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

[zakael19]

Oh god do I feel the urge to cross the red line into current politics to refute that assertion...

Or just actual history, right? Im reading a fantastic book on medieval history and it makes a point of noting how often histories by various of-the-time sources make the effort to create mythical tie-ins for rulers and peoples (check out the Lebor Gabala Erann / "Book of Invasions" which more or less invents an entire history of the Gaelic Irish whole cloth, or many royal-tied writers drawing on religious and secular imagery together to create a chain running from Jerusalem and Rome twined to anoint their sponsor).

I was reading some fantastic posts the other day on Reddit about how perfectly messy The Elder Scrolls' in-game lore books are, because each one is written from the perspective of different peoples or even different sects or figures within a single people (and coupled with the fact that a bunch of the foundational stuff was Bethesda-fan-sourced or done by both employees and contractors!). It hits far more like the absurd mess of a real world than most fantasy stuff I've seen as a result.

If I wanted to point at a setting that sets more canon but is somewhere as messy, I might look at Dolmenwood. It has a pretty compact set of foundational lore to present players, but points out in the campaign book how each faction either knows different Truths or opinions about the world, and in some cases is actively suppressing things (eg: about certain bits of arcane lore, or the history of old gods of the wood, or the fact that the human and Breggle relationship is fairly Norman conquering the Saxons in vibe).

 

[Retros_x]

Never give them lore straight, filter it through a narrator, Grantus the sage said "...." and the like. Or you recall from your studies that "...."
History is often unreliable and contradicts.

I mean obviously, I don't just load as the DM some lore drops. The lore should always come from a gameable context, but especially if it came from a successful investigation/research/history check whatever, it feels cheap to excuse your DM mishap by telling the players their successful action was not so successful after all. In that regard I think its just better to stand up for your mistake.

And I prefer to give players reliable information in most cases, even if its "unrealistic". They misunderstand information all the time anyway, communicating the shared imagination is hard enough.

 

[Retros_x]

Factual history, such as who reigned when and what years the red comet appeared, should be fairly reliable in any society a) whose language has a written form and b) puts any value on recordkeeping.

That is plainly not true in the real world. Even with a question as "who reigned when" that seems to be "objective and factual" the answer in the history books is heavily dependent on if the lore keepers recognize a ruler as a rightful rulership. I think realism is not a good point here.

I would advise to tell players the truth about the lore not for realistic reasons, but pure gameplay reasons. Communicating the shared fiction between DM and players is hard enough. My advice is to keep it straight and keep red herrings, lies, wrong lore etc. to a minimum, especially if the lie itself is not an important plot point.

 

[pemerton]

I think some of this comes down to how we personally decide our expectations.

When I go out to dinner with friends, I'm not expecting to go to my favorite restaurant. I'm expecting everyone to have some opinions and we'll come up with an option acceptable to everyone. But I don't think the fact I'm not going to my favorite restaurant is a trade-off, because I'm prioritizing the socialization over the food experience.

Likewise with a game table. I go to the game table hoping to have a fun time with friends; if the game we choose is one of my personal preferences, all the better. But that isn't the point of the game. Socialization first, game second. So thinking of that game selection in terms of a "trade-off" simply doesn't enter into it, because I had no particular goal of what game experience I would be having.

This resonates with me, even though the game of the RPG is very important to me. Because the game itself is a social thing, in the sense that it's a joint creative activity. That's one way in which it's different from going out to dinner - the food I eat at a restaurant is (at least largely) a discrete good for me, which (at least largely) independent of the food my friend eats, which is a distinct discrete good for them.

But our RPGing is a collective good, that we create together.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Factual history, such as who reigned when and what years the red comet appeared, should be fairly reliable in any society a) whose language has a written form and b) puts any value on recordkeeping.

Not necessarily, the names of kings/queen have on occasion be chiselled out of the record (literally in the case of one Pharoh. at least the public facing record) and I have come across references that the archaeological record of contemporary writings on divinatory bone shards being at odds with the official histories as handed down (again suggesting some editing had occurred).
The history of the kings of Rome is regarded with suspicion by modern historians and there is some archaeological evidence that the Romans also fibbed about the early republican Gallic invasion.
Modern Japanese school history books concerning WWII and various Soviet histories during and post Stalin.

In a typical RPG setting, the longer-lived species would seem to make the best such lore-keepers. For play purposes, a player-visible document or webpage containing such basic factual info can be really useful.

Politics, my dear boy, politics and spin. Are the elven sages account of the history of the Elven Dwarf wars accurate or self-justifying. Their accounts of their treatment of the early human tribes are at odds with the human legends, are they accurate?

Then there are the effects of upheavals, both natural and sapient made, along with the difficulties of maintaining archives before modern climate control and materials. When was the history written and by whom and to what purpose.
If the only remaining written histories of medieval England were Shakespear's plays, that would put a different light in events than what we have from other sources.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I mean obviously, I don't just load as the DM some lore drops. The lore should always come from a gameable context, but especially if it came from a successful investigation/research/history check whatever, it feels cheap to excuse your DM mishap by telling the players their successful action was not so successful after all. In that regard I think its just better to stand up for your mistake.

And I prefer to give players reliable information in most cases, even if its "unrealistic". They misunderstand information all the time anyway, communicating the shared imagination is hard enough.

I never said to use unreliable lore to make a success into a fail but unless you really screwed up and misrepresented a vital clue or element of the main plot (in which case you should own up, but minor nitpicks, historians make mistakes as do DMs). You could even own to the mistake but still keep it in the lore.
I would never use something like that to screw with the players, as it is an abuse of DM power, but I have come to heartily dislike the general idea that lore should be completely consistent. This is neither realistic or useful and at best is useless pedantry, at worst it is used for gatekeeping.

My goto exemplar for lore usage is the main series of Stargate, SG1, where events (and decisions and expedients of the team) in filler episodes from seasons 1 and 2 came back to bite them in later episodes.
It is why I like that lore, in 5e is presented by in universe characters, it allows for loose edges and there may be stories in those discrepancies.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I think you entirely misread my post. Like, entirely.


...Considering your reply is the same point I was also making. I think, in part, we are in agreement, you are just wording it different. Which is fine.

I am interested in what makes folks not like lore. I am also interested in hearing what makes folks resist getting into lore. And for those who never care about lore, what might perk their interest in lore... and much more.

I am not interested in convincing folks that that lore is required for all games and players.

Some people simply do not like lore, just like they do not like history. It is why so many that liked Lord of the Rings bounce of the Silmarillion.

That said, I think that rpgs are a bad medium for lore, especially for players. Unless the players are into lore themselves and do homework, reading up on the lore away from the table. At the table they have a pretty substantial cognitive load in responding to the situation presented by the DM, in maintaining character, managing their character sheet, following the clues and plot hooks to the next thing.
Contrast this to a book, where all you focus is on the book and all the information is presented to you. You, the reader can just read and experience the book and it the cognitive load get too much one can put the book down and just think about it.
Movies are even easier, because a lot of the elements that support lore and provide context are visually presented, in the acting and the background.

DMs are a different matter to player, they are more inclined to be attracted by lore, world building is often a thing that draws people into running game and they will sit down and read a book of lore as research to a game background.

 

[overgeeked]

Factual history, such as who reigned when and what years the red comet appeared, should be fairly reliable in any society a) whose language has a written form

Cultures with strong oral traditions but no writing are generally big on memorizing these details. It’s a Western bias for writing that wrongly assumes oral traditions are unreliable.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Cultures with strong oral traditions but no writing are generally big on memorizing these details. It’s a Western bias for writing that wrongly assumes oral traditions are unreliable.

I would say oral history is differently unreliable. A lot depends on the number of cultures it has passed through before it got to you. A lot also depends on who wrote it down and for what reason.

 

[Pamphylian]

The answer for my players has always been a good mystery. All my most successful lore deliveries have been because something was hinted at and framed as a mystery that the players could actively pursue and uncover. Not necessarily a straightforward "whodunnit", but stuff like "what happen to this ancient race that mysteriously disappeared after building all these bizarre structures" or "what does this colossal ancient device that responds to stimulus in unsettling ways do".

Instrumentality can help (how can we use this mysterious thing to out advantage), as can hints of a threat (what if we don't stop what ever this probably sinister thing is), but I've found that ultimately those seem to be secondary to just some compelling breadcrumbs and the right combination of information doled out and held back. I had a party change the direction of multiple sessions when an ESPing a random encounter seemed to reveal it to be part of an ancient piece of computing infrastructure.

People are often compelled by mysterious setting elements but sometimes in unexpected ways, there's surely quite a bit of art to it (c.f. Gene Wolfe, David Lynch) that I certainly don't think I have mastered in any meaningful way, so I usually leave many little bread crumb trails and drop unexplained descriptions in passing - many get ignored, but some (not always the ones I expect) become objects of continued fascination. I try to have a pretty good idea of what is going on behind the scenes with the mystery in question (I don't want to give the impression that I am just contriving things post hoc and changing things around based on what the players propose a la how I understand the show Lost to have worked, maybe it works for some but feels unsatisfying to me), but I also tend to leave room for improvisation and often need to do so (and I think players like a bit of this as well, like the meta level feeling that you've gone and poked at a thing the DM did not expect, kind of like when you find a gap of a map in a video game). Not every mystery needs to be solvable, many not without great effort.

That said, I think that rpgs are a bad medium for lore, especially for players.

All this to say that I think rpgs can be a great medium (maybe uniquely great) for lore delivered via partially solvable mysteries, partially because a good mystery is just naturally compelling to people, but also because it makes it interactive - players can zoom in on things they find particularly compelling, and use their actions and brains to uncover more. I think you just have to be comfortable with the possibility (probably the guarantee) that many things will not be revealed - which can be great, you should probably be just hiding many things in your setting for your own pleasure. The sense that there is a lot out hidden out there is nice for players, even if most of it is never made concrete. Luckily a lot of rpg settings (like the DnD implied setting) are great for a natural texture of mystery - generally pre-modern cultures, ruins of ancient more advanced civilizations, horrible sinister forces, etc.

I think another way to make lore matter to players is to give them a hand in creating it, either directly (players can create gods, regions, maybe there are multiple DMs in the same setting) or indirectly, by giving them control of factions or resources - political power, strongholds, armies, etc. - that are at the scale that their interests force them to contend with "lore" (the other factions, political systems etc. of the setting).

Lastly, I've always been compelled by the idea of making NPCs more memorable, more intractable, more useful to PCs by attaching "lore" - again not necessarily exhaustive ethnography, but distinctive bits of custom and (perhaps slightly alien) mindset. Along the lines of this blog post, and this other one on usable customs:

Get it in your head that the average inhabitant of your setting isn't some boring neutral. They are, generally, provincial, cunning, passionate, and concerned with the mores of the land. They are quick to try something and to join something. This makes a lot of incidental encounters more dramatic

I think there is a reason players love "speak with X (animals, plants, objects" magic (and I do to) - you get to explore a particular alien mindset that likely has information about the world that would otherwise be inaccessible.

In general, I think this all is very useful as a DM, because ultimately I'd prefer my players care about the world even more than any individual character (who may come and go - it's a dangerous game they play) - not in the sense of having an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the setting, but caring about and engaging with the movers and shakers of the world and the marks they can leave upon it - they should be key actors in creating the new lore, the stories future setting inhabitants would tell, as the game proceeds. "Lore" is only a piece of this, even in a broadest interpretation of the term, I think you also need satisfying mechanics at various scales. But I aspire to the following description by Anthony Huso:

This game is not about a band of heroic characters. It is about an entire world that, through player choice and creativity can be interacted with to bring about stunning events and outcomes. Outcomes that you will not plan ahead of time, but discover through play.