Players Don't Care About Your Setting

[Micah Sweet]

I arrived at a similar conclusion and hence this thread. My sneaking suspicion is that a significant percentage of us who post here really love published settings or love creating their own. I know I certainly do. Pretty much every game I own was purchase because there was somthing about the setting I liked. I certainly won't run a game unless I like the setting.

Setting is what kept my interest in D&D alive when I didn't have a regular group as a lonely middle-high schooler, hence my love of 2e (whose hey day was right at that time for me).

 

[Staffan]

Well, I agree with that. Star Wars didn't attract fans by front loading them with a bunch of setting lore. Handing players a sheet of setting lore is probably the worst way you could create fans.

Star Wars might not be the best example, as it literally begins with an info dump. Sure, a short one, but still.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The Silmarillion was admittedly hard to get through when I first read it at 15, but now it's probably my favorite of Tolkein's works after Fellowship (and I love 'em all, so it's a high bar). Turned out worldbuilding and creation stories are my jam.

I loved the Appendices at the end of RotK too, by the way.

Sure, they may be fun to read for pleasure. I personally find the Silmarillion pretty boring overall. But opinions on that will vary by taste. And, reading is (almost always) a solo activity. If someone is reading something and they decide they don’t like it, there’s no harm in simply not reading any further.

But… think of it as a game. If LotR was an RPG, almost none of the Silmarillion is needed for play. None of it actually matters. The “players” never actually interact with any of it.

It’s the kind of self indulgence that I think is among the worst traits a GM can have (and trust me, I include myself in that).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, they may be fun to read for pleasure. I personally find the Silmarillion pretty boring overall. But opinions on that will vary by taste. And, reading is (almost always) a solo activity. If someone is reading something and they decide they don’t like it, there’s no harm in simply not reading any further.

But… think of it as a game. If LotR was an RPG, almost none of the Silmarillion is needed for play. None of it actually matters. The “players” never actually interact with any of it.

It’s the kind of self indulgence that I think is among the worst traits a GM can have (and trust me, I include myself in that).

The GM has to have fun too. They don't work for the players, after all, and their fun doesn't become bad/wrong when it isn't all about serving their needs.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Star Wars might not be the best example, as it literally begins with an info dump. Sure, a short one, but still.

I don't think it is much of a world building info dump though. A world building dump would be like three pages describing the politics of the empire and the major organizations on Tatooine

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sure, they may be fun to read for pleasure. I personally find the Silmarillion pretty boring overall. But opinions on that will vary by taste. And, reading is (almost always) a solo activity. If someone is reading something and they decide they don’t like it, there’s no harm in simply not reading any further.

But… think of it as a game. If LotR was an RPG, almost none of the Silmarillion is needed for play. None of it actually matters. The “players” never actually interact with any of it.

It’s the kind of self indulgence that I think is among the worst traits a GM can have (and trust me, I include myself in that).

This might be true. The LOTR wasn't designed as an RPG, and I am not enough of a Tolkien nut to weigh in on how much Simlarillion benefits the story itself. But I think the issue is people are confusing that kind of world building with all world building. Just because players aren't interested in completely irrelevant material that gets into the deep history of the setting, that doesn't mean the players are not interested in the setting. Like I pointed out earlier, factions are also world building. NPCs are world building. Stuff that gets deeper, like history, that is also material the players may have an interest in but it is likely going to be relevant to them through things like dungeons (i.e. they venture into a dungeon and the dungeon design is informed by the history of the setting, there are traces of history there for players to play with, etc).

The question of how much world building a GM should do, what direction they should build in, whether the players themselves ought to contribute to the world building, those I think are separate issues from whether players are interested in the setting

Just one observation I will make. I think world building can be overdone. It can also be underdone. Where the line is, is going to depend on your players. I know I have run into situations where players started asking about something or exploring it in game, and I realized "Man I really should have done more setting design around this". But I've also designed stuff that never came up in play and was never even indirectly relevant (personally I would rather have the latter problem than the former, but the latter is a time consuming concern so it isn't nothing either)

 

[hawkeyefan]

The GM has to have fun too. They don't work for the players, after all, and their fun doesn't become bad/wrong when it isn't all about serving their needs.

Sure the GM needs to have fun. But I'd argue that for an RPG, the GM should be having fun during play. If that's not the case, then something's wrong.

Outside of play, the GM can have whatever kind of fun they want. They can rob banks or chat with skunks or world build to their heart's content.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This might be true. The LOTR wasn't designed as an RPG, and I am not enough of a Tolkien nut to weigh in on how much Simlarillion benefits the story itself. But I think the issue is people are confusing that kind of world building with all world building. Just because players aren't interested in completely irrelevant material that gets into the deep history of the setting, that doesn't mean the players are not interested in the setting. Like I pointed out earlier, factions are also world building. NPCs are world building. Stuff that gets deeper, like history, that is also material the players may have an interest in but it is likely going to be relevant to them through things like dungeons (i.e. they venture into a dungeon and the dungeon design is informed by the history of the setting, there are traces of history there for players to play with, etc).

The question of how much world building a GM should do, what direction they should build in, whether the players themselves ought to contribute to the world building, those I think are separate issues from whether players are interested in the setting

Just one observation I will make. I think world building can be overdone. It can also be underdone. Where the line is, is going to depend on your players. I know I have run into situations where players started asking about something or exploring it in game, and I realized "Man I really should have done more setting design around this". But I've also designed stuff that never came up in play and was never even indirectly relevant (personally I would rather have the latter problem than the former, but the latter is a time consuming concern so it isn't nothing either)

Sure... again, it's different because these are books. But thinking about the experience of play... there's what the players see and deal with (the stuff in LotR, for my purposes here) and then the stuff the GM knows that the players never see (the stuff in the Silmarillion).

My opinion is that only the stuff that's actively relevant to play should matter to the players. Sure, some of them may take a bit of an interest in some obscure bit of lore... but I don't think that's the norm nor should it be expected to be the norm.

I'm not saying that the GM should never have ideas that may not make it into play. I'm just saying that until they do make it into play... and I mean in a meaningful way that informs player decision making... all they are is color, and that's all they should be.

 

[Celebrim]

Star Wars might not be the best example, as it literally begins with an info dump. Sure, a short one, but still.

No, it's a good example because that's about how big you want your first info dump to be.

This is the first lore dump for my last D&D campaign.

It is the third hour of the day on the 12th day of the second month. The morning sun shines thin but clear in the chilly winter air. In the harbor district of Amalteen the life of the city is fully underway. It is Wallsday, and many skilled craftsmen have shuttered their shops, but the commerce of the harbor continues unabated. Shouting above the barking dogs and screeching sea gulls, the fish mongers hawk their wares. Several ships have come into port on the morning tide. The stevedores turn capstans to power the cargo cranes while singing out their work songs. A wrinkled and grey headed hill giant sings loudly and off key as he works alongside. All this is occasionally drowned out by the bellowing of mastodons dragging their carts and sleds. On one of the quays, a particularly vicious looking crew of buccaneers is beginning to disembark. Goblins, Orine, and tattooed humans from barbarian lands spill out on to the dock, drawing wary looks from the well-dressed merchants there to receive cargo and news from foreign lands. It takes no skilled observer to see that the ship is in the service of the Queen of Irendi, as all the officers are tall, red-headed, and green eyed Concheer, some of which may have noble titles to go along with their true names in their homeland. One particular barbarian, a particularly tall and ruddy skinned Mokoeen stands out from the rest, as even his fellow crewmates seem to fear him and give him a slight berth as he stands at the base of the gangplank taking in the city.

It's a little wordy, but it conveys some important information about the setting - for example that goblins and hill giants aren't necessarily just monsters to fight but members of society. Prior to this, in session zero we had established relationships between most of the PCs so that when the crap hits the whirling object here, they'd naturally band together. The one PC without a connection here - the barbarian from distant lands - is also being added to the scene.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't think it is much of a world building info dump though. A world building dump would be like three pages describing the politics of the empire and the major organizations on Tatooine

I don't think that's fair at all. This is very much a world building info dump it's just a very well thought out one as opposed to a strawman example of bad world building.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

It is a period of civil war.
Rebel spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire's
ultimate weapon, the DEATH
STAR, an armored space
station with enough power to
destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's
sinister agents, Princess
Leia races home aboard her
starship, custodian of the
stolen plans that can save
her people and restore
freedom to the galaxy....

The opening crawl truly begins with a fairy tale introduction, but with a well-conceived twist. This isn't merely far far away - this is in a galaxy far far away. That tells the audience what sort of genre to expect and consciously and unconsciously asks them to suspend their disbelief. This is a fantasy story, but dressed in the trappings of space opera.

Then we're told it is a period of Civil War, and the rebels are the good guys. And here we are not only told that explicitly, but to an American audience this rebellion against Empire aligns with the national myth. And we're drawing on swords and sandals here by aligning the Empire with Rome - which is going to get reinforced in just a few scene with mention of a disbanded Senate. So already we are drawing upon a massive amount of cultural myth.

The we are told that we are going to begin In Media Res. There was just a battle of some sort, and regardless of whatever other results, the Rebels achieved the main objective - stealing the plans to a super weapon that ... WOW... can destroy a whole planet.

Then we are introduced to the first main character whose rescue is going to be the object of the first act of the movie - Princess Leia. Again, reinforcing the fairy tale theme. And that's it. We've been told very little, but it has enough mythic resonance that the whole audience can reasonably fill in the blanks. By the time we see Storm Troopers wiping the good guys out, officers wearing knock off Nazi uniforms, and this iconic black armored knight, we know everything we need to know that we didn't pick up on earlier.