D&D 5E What do I tell players about my overly complex political world?

[Lanliss]

Dear Enworlders:

I thank you all for the advice. I'm beginning to think that perhaps my world which took 30 years to build is about 29 years too late to play in. I could try to make it work. One of the character's was a soldier of that country, so he would know of both the princess and the abductor (a general). A paladin and a cleric would have seen the unrest in the other country. And a rogue would know of the undercurrent of rebellion in both lands.

I think I will present a short (the 5-points card which someone mentioned) info card to each, and then see if it interests them. If they don't want to buy into that, it will be fine and the world will go back in the file. I could run a prepared adventure. I guess I should ask the players what they want, huh?

Thanks again for the help. You guys are really smart.

--Scott


Oh and:


I'm the crazy guy on the corner who thinks he's Tolkien

Have you ever watched Critical Role. If not, no worries. The important but is, whenever one of the players asks a question like "What is the official flower of this city?" The DM actually knows. It amazes the players that his world is that fleshed out, and that he remembers it.

in short, your world can't really be too fleshed out to play in. Just run it as a normal game, keeping track of background plots as necessary, and only inform the players if they ask. There is no reason for them to know that a nearby city is planning a coup against the king, unless they are actually in a position to learn about it. If they actually go to that city, and look for dark rumours, they might learn, but don't feel that they should learn about it from a half continent away Just because it might affect them in the future. Just continue building you background, and let it bleed through when it becomes relevant ( "Bad news, the King has been toppled, you will need to either get him back in power, or form new alliances." ). Let your players be astounded by the fact that you actually have an adoptive Grandson for the Duke of Lankmere, or that their political allies are actually in a position to help against the Necromancer/Mayor of SmallBone Bend. If they ever feel like running a political Intrigue game, laugh in their face, and throw them into the spikey acid pit that is called "Nobility" in your world. Watch them bend and break under your plots that they never saw coming, only to be saved by that one NPC that they actually managed to befriend.

 

[closterphobia]

My friends an I use private Facebook groups for each of our campaigns. Generally a week before game time we'd put a bit of preamble about the upcoming session to get enough information out to avoid spending a lot of precious time going over too much back matter in-game. Session recaps are handled in separate posts. Meatier world details can be dropped into longer posts on occasion, and like many have posted here, most of your players will probably not read those longer posts, but having one or two players take the time to do so can make it worth it, both in game and out.

 

[Schmoe]

Dear Enworlders:

I thank you all for the advice. I'm beginning to think that perhaps my world which took 30 years to build is about 29 years too late to play in. I could try to make it work. One of the character's was a soldier of that country, so he would know of both the princess and the abductor (a general). A paladin and a cleric would have seen the unrest in the other country. And a rogue would know of the undercurrent of rebellion in both lands.

I think I will present a short (the 5-points card which someone mentioned) info card to each, and then see if it interests them. If they don't want to buy into that, it will be fine and the world will go back in the file. I could run a prepared adventure. I guess I should ask the players what they want, huh?

Thanks again for the help. You guys are really smart.

--Scott

By all means don't get discouraged! Just because the players may not buy into all of the Machiavellian twists and turns that you've planned for your world doesn't mean that they can't have great adventures in your world. Take advantage of your familiarity with your creation to provide the players with an incredibly rich backdrop for the adventures they end up having. Believe me, that depth will show through even if they don't follow your hooks or show an interest in political backstory. Eventually something will catch their interest, and when it does, you'll find that you've been prepared all along.

Besides, none of us actually know who your players are. Maybe your players really are the type to buy into complex political intrigue? It doesn't hurt to try, but be prepared when they just want to kill some goblins.

 

[transtemporal]

Just tell them what everyone knows and let them fill in the rest for themselves. Resist the urge to go full Lucas.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I used to be really big on "top down" world-building, but sometime in the last decade I've totally moved away from it. I've found it's just straight up more fun to tell people only the bare minimum needed for the area they are in, and slowly expand out as the group travels.

Take the Lord of the Rings movies for example (from the perspective of someone who hasn't read the books). You start with a quick flashback that clearly references a major villain in a war from history. Then it drops you into a nice lovely place where friendly hobbits are being hobbits, and obviously the world as we see it is nothing like the battle fought at "Mount Doom." As the hobbits travel, the audience gets a better understanding of what the world is like.

This style of storytelling is also more flexible on the DM, in my opinion. All you really need to know up front is the basic size of the known world, the geography of the region, a few important NPCs like the Baron Cragmire or Samstad of the Guild, primary means of travel, and vague distances between major locations. Beyond that, maybe write up a few dozen bits of one-sentence "lore" ideas and put together a random encounter table for when players overhear local gossip or start roleplaying it up with the barkeep. You don't have to know exactly how they fit in the larger world, but they can help you in the process of building it on the fly. Use ideas from random generators to seed your chart, like http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/random/#type=encounter;enc-type=Town.

The funny thing is, as a fan of top-down world-building, I'd say what you're doing still qualifies.

For me, the important difference between top-down and bottom-up is whether you start with a skeleton and flesh it out as you go, or if you start with an organ and build a body around it.

I'm a fan of top-down building because I've seen examples of bottom-up building gone horribly wrong (IMO), where the organ turns into some sort of cancerous mutated mess rather than a coherent body.

Top-down, they way I define it, has very little to do with quantity of starting material, and everything to do with structure of starting material.

 

[MNblockhead]

I also take a top down approach. I will write out high level notes on geography, politics, culture, groups, philosophies. I flesh out the rest as the campaign progresses.

To make this approach work, I find the following helps:

1. Base areas/cultures on cultures and history you are interested in or have been to

I've traveled alot and lived in other countries. One advantage of this is I can make a mental note that a particular culture is inspired by, say, Chinese culture. That way when I get random player questions, I can come up with a town name, person name, or bit of lore or trivia on the fly without needing complicated sets of name generators and fully written out backstories and histories.

Even if you have not traveled or lived in other countries, read up on your history. Even if you are playing a game set in the future, reading history and anthropology will expose you lots of very different world views and ways of living that can inspire your creations. I like to play "what if" games. What if two cultures that never mixed had made contact, how would they influence each other, what third culture would arise?

One of may regions in my game world is a mix of Aztec and Harapan (ancient Indus river valley civilization), influenced by modern Indian cultures (because easier to get info on than Harapan). Going through this exercise and writing up some notes on it gives me a base to present a rich experience that seems like I put in more planning than I did.

In another, I asked, what would happen if the Etruscans were never overshadowed by the Romans? Now here, I spent a lot of time reading up on the Etruscan civilization and on early Roman civilization and how they influenced each other. But my time was spend mostly reading and taking some skeltal notes. I fill in the rest as I need to or with on-the-fly BS that becomes canon because I left lots of room for me to make stuff up rather than having to plan and memorize it all before hand.

2. Have a good note-taking system

For this to work, you need to remember the what you made up on the spot. Otherwise you'll lose continuity. Take notes as you DM and have some system for organizing information about your campaign. I use RealmWorks for this. There are other tools like Obsidian Portal, City of Brass, or generic Wiki's. Other use Onenote, Evernote, Scrivenor or a combination. For a low tech approach, see the Drunkens & Dragons YouTube videos where the DM (his name escapes me) shares his campaign note book. He's got some great tips on preparing for and managing your campaign.

 

[zabouth]

Complex lore is amazingly fun but from my experience most people don't enjoy massive data dumps it can be overwhelming and they wont take most of it in. Start with a one paragraph overview of the world and the current political situation then you can work in the rest via NPC interactions etc.