What makes setting lore "actually matter" to the players?

[Cordwainer Fish]

I mean, I had to travel literally 5 feet to my left to pick this up off my shelf ...... Does that mean something?

Famous scene in Annie Hall; Woody is waiting in line forced to listen to some pseudointellectual blather about McLuhan until he can't stand to hear any more and pulls McLuhan himself out of hyperspace to set the guy straight.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

To kind of expand on what my thoughts were and to explore concepts of gaming in general for discussion =

The depiction of non-human races and magic and gods in these settings is overwhelmingly reliant on shallow, one-dimensional archetypes that preclude any concept of development, evolution, or meaningful difference beyond aesthetics. Compelling worlds are defined by acknowledging the power/tech and its changes to the world over time. Fantasy settings fail to deliver any of this.

While would agree that Star Wars has some aspects that work to fix this, and the Jedi order/council is some part of that (however hamhanded and poorly written it was). But it too falls into "aliens are pointless and hold no place in the setting that humans could not also hold. Thus aliens are just pallet swapped humans."

Babylon 5 tried to touch on to all of this (and I think that may be what I love about Sci-Fi over fantasy = Sci-Fi appears to try and create compelling and functional settings where the purpose of tech or alien is deeply tied to the core function of its setting and their limitations guide principles of purpose and stakes). Not all Sci-Fi does this well, but if I were to put my opinion out there, 0/10 fantasy does that, where as 9/10 sci fi does.

And that is the problem... Fantasy settings are just really really shallow. Even some 'eastern fantasy' rpgs, that claim a kinda base eastern influence game falls hard back onto generic D&D spells, demons, and general culture (with a super fake patina of eastern art painted over it.) How can you make a game supposedly about xianxia and not have it deeply rooted in cultivation? Oh, because its actual base influence was Rome and Greece and medieval Europe back to square one...again...

... But none of that matters.

Really, it's just a backdrop for a GM (and sometimes players too), to create their story. And they can blow things up, or make thing relevant and purposeful. And I think some groups do this.

My answer originally was in regards to "what rpg game would you play for X games?" and my answer is now and still... "not any of the shallow stuff that I have to out-write Brandon Sanderson to create my own meaning and add purpose to".

if I am buying IP, and I am playing a game - it's because it has a competent setting that acknowledges its magics progressing society/tech over 10,000 years, and does more than stat bumps and funny faces for non-humans.

... But that does not matter either.

I think what Daggerheart (a game with possibly the least value in its offered 'setting' or 'races' of most any rpg), GRUPS, D&D, Pathfinder, etc etc = offer is just their rules. They are creating an ecosystem of mechanics by which players who match with those mechanics can play and find easiest to create fun with.
They are openly stating "we are just your paint brush and paints, go paint the picture yourself".

To which, I say "ok, I get that. You are giving just barely enough "context" (in the form of locations and races) for the group to build their game from."

Myself, I no longer want that base, shallow, context of 'elf', 'dwarf', or 'castle town'. Strip that out even: and I am now just looking at mechanics for what kinda fun our group wants to play with.

Legends in the Mist does this best. Cortex Prime does this very well. Cypher, GURPS and BRP does this mediocre well, and others fall in-between. But that's just my own group's preference on mechanics.

 

[innerdude]

Bluntly? Inform the mechanics in some fashion. Nothing else will matter to some of them, and even for those who it can matter to, on the whole if it doesn't impact the mechanics, its prone to losing.

Yeah, agree with this, at least on the surface. Handing out "Super Special Xaborgosloboth Vorpal Katana Tridents Only Wieldable by Xaborgosloboths +4" to a party made of 2 humans and a tiefling would seem to rise to the level of "lore that matters to the players."

But I think there can be more than just mechanical function.

For example, "Argulantys, the City of the Crown, in which clerics of Sarenrae are utterly forbidden on pain of death from ever setting foot in." If you're playing a cleric of Sarenrae, that's not really a "mechanical" component, but certainly rises to the level of "lore that matters to the player of the cleric"---if choices must be made to enter the city because that's what's required to achieve the party's goals, that certainly would seem to affect the kinds of action declarations the cleric would make.

But this brings up an interesting point --- if the only lore that "matters to the players" is A) lore with direct interactions with the mechanical rules and B) lore that directly impacts immediate player choice within the fiction . . . . then what's the point of pre-authoring massive tomes of lore for any setting?

A) it doesn't interact mechanically with anything
B) it isn't directly impacting any immediate player action declarations in the fiction

Example: consider the state of Star Wars lore from May 1977 until May 1980 --- from the original release of Ep IV to the release of Ep V.

How much actual "Star Wars" lore existed in that window? How well defined were the Jedi? How much of what would follow for the next 48 years was already in George Lucas' head, and how much was simply undefined because it didn't matter yet because it didn't matter to the story at hand?

 

[RenleyRenfield]

It sounds tautological, but lore matters to people who care about lore and to the degree there's any serious engagement there, I'm not sold that's the majority of players.

As I think I've made clear, I don't believe there is such a set of properties for every, or perhaps even the majority of players. Lore exists for the entertainment of the people creating or running the campaign (and perhaps not all of them), and the subset that does care.

Well, let's consider this idea for a sec. One of the earliest replies in this thread was someone quickly jumping to the defense of Lord of the Rings lore.

And one of the biggest complaints of Witcher tv show - its is lack of relevancy to its books by way of the lore, the setting, the plots.

I posit that in fact, lore is the single more important thing to players of RPGs, even more so when it comes to a lore-based game (Cosemere, Glorantha, Conan, Vampire, etc etc)

And to back that up = that is why people crave the generic Elf, Dwarf, Orc in their games = because most people know the 'lore' of that critter. And by and large that lore matters very much!

Making an Elf, who by all means looks like an Elf, but behaves like a mangy, vermin infested slob = would make most players wonder greatly about "is that even an Elf then?" = because the lore of the typical elf states there are very much otherwise.

 

[Reynard]

So to be clear, let's differentiate between, "Innerdude, who has read the Lord of the Rings novels 38 times in his lifetime (this is not an exaggeration) and has spent a non-trivial amount of time pondering on the themes and cultural significance of the origins of Tolkien's races as outlined in the Silmarillion," and "Innerdude, the long-time GM who just wants his players to imbue their characters with meaningful personality traits, fears and hopes, motivations, values, and mindsets and not just fall back on lazy fantasy setting tropes like 'my character is a walking turtle with a spear'."

I find it weird that Tolkien elves are not "lazy fantasy tropes" but turtle people are.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I find it weird that Tolkien elves are not "lazy fantasy tropes" but turtle people are.

Could it be more...
"if you are playing MERP" then tolkien is not a trope, it is the 'thing', its origin.

but if you are using 'elves' in Golarion, yeah, totally 100% trope shallowness.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, agree with this, at least on the surface. Handing out "Super Special Xaborgosloboth Vorpal Katana Tridents Only Wieldable by Xaborgosloboths +4" to a party made of 2 humans and a tiefling would seem to rise to the level of "lore that matters to the players."

But I think there can be more than just mechanical function.

For example, "Argulantys, the City of the Crown, in which clerics of Sarenrae are utterly forbidden on pain of death from ever setting foot in." If you're playing a cleric of Sarenrae, that's not really a "mechanical" component, but certainly rises to the level of "lore that matters to the player of the cleric"---if choices must be made to enter the city because that's what's required to achieve the party's goals, that certainly would seem to affect the kinds of action declarations the cleric would make.

IME, with most players that's liable to just cause them to gravitate toward clerics unlikely to run into that, and if they do anyway they'll (probably somewhat legitimately) wonder if the fix is in rather than it being a legitimate setting decision (i.e. did the GM know the particular cleric type they're playing was going to be banned there in advance, or did they decide after it was in play?

You can do this more broadly, of course (All clerics are banned from Anticlerica), but then it just ends up feeling like a physical obstacle more than anything else; its function as a setting element is still no more likely to be considered important to some.

But this brings up an interesting point --- if the only lore that "matters to the players" is A) lore with direct interactions with the mechanical rules and B) lore that directly impacts immediate player choice within the fiction . . . . then what's the point of pre-authoring massive tomes of lore for any setting?

For some players, as I've said, I don't think there is. As I noted, a lot of dense lore is of more entertainment value for those writing it and those who just generally care about lore than the gaming populace as a whole.

A) it doesn't interact mechanically with anything
B) it isn't directly impacting any immediate player action declarations in the fiction

Example: consider the state of Star Wars lore from May 1977 until May 1980 --- from the original release of Ep IV to the release of Ep V.

How much actual "Star Wars" lore existed in that window? How well defined were the Jedi? How much of what would follow for the next 48 years was already in George Lucas' head, and how much was simply undefined because it didn't matter yet because it didn't matter to the story at hand?

Well, I can't answer for the first part, but the latter part I suspect the answer was "Quite a bit." Its a bit less clearcut in a game because the players can sometimes end up interacting with settings in an unplanned way, but its still often the case that there lore elements that are, as I said, only relevant to those who just like lore.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, let's consider this idea for a sec. One of the earliest replies in this thread was someone quickly jumping to the defense of Lord of the Rings lore.

And one of the biggest complaints of Witcher tv show - its is lack of relevancy to its books by way of the lore, the setting, the plots.

I posit that in fact, lore is the single more important thing to players of RPGs, even more so when it comes to a lore-based game (Cosemere, Glorantha, Conan, Vampire, etc etc)

I think you're making a categorical error here. Let me explain why.

Both Middle Earth and the Witcher's setting has a previous existance that would have been absorbed by people in a fashion where lore and setting is more critical as a primary element of the experience before hitting it in a game context. There focal point is going to be much more focused on things where the lore is front and center (books), or at least somewhat more focused on it (the way the computer games were structured), so they're going to come in with that lore as a big part of why they're there in the first place. You may well see a similar case with people who've read a lot of Forgotten Realms based D&D fiction.

But in the latter case at least, that isn't every player; it isn't likely to even be a majority of them. So the lore matters a lot less than someone seeking out a Witcher RPG or a Middle Earth based one, than someone simply setting out to play D&D or some other game without a heavy media tie-in.

And to back that up = that is why people crave the generic Elf, Dwarf, Orc in their games = because most people know the 'lore' of that critter. And by and large that lore matters very much!

I don't think so. For most of them there's a certain basic look-and-feel they want, but that's far from them really sinking into the lore in any significant way. And its easy to tell because they'll play an elf in vastly different settings exactly the same, even if the lore for them is wildly different.

Making an Elf, who by all means looks like an Elf, but behaves like a mangy, vermin infested slob = would make most players wonder greatly about "is that even an Elf then?" = because the lore of the typical elf states there are very much otherwise.

I think you're overestimating how much they'd think about it. They'd just decide it was an odd elf. Because they're connection isn't otherwise that deep.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I find it weird that Tolkien elves are not "lazy fantasy tropes" but turtle people are.

I'd say they're even moreso. Far as that goes, I'd question how deep most people's play of elves even gets to the Tolkein elves; its just a certain broad-stroke concept of "elf" they've absorbd from multiple sources (including Tolkein, so there's some of that there, but its not the only thing).

 

[innerdude]

I find it weird that Tolkien elves are not "lazy fantasy tropes" but turtle people are.

Rightly so! That was really my point. A player who chooses "elf" as a heritage in a Tolkienesque world, without using that character choice to dramatically inform the character's personality traits and worldviews, is doing the exact same thing as the person choosing the turtle.

Which of course begs the question, why have races/heritages at all if they're just window dressing and a stat bonus, with zero dynamic representation from the player with regards to the setting lore? Which was @RenleyRenfield 's contention just up thread.

His point mirrors mine---I'm to the point now where I can barely tolerate races/heritages AT ALL---even the Tolkienesque ones. They're all equally lazy without A) player-backed consideration of what a choice of race/heritage means to their portrayal, and B) a setting that makes the lore behind that race/heritage meaningful in a way that directly impacts play.

Since my players can't be bothered to creatively construct and portray unique character traits based on race/heritage, and 99.9% of campaign settings don't provide the proper context/background/cultural relevance to make heritage differentiation matter, then let's just get rid of the construct entirely. Doesn't matter if it's the Tolkienesque "defaults" or Daggerheart's "frog people" / "turtle people" / "mushroom people". The construct doesn't serve the purpose. If it's varying stat bonuses the players want, then just let them mod the stat bonuses as a human character.