Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott Christian" data-source="post: 9838491" data-attributes="member: 6901101">Lore matters when the story makes it one of the characters. A dungeon isn't a group of pathways underground to be cleared out, explored, or destroyed. It is a character, and each step inside of it reveals more about the character. Then, once players see it as such, lore will matter greatly.The problem is...For DMs to create a character dungeon (or any lore that becomes a character), they must do a lot of work ahead of time. If it doesn't flow, or if it is inconsistent, or if it fails a logic/smell test, then it is no longer a character - it is a dungeon. But like I said, it takes a lot of work on the DMs part to pass that smell test, especially for players that pay close attention. In my personal life, what I have found is that most DMs I talk to believe they can just "pull this off." But I have never seen them "pull it off" without the work. Most that think they "pulled it off" just have players that don't know better, don't worry about such things, or are happy not having lore as a character. And that's cool, for them.Again, that is a hard ask from a player if the DM hasn't put in the work to create the cultures and make them interesting. To have values, mindsets, and thought processes different from a human, they must have a culture that is distinct from a human. That doesn't mean this new created culture of say, a turtle person, can't be an amalgam of cultures we know from history or fantasy/sci fi settings. The player has to have something to draw from. And that takes the work of the DM.And let's face it. Many players don't want to play their turtle that way. They want it to be human, but to look like a turtle. But, if your question is actually answered: What qualities must lore posses to make it matter? And we're discussing races. They must have a culture that the player finds interesting. And this again, falls back on the DM. If you want lore to matter to your player that chose a turtle, then start introducing that lore as early as possible; have them stumble on a seaside inn that makes jellyfish stew, just like mom used to. Have them find the remnants of that war hundreds of years ago that almost wiped them out. You know the remnants? The seaside beach where people still find washed up shells, the cliff face still has a blackened blast and arcane symbols that glow at night, and parts of the giant nets used to pull the soldiers away are still caught in the coral reef below the water. (Man, I hate the saughagin!)It's all DM work.  Again, the DM makes this happen by creating consistency; that interconnection between magic and history and culture. The same thing you say for magic could be true of religion in a TTRPG as well. It doesn't mean much if there is no religious social play space for the players to use. And, say it with me, that means, the DM had better be doing the work to make sure it is there, it is interesting to their table, and has thought it through so it passes the smell test.</blockquote>

Verification