Pre-Campaign Handouts

[Immortal Sun]

Jesus Chickenfingers, I'd never give someone a 40+pg document unless I was getting paid for it. And while I might snap it into my campaign binder (I make a new one for each game) and poke through it once in a while, I know I'd never read it as a player.

Yes I agree with Matt, 1-2 pages tops. Basic outline. Probably about as intense reading as the opening scroll of a Star Wars movie, with CAPS and bold on important names/organizations/locations.

What classes/races are available is part of SESSION ZERO at my table to ensure that noone goes home, builds something completely incompatible/non-existent within the world and brings it to the table. I also cover GENERAL THEME and try to get a feel for PLAYER EXPECTATIONS while talking to them, internally adjusting what's in my head based on the overall consensus of what players are looking to find in the GAME. While also working out if the game I'm planning to run is one they're EVEN INTERESTED IN.






---I bet you remember what words I capitalised.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, I’d never read a 40-page document prior to a game.

A page or two is OK (I use the “One-Sheet” format), and even then make sure it’s not dense with backstory and makes the major points concisely and clearly.

Let me learn about the world during play.

 

[hbarsquared]

I like the "The campaign theme will be like <movie/book> meets <some other movie/book>"

My last one was "Star Trek meets Across the World in Eighty Days"

 

[Riley37]

Across the World in Eighty Days

Is that like Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days", but on a flat world?

I'd play it!

Ferocious klingorks, wise gentle vulkelves, greedy ferengkobolds...

 

[Imaculata]

I hand out a map (of either the region, the current location or both), and perhaps a list of homebrew equipment when the players pick their starting equipment. Everything else is not needed for them to start playing. If I want them to know about the various deities in my setting, they will come up when they enter a church. If I want them to know about the political situation in my fictional country, that too will come up when it becomes important, or the players actively pursue this information.

Currently all my players know the names of most of the important deities in my campaign, and they have never needed to read a manuscript for it. I just wove it into the plot, into my descriptions of statues and stained-glass windows, and into my descriptions of locations. These deities come up so often, that they know most of them by heart by now, and even have favorites.