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

[DrunkonDuty]

I think that’s the heart of it right there. If I’ve written a whole page worth of lore for something, the actual bit worth communicating to players is probably one to two sentences of what I wrote. The rest was more for me.

I'm also a writer of lore for my own enjoyment. Being able to cherry pick out the relevant bits for players is a talent I'm still dweveloping.

In Game of Thrones, nobody would have cared about the knowledge of Tyrion Lannister being the one who was in charge of rebuilding the sewer system if it was in an info dump in the start of the campaign. It only became important for the episode with the siege and him using the knowledge to sneak into the city.

This brings up letting players add background to their character as the game unfolds. Does it help and make sense if your PC grew up in that city and was a noble or is it a cheat of sorts to declare that your character now knows X.

Nowadays I'm using bennies for players to add these sorts of thing to their characters. But if the character already has an established background with a thing then they can usually add to it without recourse to bennies.

 

[Reynard]

"Simulation" does not necessarily have to map to our reality. Some people even think it meshes okay with genre emulation, but I personally think that's a different beast.

But going down that rabbithole would be a massive side-trip for this thread, I think.

I don't think "simulation" must necessarily map to "low power." You can do a simulationist super hero game if you care about how powers interact with the world, and certainly many hard sci-fi games like Traveller have a simulationist bent even when talking about FTL drives and planet wrecking orbital bombardment.

As it relates to D&D, I think people get hung up on what "wizards can do" that breaks "realism." I think that is a failure to understand simulation. You can talk about logical outcomes and naturalistic rules even while discussing powerful and/or ubiquitous magic.

 

[GobHag]

DnD spellcasting is also another reason why Lore is so commonly ignored, the Weave just doesn't matter to the usage of spells or to interact with magic in anyway shape or form. Even magic nerf like disruption is based around the caster themselves and not the magic being cast; There's no like... Feng Shui'ng a place so now fireball uses D4s for damage because the whole place is water aspected for instance.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Fair enough. Although, keep in mind that you can also get your existing players to do recruiting for you. About half of my current group was brought in by other members of the group.

I'm aware that I've got it pretty good and sometimes I fail to appreciate that getting a good group together can be difficult, and perhaps I've had a lot of luck in the regard. But, whatever the case, I absolutely believe that one of the greatest things I have going for me with respect to this hobby is that I've never been reliant on the wider community or the industry to provide me with players nor does that wider community set expectations for what or how we play.

I'm playing with people I've played with from years to decades. I try to remember how far this puts me from the situation of most people.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think "simulation" must necessarily map to "low power."

What about my post made you think I thought that?

You can do a simulationist super hero game if you care about how powers interact with the world, and certainly many hard sci-fi games like Traveller have a simulationist bent even when talking about FTL drives and planet wrecking orbital bombardment.

I don't think you can do a conventional superhero game in a simulationist fashion because of the baked in genre conventions, but its not about the power level. You can absolutely do people-with-powers games in a simulationist way.

As it relates to D&D, I think people get hung up on what "wizards can do" that breaks "realism." I think that is a failure to understand simulation. You can talk about logical outcomes and naturalistic rules even while discussing powerful and/or ubiquitous magic.

I don't think D&D is very simulationist, but magic has nothing to do with it.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

Making lore matter is still a work-in-progress for me. Alot of it has been a slow-burn. I have some stuff in the works that I feel make the lore legitimately matter.

I implied that if players want to canonize certain cultures and character aspects there can be some magic items and exp rewards involved.

The characters have an "outer dimension medicine" that they have frivulously used a few of do far... the lore will matter alot later on if they run out of the meds

 

[Micah Sweet]

What about my post made you think I thought that?



I don't think you can do a conventional superhero game in a simulationist fashion because of the baked in genre conventions, but its not about the power level. You can absolutely do people-with-powers games in a simulationist way.



I don't think D&D is very simulationist, but magic has nothing to do with it.

As @Lanefan said, we really need to know what you mean by "D&D", as many games have gone by that name. Several of the older editions have quite the simulationist mentality IMO (no matter what Gygax may have claimed while shilling the game).

 

[Thomas Shey]

As @Lanefan said, we really need to know what you mean by "D&D", as many games have gone by that name. Several of the older editions have quite the simulationist mentality IMO (no matter what Gygax may have claimed while shilling the game).

As I've indicated before, I think it applies to the system across its lifetime. I've said why before, but I don't see this thread as a good place to repeat it again, so its the last I'll say on the subject.