Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 7120828">I do a little bit of both.As a DM, I prefer to sketch out the world and only detail in the parts of it that players either need to interact with via plots I've established within the game, or as they approach those areas and plots.&nbsp; IE: There's a big bad mummy-lord with a secret lair in the desert.&nbsp; Name, goals, time-table, specific events only come about as the players progress towards that event.&nbsp; If the players never pick up the lead-in quests, or never randomly wander out into the middle of the desert, I never detail this in further.But info-dumping on certain things players should know about is difficult.&nbsp; Like, lets say my player Mike is playing a dwarf.&nbsp; I could develop a whole dwarven society, or I could sketch it out &quot;there's a king&quot;, &quot;they like digging&quot; etc... and let Mike fill in some of the details for me.&nbsp; What are the politics like?&nbsp; What's day-to-day dwarven life like?&nbsp; What sort of enemies do the dwarves have?&nbsp; What sort of relations to the dwarves have with other races?Mike and I will role-play this out as part of Session 0.&nbsp; I will do the same with other players.&nbsp; He'll give me some detail like &quot;the Kingdom has a parliment made up of members from notable dwarven families&quot; and then I'll add something like &quot;and the King is elected from whichever House holds the most favor, and everyone knows of House Thurson's thirst for power.&quot;&nbsp; And we'll go back and forth like this for a little while until I feel we've sufficiently established whatever we're working on.Of course not every player's input needs to be as grand.&nbsp; Joe the elf could say &quot;I'm an outcast from Elven society for *reasons* and know little about it.&quot; In which case I will take the way Joe's reasons for being outcast and establish that elements of elven culture are opposed to those sort of things.&nbsp; Or maybe Sue comes from a small human fishing village where people are poor, but humble fishermen and know little of the big human world.&nbsp; But even that tells me a lot.&nbsp; News travels slow in the human world.&nbsp; They have one, probably more poor fishing villages, so the human civilization is likely near a coast, and the wealth of the inner-kingdom does not flow to these fishers, or perhaps for some reason fishing has dried up over the last few years.&nbsp; It's nice because it's still the game-world I know, but it's a little different with each group I play in it.&nbsp; Major elements I will still provide, but I like to keep everything to &quot;one page or less&quot;.&nbsp; Players are of course not required to read up on any world-lore I provide or even listen to their fellow players, but while information I provide is always considered &quot;available&quot;, I do not expect players to type up documents of what we role-play, so if the other players aren't listening, don't take their own notes then they are considered to &quot;not know&quot; that information and are required to make checks to gain it, as opposed to someone who listened or took notes and would not.So, overall I'd say I still do most of the heavy lifting as DM, doing probably 75% of the world-building.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sunseeker, post: 7120828"] I do a little bit of both. As a DM, I prefer to sketch out the world and only detail in the parts of it that players either [I]need[/I] to interact with via plots I've established within the game, or as they approach those areas and plots. IE: There's a big bad mummy-lord with a secret lair in the desert. Name, goals, time-table, specific events only come about as the players progress towards that event. If the players never pick up the lead-in quests, or never randomly wander out into the middle of the desert, I never detail this in further. But info-dumping on certain things players [I]should[/I] know about is difficult. Like, lets say my player Mike is playing a dwarf. I could develop a whole dwarven society, or I could sketch it out "there's a king", "they like digging" etc... and let Mike fill in some of the details for me. What are the politics like? What's day-to-day dwarven life like? What sort of enemies do the dwarves have? What sort of relations to the dwarves have with other races? Mike and I will role-play this out as part of Session 0. I will do the same with other players. He'll give me some detail like "the Kingdom has a parliment made up of members from notable dwarven families" and then I'll add something like "and the King is elected from whichever House holds the most favor, and [I]everyone[/I] knows of House Thurson's thirst for power." And we'll go back and forth like this for a little while until I feel we've sufficiently established whatever we're working on. Of course not every player's input needs to be as grand. Joe the elf could say "I'm an outcast from Elven society for *reasons* and know little about it." In which case I will take the way Joe's reasons for being outcast and establish that elements of elven culture are opposed to those sort of things. Or maybe Sue comes from a small human fishing village where people are poor, but humble fishermen and know little of the big human world. But even that tells me a lot. News travels slow in the human world. They have one, probably more poor fishing villages, so the human civilization is likely near a coast, and the wealth of the inner-kingdom does not flow to these fishers, or perhaps for some reason fishing has dried up over the last few years. It's nice because it's still the game-world I know, but it's a little different with each group I play in it. Major elements I will still provide, but I like to keep everything to "one page or less". Players are of course not [I]required[/I] to read up on any world-lore I provide or even listen to their fellow players, but while information I provide is always considered "available", I do not expect players to type up documents of what we role-play, so if the other players aren't listening, don't take their own notes then they are considered to "not know" that information and are required to make checks to gain it, as opposed to someone who listened or took notes and would not. So, overall I'd say I still do most of the heavy lifting as DM, doing probably 75% of the world-building. [/QUOTE]

Verification