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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 9815720" data-attributes="member: 6704184">I can find interest in this question, if i ignore the entire rest of the post and thread, so i will endeavor to do so. The main thing that makes players care about the lore elements of their character is to ask them questions that tie them to those elements beyond the stats. Specifics depend on setting so i will assume FR for common language. Your character is a tabaxi, are you from chult, maztica, or is your family an imigrant family and if so where? Are you lazy like most felines, with bursts of extreme energy? Are you easily overstimulated? But know that the player usually hasnt thought that deep because there is jo reason to because most people do not get bothered by whether a frog person is treated differently by the world than a cat person. that is not a failure of player or game, it is an unusual expectation that you need to communicate to the group before session 1. There is no other way to make a cosmetic choice not just cosmetic. Going outside species, i can say that my players are always invested in lore. It always matters in my campaigns. Every PC has 3 Contacts tied to their past, and tied to the world and its lore. Every PC has told me about their upbringing at least a couple sentences. I do the work to give them hooks and tidbits that speak to their past, home, family, etc. I remind them of thier phisiology. When the Troll (think rock trolls and Ludo and such not dnd trolls) character does dope monk stuff i insert their massive rough-skinned form with its moss where hair should be and black-scelera eyes and etc as i describe how thier action plays out in the scene. I remind the gnome ranger how her crystaline eyes absorb and refract the light and turn deeper and darker the more they absorb all the light that hits them, and since sh3 is a forest gnome she hears animal sounds and knows what they mean so i describe the sounds and tudbits of what the animals are saying to eachother. I ask the elf what this part of town looked like last they were here, 120 years ago. It is very much your job as DM to paint the world. If the color pallete doesnt suit you, fix it.</blockquote>

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