of play.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

The last time I had players who were willing to actually read anything I gave them beyond a cursory glance, Reagan had just taken office for his first term. It'd be great to have players like that again, but hey, I can make do...

 

[Paradoxish]

The last time I had players who were willing to actually read anything I gave them beyond a cursory glance, Reagan had just taken office for his first term. It'd be great to have players like that again, but hey, I can make do...

I know what you mean, but sometimes I feel like I'm in a no-win situation. My choices are basically...

a) Give some information in a hand-out so the players can at least reference it during play. Downside: They'll complain about reading it.

b) Don't give out information as a hand-out and just describe places when they ask about them. Downside: They'll complain about slowing the game down so I can explain where they are.

c) Run generic adventures that don't rely on any kind of background information. Downside: They'll complain about playing generic adventures.

To be fair to my current group, though, there's at least one player who happily absorbs any information I give him and then puts it into his character's history. He actually handed me a seven page history during a previous campaign. Needless to say, I was impressed. Too bad this same player is a rules lawyer.

EDIT: On a related note, doesn't it almost seem like wasted work to go the trouble of detailing a campaign world if you're not going to at least give some basic information to your players in written form? There's only so much information that can really be given out during without slowing the game to a crawl. It seems to me that it's possible to make much richer adventures with a lot more flavor if you can at least make some minor historical/geographic references.

 

[Agback]

So, does anybody else do something similiar to this when they launch a new campaign? Or have I just gone way overboard here?

I very often do it. My campaign handouts contain information about the setting, information about house rules to be used, and often information about the sorts of characters will be suitable for the campaign.

The shortest of these I still have on disk is 1 page of smallish type (400 words). The long ones are 12,000 words (background material for my Great Vale D&D setting), 13,000 words (background material for my Gehennum fantasy campaign setting), 15,500 words (a description of the Thundering Vale location in which I have set several Gehennum campaigns), and 17,700 words (sketchy background material for my Flat Black SF campaign setting). Players seem to value them.

Regards,


Agback