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View Full Version : DM Help Using a homebrew setting, don't want to info-dump new players



TylertheCreator
2015-01-03, 10:44 PM
So I have this campaign setting that I and my friends been working on for a couple years now. The gaming group that I'm with right now is used to playing in it, and a couple of them have even worked with me to make their former PCs important NPCs in world events. These guys know the world just as well as I do, because they helped me build it.

However, I'm moving to a new area for college starting this semester, and I'm not going to be able to play with my old group anymore. I have a new group of people lined up to start playing with, and I'm excited to get going. So how do I get these guys relatively up-to-speed on the setting without overloading them with information? I'm considering doing some sort of player packet, but I don't know what all I need to put in and what I can possibly leave out. Any help would be appreciated!

Solaris
2015-01-04, 12:09 AM
I'd say about ten pages of the information pertinent to the common races, base classes, prestige classes, the pantheon, local nations, common knowledge about the monsters, myths and legends their characters should know, and the area they'll be playing in would be good, as well as being on-hand to answer questions they have about the setting.

jedipotter
2015-01-04, 12:33 AM
I, myself, like to go with ''the characters are clueless''. And the players will explore and learn about the world first hand, in real time, as the characters do.

Though a lot of players hate the ''learn as you go approach''. They want to know ''everything''. But luckily when a player says ''everything'' they kinda mean like one page of ''cool stuff'', generally the pure combat related stuff. For example few players care about the ''laws of the kingdom'', but love to have a list of ''taverns they can get in bar fights in''.

And the truth is, unless you make a novel, the characters won't know too much anyway.

BWR
2015-01-04, 03:57 AM
I'd make a brief introduction to the world, a couple pages at most, which the players are expected to read before the game starts. Have any other useful information easily available but don't make it mandatory to know before the game starts. Info-dumps can be annoying, info-sprinkles are great. Just sprinkle a line or two of exposition here and there. "You come to Myra, capital city of the kingdom these past 300 years since the former capital was razed in the Orc Wars" is fine. Spending several minutes explaining the reasons behind the Orc Wars and how the old capital fell, what its name was, etc. is not - unless the players ask for it.

goto124
2015-01-04, 04:22 AM
generally the pure combat related stuff. For example few players care about the ''laws of the kingdom'', but love to have a list of ''taverns they can get in bar fights in''.

The 'laws of the kingdom' might mean 'if a guard gets the slighest hint of violence, off to jail you go'. Which I would consider important.

I second your point though. When starting the game, players only need to know stuff to not get in unnecessary trouble, like ending up in jail 5 minutes into the campaign. Sprinkles of fluff add flavor, but not too much.

jaydubs
2015-01-04, 05:00 AM
Write out a few pages of setting info, and be ready to answer specific questions, as others have mentioned.

In-game though, remember that the characters will know things the players won't. For fairness sake, it's important to chime in when you think the character would know something important that is relevant to a given situation. If it's common knowledge, just tell them.

"Magic is outlawed."
"The country is full of undead so people don't stay out at night."
"There are ordinarily two suns in the sky."
"Worgs are the most common mount, rather than the horse."
Etc.

If it's something that you don't think everyone would know, but the info could be relevant, ask for a knowledge check (or give it out based on background).
"The city guard in the next town over usually wears red and yellow."
"This river marks the border between the two countries. If you cross it, the soldiers won't pursue."
"It is customary to bring a gift when visiting the wood elves."
Etc.

The important thing is not to be playing "gotcha." The players should be able to make informed decisions to a degree reasonable to their characters, unless there's an in-game reason they wouldn't know.

That's not to say you can't run a "characters are ignorant of the setting" campaign. But justify it, and be clear about it from the beginning. They've fallen in from another dimension. They all have convenient amnesia. They've shipwrecked from a foreign land. Etc. It adds to verisimilitude, rather than having ridiculous "you've lived here your whole life but don't know any of the common laws" situations.

JetThomasBoat
2015-01-04, 07:56 AM
I'm in a similar situation and this thread is already rather helpful. Thanks, everyone.

Mr.Moron
2015-01-04, 08:31 AM
I'll usually put one forward 1-2 paragraphs for folks to get the basic jist, plus no more than about 1 page on whatever elements might directly affect them in particular.. something to do with their chosen species, home area or occupation. The rest I'll put some wiki-like structure for them to investigate as much or as little as they want.

daemonaetea
2015-01-04, 10:21 AM
I'm just going to second a lot of the advice on here. The one bit I disagree with, or would caution, is typing up many pages of background info. Depending on the players or group, I can nearly guarantee that won't be read by the majority of players. Or at least, I've never played with a group that would have actually read ten pages of background material.

I always use homebrew settings, and what the others said has usually worked pretty well. Give a short description with some background when they get introduced to people, places, or things. If their characters would know something pertinent about a situation, tell them it. And if the players do seem interested in the history, or seek it out, that's when you can get a bit deeper into it.

aspekt
2015-01-04, 10:27 AM
Most of what I've read is good advice in general.

I would want to know what system are you basing your homebrew on.

How fundamentally different is it from that system.

And what are the players joining used to playing.

That's the only bit that's troubled me here is no player info. It will be easier to get them up to speed the more you know about what they typically play. And not just system, but playstyle as well.

Solaris
2015-01-04, 10:55 AM
I, myself, like to go with ''the characters are clueless''. And the players will explore and learn about the world first hand, in real time, as the characters do.

And the truth is, unless you make a novel, the characters won't know too much anyway.

But what if they're not making peasants from an isolated village in the middle of a dead magic zone where there're no monsters, travelers, or adventurers?

Think about how much you know about your home town and the people in it, your home state, your home country. That's how much the characters should know about their circumstances. The players may not read everything in the first go, but they'll be able to skim it and come away with the sense that the DM has actually created a setting, not just a place for them to kill things in, as well as a detailed idea of what the setting is about. The first page should hold the relevant information. Everything after that is gravy.
If you operate with the assumption that players are murderhobo morons and treat them as such, that's what they're going to be.

But hey, what do I know? I've only been running games for years with players who're interested in the setting and not just the taverns they can kill lots of stuff in.

jedipotter
2015-01-04, 04:00 PM
But what if they're not making peasants from an isolated village in the middle of a dead magic zone where there're no monsters, travelers, or adventurers?

There are the three big problems though:

1. A player can never know as much as a ''typical character would''. It's impossible to cram even just ''living in a town for a year'' into even something like a novel. To even ''get close'', a player would need to watch the equivalent of each episode of a soap opera that is on daily. So it's impossible right off the bat. To even try is a bit pointless. A couple paragraphs don't even come close to scratching the surface. Even a novels worth will leave out tons of stuff. So it's just pretending the small amount of information even means anything.

2. No matter what a DM tells a player about a setting, there will be holes and gaps and masses of lack of information. Even if the DM wrote a novel, it would not be enough. There will always be tons a player does not know, and nothing can change that other then game play. So there will always be things the player character does not know about anyway.

3. Knowing too much ruins all the fun. The fun of the game is experiencing things and playing through them. It's not just knowing a ton of stuff and skipping through the adventure using that knowledge. It's fun when ''bad things'' happen to characters and that is part of playing the game. Like say Grum has a trap door that leads to a sewer full of giant rats and ''it's commonly known in town''. Now the PC that knows nothing walks in, falls for the trap, fights the rats, gets loot and experience, and escapes. Now that is an adventure! Then take PC that reads the handout ''Grum has a trapdoor to dispose of people'', and they go see Grum and avoid the trap. Well, not much adventure there....



Think about how much you know about your home town and the people in it, your home state, your home country. That's how much the characters should know about their circumstances.

And this is less then zero. I prove this all the time in real life. Most players I have met can't make a DC 10 check for information about there home town. Less then half even know who the mayor is, and way less then that can even name one other person in the local government. They can run down the places and stores that they go too, but are utterly clueless about any place else. Not many can even get things like ''name all the pizza places'' or ''all the gas stations''. And even less then that have any details. They know the Quick-E-Mart on main street, but who owns it? What are the names of the cashiers that work there? What products do the sell of note? What ones don't they sell? Well, very few can make this type of DC 10 check.

But in a D&D game a player expects a character to know ''where is the guy that sells elven thin blades'', though they can not tell me ''what local store carries Jolt cola''.



But hey, what do I know? I've only been running games for years with players who're interested in the setting and not just the taverns they can kill lots of stuff in.

I just do it differently. The PC's and the players start off knowing nothing. As they play the game, they learn things. And slowly each player builds up knowledge of the setting....by playing in it.

JusticeZero
2015-01-04, 04:14 PM
give them a lot of "It's getting dark, people will be going inside for the night soon because they're worried about giant mosquitoes" and such. Lots of splashes of info peppering the leadin to every little decision to enrich the descriptions.
I also give people a packet. I don't expect that they'll pore over the packet - but it has stat blocks of the major monsters, because if you live in a country that's been harassed by a monster, you have no excuse not to know what it can do.

Retro Gamer
2015-01-04, 04:18 PM
I like the drip-feed of information style that you often get in video games. It's also handy to remember the show-don't-tell concept in writing. In other words, have the characters start off knowing very little beyond the name of the land in which they start and its general position in the world. You can also give them a high level map to start off with, perhaps. Then, have them encounter NPCs or other information sources that mention people, places or events that the players can then ask for more detail on. You'll already have all of the info, of course, but unleashing it on the players too heavily will just see most of it go over their heads.

Solaris
2015-01-04, 05:05 PM
1. A player can never know as much as a ''typical character would''. It's impossible to cram even just ''living in a town for a year'' into even something like a novel. To even ''get close'', a player would need to watch the equivalent of each episode of a soap opera that is on daily. So it's impossible right off the bat. To even try is a bit pointless. A couple paragraphs don't even come close to scratching the surface. Even a novels worth will leave out tons of stuff. So it's just pretending the small amount of information even means anything.

This is an inane point and directly contradicts your later points.
The reason it is inane is because you don't need to provide them with every tiny little minutiae that someone living in the setting would know. I don't even know why you would get that out of the statement. Your argument is semantics at best. I'll address it further with the point where you contradict yourself.


2. No matter what a DM tells a player about a setting, there will be holes and gaps and masses of lack of information. Even if the DM wrote a novel, it would not be enough. There will always be tons a player does not know, and nothing can change that other then game play. So there will always be things the player character does not know about anyway.

This is a rephrasing of your first point. It is equally inane and equally contradicted by your later point.


3. Knowing too much ruins all the fun. The fun of the game is experiencing things and playing through them. It's not just knowing a ton of stuff and skipping through the adventure using that knowledge. It's fun when ''bad things'' happen to characters and that is part of playing the game. Like say Grum has a trap door that leads to a sewer full of giant rats and ''it's commonly known in town''. Now the PC that knows nothing walks in, falls for the trap, fights the rats, gets loot and experience, and escapes. Now that is an adventure! Then take PC that reads the handout ''Grum has a trapdoor to dispose of people'', and they go see Grum and avoid the trap. Well, not much adventure there....

This isn't binary. You can give the players access to common knowledge and still have mysteries for them to explore.
Adventures come from things other than being a moron who blunders into things even the local peasantry know to avoid. Great adventures, even. The sort that are fun and cool, rather than leaving you with the sinking feeling that your DM has to make you look like a buffoon in order to feel better about himself.


And this is less then zero. I prove this all the time in real life. Most players I have met can't make a DC 10 check for information about there home town. Less then half even know who the mayor is, and way less then that can even name one other person in the local government. They can run down the places and stores that they go too, but are utterly clueless about any place else. Not many can even get things like ''name all the pizza places'' or ''all the gas stations''. And even less then that have any details. They know the Quick-E-Mart on main street, but who owns it? What are the names of the cashiers that work there? What products do the sell of note? What ones don't they sell? Well, very few can make this type of DC 10 check.

But in a D&D game a player expects a character to know ''where is the guy that sells elven thin blades'', though they can not tell me ''what local store carries Jolt cola''.

This is where you contradict points 1. and 2.

You don't need to name all of the stores to know about one store. Again, this isn't binary (you're falling into the Nirvana Fallacy here) - and the fact that your players know only information pertinent to their interests is a pretty strong argument not for their characters knowing 'less than zero' but rather for their characters knowing information pertinent to their interests. A priest would know about the temples, even if he couldn't tell you who's the head of the mage's college. A wizard, contrariwise, would have a passing familiarity (at the least) with the magic university he studied in (or the tower he apprenticed in, or wherever else), but would likely have little clue as to the set-up of the temple district. To not hand that information to the players is simple sloth, no matter how much you try to pretty it up. You don't even have to make it up ahead of time and inform them of it - just hand it to them when they ask.


I just do it differently. The PC's and the players start off knowing nothing. As they play the game, they learn things. And slowly each player builds up knowledge of the setting....by playing in it.

This is swell if what they learn is wondrous and exciting.
Not so much if what they learn is where the outhouse is, or where to find a blacksmith in a town their character supposedly grew up in. That's less 'fun' and more 'tedious'.


I like the drip-feed of information style that you often get in video games. It's also handy to remember the show-don't-tell concept in writing. In other words, have the characters start off knowing very little beyond the name of the land in which they start and its general position in the world. You can also give them a high level map to start off with, perhaps. Then, have them encounter NPCs or other information sources that mention people, places or events that the players can then ask for more detail on. You'll already have all of the info, of course, but unleashing it on the players too heavily will just see most of it go over their heads.

This is a good way to do it, if you must keep information from the hands of players as long as possible.
My only caution is that video games can do it without providing any information to start off with because they don't really expect you to create a character from whole cloth as much as D&D does. Either they provide the background for you, or it's irrelevant to the game.

For example, what if you're in a human city and there's an elf and a dwarf in the party? What if they don't want to have their characters be from Humanland?

veti
2015-01-04, 05:27 PM
The 'laws of the kingdom' might mean 'if a guard gets the slighest hint of violence, off to jail you go'. Which I would consider important.

In that case, the time to mention it is when the players start talking about starting a fight in the town. Trying to tell them that kind of stuff up-front is always going to come across as an info-dump (no matter how "important" you think it is), and at least half of them won't take it in.

As a rule of thumb, assume that everything you tell the players before they start actually playing - including the ten-page guide you printed and bound nicely for them - will be forgotten by the end of the first session. Important information has to be conveyed (a) when someone asks for it, or (b) when it becomes relevant to the players' OOC discussions.

jedipotter
2015-01-04, 05:30 PM
You don't need to name all of the stores to know about one store. Again, this isn't binary (you're falling into the Nirvana Fallacy here) - and the fact that your players know only information pertinent to their interests is a pretty strong argument not for their characters knowing 'less than zero' but rather for their characters knowing information pertinent to their interests. A priest would know about the temples, even if he couldn't tell you who's the head of the mage's college. A wizard, contrariwise, would have a passing familiarity (at the least) with the magic university he studied in (or the tower he apprenticed in, or wherever else), but would likely have little clue as to the set-up of the temple district. To not hand that information to the players is simple sloth, no matter how much you try to pretty it up. You don't even have to make it up ahead of time and inform them of it - just hand it to them when they ask.

It's too much to say that ''a cleric knows all about the temples as he is a cleric''. Why exactly? Your saying along the lines of ''each cleric took a intensive course on Other Religions and Temples and You''. I say that is not automatic. I say a cleric can work at temple A and know nothing about temple B right next door, other then where temple B is... And sure the wizard would..um..know people he knows? But he would not know all the wizards in the town.

I really don't like ''handing'' information out. Like ''everyone walks down the street, but when the red light glows, everyone stops'' and the player says ''Loow-do-dee, I keep walking'' and the DM must say ''oh, your character knows red means stop'' and the player goes ''Oh, ok, I stop...thanks for telling me what to do DM.'' In my game, I want the player to pay attention so when they see something they react. More like ''woah, my character stops too...and looks around to see what is going on''.




This is swell if what they learn is wondrous and exciting.
Not so much if what they learn is where the outhouse is, or where to find a blacksmith in a town their character supposedly grew up in. That's less 'fun' and more 'tedious'.

Eh, potatoe, potato.

veti
2015-01-04, 05:50 PM
But in a D&D game a player expects a character to know ''where is the guy that sells elven thin blades'', though they can not tell me ''what local store carries Jolt cola''.

I couldn't answer a question of the form "what stores carry $THING?", particularly where $THING is Jolt cola, which I've never bought in my life. But I could answer a question of the subtly different form "where would I go to buy $THING?", and I'd think you were being a tad unreasonable if you made me investigate that longhand in-character when my character had been living in the city for years.


I really don't like ''handing'' information out. Like ''everyone walks down the street, but when the red light glows, everyone stops'' and the player says ''Loow-do-dee, I keep walking'' and the DM must say ''oh, your character knows red means stop'' and the player goes ''Oh, ok, I stop...thanks for telling me what to do DM.'' In my game, I want the player to pay attention so when they see something they react. More like ''woah, my character stops too...and looks around to see what is going on''.

So are you going to mention "everyone stops" every time the red light comes on? Or only the first time? If the latter, then you're really giving just the same DM instructions, only in slightly less explicit form.

Or are you not going to mention it at all in future, and just assume that people follow the common rules of walking/driving unless otherwise stated?

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-04, 05:58 PM
1) If you can, get them to make backstories where they are from the same general region/culture/class. This way you have less to worry about.

2) Give out retroactive information. "Before you compliment Lady Whoosit on her fine necklace, being a native of something-something, you would know that such a comment could be possibly taken as a come-on". If you can find a way to get people to actually read the setting material AT ALL, tell me. I can't even get them to read houserules.

3) Put in side quests and skill rolls for the setting. Lord Humbledunder comes around, so roll to tell how the peasantry acts in regards to him. Uh-oh, they aren't terribly fond of him! And now someone is readying a rotten tomato...Even if it doesn't lead much of anywhere, sometimes they'll bite or interact with things. I once was in a session where a player spent a good deal of the session trying to cheat at a race, just because the race was there.

Sidmen
2015-01-04, 07:10 PM
I really don't like ''handing'' information out. Like ''everyone walks down the street, but when the red light glows, everyone stops'' and the player says ''Loow-do-dee, I keep walking'' and the DM must say ''oh, your character knows red means stop'' and the player goes ''Oh, ok, I stop...thanks for telling me what to do DM.'' In my game, I want the player to pay attention so when they see something they react. More like ''woah, my character stops too...and looks around to see what is going on''.
Are all your players' characters amnesiacs at the start of each campaign, until their players manage to deduce the things they should have learned decades ago?

I'm honestly asking, because many of my campaigns start out as exactly that. Especially in Star Wars, which none of the Players know jack about. In other campaigns I give them commonly known details about the setting as they become important. For example, those with light-colored eyes are always social superiors of those with dark eyes. This is vitally important when a blue-eyed man is rabble-rousing, and my brown-eyed player characters have to deal with it. The PCs KNOW this, but the Players won't unless I told them.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-04, 07:13 PM
So I have this campaign setting that I and my friends been working on for a couple years now. The gaming group that I'm with right now is used to playing in it, and a couple of them have even worked with me to make their former PCs important NPCs in world events. These guys know the world just as well as I do, because they helped me build it. There's your answer: start a new setting with the new players.

valadil
2015-01-04, 07:37 PM
I fall on the background knowledge is good side of this argument. Unless the point of the campaign is discovering a new world, I'd like to play a character with some ties to the world he fits into.

But I agree with the problems in info dumps.

Anyway, here's an awesome hack I found that helps this problem a lot. I've found that players tend to read about a page of background. Anything up to that they'll retain. But give them two pages and they start skimming and have a 50% chance of retaining any one sentence from the sheet. Add words and their retention diminishes further.

So in order to give out more than one page of information, I give different pages to different players. Five players each reading a page will have five pages of info between them. You can distribute domain knowledge this way too. Players get excited when it's their turn in the spotlight. Oh and if you're a **** of a GM (I know I am!) you can give them background pages with contradictory information.

jedipotter
2015-01-04, 11:19 PM
I couldn't answer a question of the form "what stores carry $THING?", particularly where $THING is Jolt cola, which I've never bought in my life. But I could answer a question of the subtly different form "where would I go to buy $THING?", and I'd think you were being a tad unreasonable if you made me investigate that longhand in-character when my character had been living in the city for years.

Unless your playing a very simple game, where there is one store, then it matters. Sure anyone can answer ''where can I buy an apple'' with ''the grocery store'', but it's not that simple. And not every store carries every thing. And even if you have lived in the area for decades, you might not know.

The ''get to know your neighborhood'' can be a fun thing for a gaming group to do. It's even more fun to watch the ''cool gamer'' who thinks it will be ''so easy'' to find something.




So are you going to mention "everyone stops" every time the red light comes on? Or only the first time? If the latter, then you're really giving just the same DM instructions, only in slightly less explicit form.

Or are you not going to mention it at all in future, and just assume that people follow the common rules of walking/driving unless otherwise stated?

Well, yes, every time. Though only for ''fun and exciting stuff'' and the boring mundane stuff.


Are all your players' characters amnesiacs at the start of each campaign, until their players manage to deduce the things they should have learned decades ago?


No the characters are all just ''people that did not pay attention''.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2015-01-05, 12:38 AM
The most important thing you can do is to describe your setting with various themes. Eberron is steampunk/magitek with distant gods and dark elements. FR is ridiculous and filled with epic level Mary Sues high magic medieval. Greyhawk is pulp fantasy. Golarion is whatever you want it to be; pick an area. They can ask more detailed questions from there, but the genre can really help with basic expectations.

When creating a campaign setting, a wiki format can be quite useful just for organizing your own thoughts. I recommend making one even if you don't use it for this particular campaign. If you do, present the wiki to the new players, and let them read as much as they'd like. Make it clear that they're not required to read the whole thing, so as not to intimidate them. Then if they're particularly interested in some detail they can go look it up in an easy-to-reference format; this is also a good way to find holes in your setting and fill them!

Most importantly let the noobs tweak the setting with their own characters if they wish. One of the best parts of Greyhawk was the idea that the characters can change the setting permanently.

mephnick
2015-01-05, 07:39 AM
When creating a campaign setting, a wiki format can be quite useful just for organizing your own thoughts. I recommend making one even if you don't use it for this particular campaign. If you do, present the wiki to the new players, and let them read as much as they'd like. Make it clear that they're not required to read the whole thing, so as not to intimidate them. Then if they're particularly interested in some detail they can go look it up in an easy-to-reference format; this is also a good way to find holes in your setting and fill them!

This is what I do for my setting. I have a simple wiki up that briefly outlines the major nations and NPCs. I give an extremely vague rundown of past history, but mostly stick to the last 50 years because that's all the players will immediately care about. Everything else can be learned through asking in game. It helps that I've set it up to require as little info as possible, as gods are distant and otherwise it's fairly generic fantasy. They can read the wiki or they can ignore it, I don't care. It's nothing I can't explain in 10 minutes pre-game.

I've played in groups with DMs that info dump their entire settings on you and I find it really annoying. Honestly most home-made settings, mine included surely, aren't good enough to warrant studying a 30 page guide just to play. No matter how "unique" your setting is ("yeah well MY dwarves are sea-faring"), no one who wasn't involved in making it will care. At all. They just want to play their characters.

Fouredged Sword
2015-01-05, 12:20 PM
I like to do the following.

First, I write up a BRIEF world and character explanation. This is a "here is the basic game premise and here are your character building guidelines."

Everyone then builds their characters.

Then people roll all of their IC knowledge checks, and I give additional information based on that.

Mr.Moron
2015-01-05, 02:06 PM
No the characters are all just ''people that did not pay attention''.

It's immersion breaking for characters that have lived their whole lives in setting to be fumbling around like particularly unobservant and dim-witted foreigners.

Usually in the case of a "stop light" situation I'd something along the lines of

"You'd know that red light means to stop, because the cars in the other direction need to go through the intersection. It'd be illegal and dangerous to keep going, are you sure that's what you'd wanna do in that case?."

"No. I guess not then" -> "Ah, that's probably the more sensible thing"
"Yes. **** the police"* -> "Err, right. Roll to avoid on coming traffic I guess".

I don't need to force them to stop or anything. They keep going if they want but they can keep going in a fully informed fashion.

*though depending on the tone of the campaign, this kind of behavior could quickly get disruptive if continued regularly. In which case I'd probably just remove the player.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 02:13 PM
It's immersion breaking for characters that have lived their whole lives in setting to be fumbling around like particularly unobservant and dim-witted foreigners.

Usually in the case of a "stop light" situation I'd something along the lines of

"You'd know that red light means to stop, because the cars in the other direction need to go through the intersection. It'd be illegal and dangerous to keep going, are you sure that's what you'd wanna do in that case?."

"No. I guess not then" -> "Ah, that's probably the more sensible thing"
"Yes. **** the police"* -> "Err, right. Roll to avoid on coming traffic I guess".

I don't need to force them to stop or anything. They keep going if they want but they can keep going in a fully informed fashion.

*though depending on the tone of the campaign, this kind of behavior could quickly get disruptive if continued regularly. In which case I'd probably just remove the player. The "okay, it's your funeral *shakes head*" approach is rather anti-social, I've found. If there's a massively bad consequence for not understanding some aspect of the game world, I would question it's use in a world that's new to the players, since it's just asking for situations like this.

If the players breeze past something in your setting that you thought you'd clearly established, then you didn't establish it clearly enough and you might as well let it go. You'll find that it's easier for a GM to play the game the players think they're playing, than to try to catch and correct every misstep they make.

Mr.Moron
2015-01-05, 02:38 PM
The "okay, it's your funeral *shakes head*" approach is rather anti-social, I've found. If there's a massively bad consequence for not understanding some aspect of the game world, I would question it's use in a world that's new to the players, since it's just asking for situations like this.

If the players breeze past something in your setting that you thought you'd clearly established, then you didn't establish it clearly enough and you might as well let it go. You'll find that it's easier for a GM to play the game the players think they're playing, than to try to catch and correct every misstep they make.

At this point the only real options are to:

A) Only play in published settings the player base is already intimately familiar with. EDIT: This can be a "Homebrew" setting, assuming you've generated, published, and polished a sufficient amount of material and the players have read it all.

B) Before any action, ask the players why they're taking that action and retroactively make that reasoning canonically "Correct".
C) Set a floor on all possible consequences above the level where they have any meaningful contact.

As B & C don't lead to compelling challenges, this really leaves A as the only thing on the table. Your take demands that players be precisely as informed about the game world as the characters. This is a tall order even if the players are already experts with the setting.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 02:47 PM
At this point the only real options are to:

A) Only play in published settings the player base is already intimately familiar with.
B) Before any action, ask the players why they're taking that action and retroactively make that reasoning canonically "Correct".
C) Set a floor on all possible consequences above the level where they have any meaningful contact.
D) Make a new setting with the new players. The original players wouldn't make dumb mistakes because they helped make the setting. So, do the same with the new players. The problem here is an unwillingness to drop or change the setting.


As B & C don't lead to compelling challenges, Neither does the "Your character would know" rigamarole.


Your take demands that players be precisely as informed about the game world as the characters. This is a tall order even if the players are already experts with the setting. It's a trivial order if the players are helping to make the setting. Then they are precisely as informed about the game world as the characters. Moreso, probably. I might deliberately have my character do something I know is "dumb," just because it will trigger and interesting outcome that I know about because I helped make the world.

Any approach that requires the "Are you sure you want to do that?" nonsense is one that should be denigrated. This is a solved problem.

Reverent-One
2015-01-05, 02:55 PM
D) Make a new setting with the new players. The original players wouldn't make dumb mistakes because they helped make the setting. So, do the same with the new players. The problem here is an unwillingness to drop or change the setting.

Neither does the "Your character would know" rigamarole.

It's a trivial order if the players are helping to make the setting. Then they are precisely as informed about the game world as the characters. Moreso, probably. I might deliberately have my character do something I know is "dumb," just because it will trigger and interesting outcome that I know about because I helped make the world.

Any approach that requires the "Are you sure you want to do that?" nonsense is one that should be denigrated. This is a solved problem.

Your "solved problem" solution involves the assumption that the players want to be involved in the creation of the setting, which can work in specific instances, but fails as a general solution because you can't assume that's true for any particular set of players.

Mr.Moron
2015-01-05, 02:58 PM
D) Make a new setting with the new players. The original players wouldn't make dumb mistakes because they helped make the setting. So, do the same with the new players. The problem here is an unwillingness to drop or change the setting.


Sure they would. All it would take is them forgetting one thing, them having a different interpretation/impression about something that wasn't relevant until the current moment, them not having paid attention when that thing came up, them having been sick for session or even just having had a different interpretation at the time.

Heck players might come up with some element of the setting while RPing -1-on-1 between their characters, while you're off doing something with an NPC and 2 of the other players and they forget to import the changes back to the rest of the group.

Your position assumes that at no point a player should ever be even slightly surprised at something their character would likely be familiar with. That is an impossibly high bar to pass.

EDIT:

"Hey. Here is something that may have been missed but might affect your decision. Here is why it'd affect your decision. Do you want to change anything?" is an even handed way to keep things on the level without unduly punishing anyone.

veti
2015-01-05, 03:03 PM
This is what I do for my setting. I have a simple wiki up that briefly outlines the major nations and NPCs. I give an extremely vague rundown of past history, but mostly stick to the last 50 years because that's all the players will immediately care about. Everything else can be learned through asking in game. It helps that I've set it up to require as little info as possible, as gods are distant and otherwise it's fairly generic fantasy. They can read the wiki or they can ignore it, I don't care. It's nothing I can't explain in 10 minutes pre-game.

A wiki format is great for structuring this kind of information and letting players decide for themselves what they want to know, when they want to know it. It's definitely a much better option than the ten-page printed handout.

But it does have its own pitfalls: it's ridiculously easy to just go on writing as much as you can think of in that format, and only later realise that three-quarters of what you've written shouldn't be common knowledge, and now you have to spend time splitting it up and putting bits of it on 'private' pages.

So if you decide to go that way, it's a very good idea to structure and organise your info along those lines before you start typing or pasting it into the pages.

Mr.Moron
2015-01-05, 03:06 PM
A wiki format is great for structuring this kind of information and letting players decide for themselves what they want to know, when they want to know it. It's definitely a much better option than the ten-page printed handout.

But it does have its own pitfalls: it's ridiculously easy to just go on writing as much as you can think of in that format, and only later realise that three-quarters of what you've written shouldn't be common knowledge, and now you have to spend time splitting it up and putting bits of it on 'private' pages.

So if you decide to go that way, it's a very good idea to structure and organise your info along those lines before you start typing or pasting it into the pages.

The way I get around this problem is by making everything "Private" to start, then when things are done I import them into the public version.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 03:28 PM
Your "solved problem" solution Only one of a number of ways to solve the problem of "Your character wouldn't do that."


involves the assumption that the players want to be involved in the creation of the setting, which can work in specific instances, but fails as a general solution because you can't assume that's true for any particular set of players. The same could be said for "Your character wouldn't do that." Some players tolerate it, but lots of players find it annoying.

If we're assuming the players don't want an info dump, and the table doesn't want to keep halting the game for corrective action, then they're really going to have to be involved in creating the world, at least to a degree. Most players can tolerate that, at least to a degree.

gom jabbarwocky
2015-01-05, 03:34 PM
The wiki solution seems like a decent option. It's not perfect by a long shot, but it's a lesser evil.

I've never wiki-fied a campaign before myself - I usually write an infodump and give it to the players, but try and keep it short, absolutely no more than 2.5 pages. Some players will read the whole thing, others will at least skim it. Part of the key to getting players to actually read the darn things is to punch them up a bit - there's no need to go into R2-D2 mode when writing about your setting. Give it some character - heck, if they are written from an in-universe perspective, go wild, especially if your setting is really weird.

When I ran a cyberpunk game I tried some experiments in how long I could make infodumps before no one would read them. Slowly, they got longer and longer and stranger and stranger until I was dropping an 8-page PDF on them with size 10 font, done entirely in chat logs and the insane ramblings of conspiracy theorists. Players would still drop stuff in game that I had forgotten I included in it, so I guess I never found out what the limit was for infodumps before player apathy prevents them from reading it. The secret was making the players think that they were worth reading, I guess - make it part of the game, so they'll think that if they keep reading they'll uncover some hidden lore that will be the secret to beating the BBEG, or acquiring a game-breaking power, when in reality it's just colorful set dressing.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 03:43 PM
Sure they would. All it would take is them forgetting one thing, them having a different interpretation/impression about something that wasn't relevant until the current moment, them not having paid attention when that thing came up, them having been sick for session or even just having had a different interpretation at the time. That's still no reason to go into "Your character wouldn't do that."

The metaphor here is obedience to traffic signals, and that's an important one. What happens when people in real life disobey traffic signals: usually nothing of any significance. At most, they might get honked at, or have words with the passengers. Occasionally traffic violators are involved in serious accidents or suffer some legal penalty. So, as long as we're all smart enough to avoid putting in things that "always" happen in response to something else, then no problem.

Oh, they did the thing? Someone makes a comment and they move on. Or, heck, nothing happens this time, and the GM makes sure next time to flag whatever the thing is more obviously.


Heck players might come up with some element of the setting while RPing -1-on-1 between their characters, while you're off doing something with an NPC and 2 of the other players and they forget to import the changes back to the rest of the group. As long as it's not something that is a sweeping, always-on change to the game world, it shouldn't be a problem.


Your position assumes that at no point a player should ever be even slightly surprised at something their character would likely be familiar with. That is an impossibly high bar to pass. Not at all. I play like that all the time.

Back to your B) option (B) Before any action, ask the players why they're taking that action and retroactively make that reasoning canonically "Correct".), it's not that it doesn't lead to compelling challenges. For one thing, being challenged as a result of things the player didn't know about but the character would is not a "compelling challenge." It's a gotcha, or a flub, not an actual challenge. And anyway, there's more to that option then asking the player why they did that thing. Ask them why a particular consequence doesn't happen to them this time. They'll build off of the nature of those consequences, and remember the consequences b


EDIT:

"Hey. Here is something that may have been missed but might affect your decision. Here is why it'd affect your decision. Do you want to change anything?" is an even handed way to keep things on the level without unduly punishing anyone. It's a block. It's a non-creative halt to play, which is likely to make the player regret opening their mouth in the first place, and will lead to players that ask copious questions before doing anything. You wind up with the info dump anyway, and a much less efficient one.

Besides which, that sort of thing is often a thinly-veiled attempt to get the player to behave. When they don't, a GM will often make sure that the consequences are atrociously bad, in order to teach the player a lesson - not about the game world, but about throwing curveballs to the GM.

TylertheCreator
2015-01-05, 05:27 PM
The solution of making a new setting is not something I want to do, and the players I have are uninterested in making a new setting with me. This is not a solved problem, or at least it's not solved by doing that because no one at the table wants to do that.

A wiki seems like a sensible solution in the long run, but I need something to give the players a couple days before Session 0 (where we sit down and create characters together) both on their request and because I'd like them to have a working knowledge of the setting beforehand. Not having a working knowledge of the setting, and not dripping information as we go along, seems to be a terrible solution for my players and I. It may work for some, but not my table.



It's a block. It's a non-creative halt to play, which is likely to make the player regret opening their mouth in the first place, and will lead to players that ask copious questions before doing anything. You wind up with the info dump anyway, and a much less efficient one.

Besides which, that sort of thing is often a thinly-veiled attempt to get the player to behave. When they don't, a GM will often make sure that the consequences are atrociously bad, in order to teach the player a lesson - not about the game world, but about throwing curveballs to the GM.

Firstly, it takes all of 10 seconds to exchange these words:

GM:"Well, your character knows a about x, does that change your decision?"

Player: "No, my character feels b about x and y, so he'll do it anyway."

Second, you're presuming a lot about the way I run my table. I like curveballs, and I like players that do things unexpected so that I have to react on the fly.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 05:41 PM
The solution of making a new setting is not something I want to do, and the players I have are uninterested in making a new setting with me. This is not a solved problem, or at least it's not solved by doing that because no one at the table wants to do that. The problem as a general concept is solved and has been for years, if not decades. If you choose not to use the solution, then yeah YOUR problem isn't solved.

You also don't have to make an entirely new setting, just drop or alter the things that the players don't get but should. Oh, a player thought that such a race existed, when you thought it didn't? Well, now it does. Oh, a player thought something was proper etiquette when you know it's not. Well, either it's now proper, or this time the character gets away with it. As long as you're willing to let go of certain truths about your setting, you can greatly reduce the clash between it and your setting.


A wiki seems like a sensible solution in the long run, but I need something to give the players a couple days before Session 0 (where we sit down and create characters together) both on their request and because I'd like them to have a working knowledge of the setting beforehand. Not having a working knowledge of the setting, and not dripping information as we go along, seems to be a terrible solution for my players and I. Glad to see that the idea of a Session 0 is alive and kicking.

Just look over your setting for things that a player might stumble over, and either remove them, or alter them so that stumbling over them isn't going to wreck anyone's fun. Then they can stumble, and learn as they go. Keywords to watch out for are "always," "never," "none," "all," and anything else that implies implacable absolutes.

I'll note that this is why many stories have characters who start out clueless: so the setting can be explained to the viewer. Why not start with characters who, for whatever reason, just don't know that much about the world?

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 05:46 PM
Firstly, it takes all of 10 seconds to exchange these words:

GM:"Well, your character knows a about x, does that change your decision?"

Player: "No, my character feels b about x and y, so he'll do it anyway." It's still a block. It's still going to lead to players asking questions instead of taking action, because players tend not to like being blocked.


Second, you're presuming a lot about the way I run my table. I like curveballs, and I like players that do things unexpected so that I have to react on the fly. I didn't say anything about your table, just about that approach in general. If you don't treat players like they're dopey or need punishment when they do the thing you think their character woudn't do, great. But in that case, why point out the misstep at all? Just let them do it and see what happens. If it's not a punishment, but instead teaches them about the world in an interesting way, then they'll probably remember it far better. Not as well if they were to tell you what consequences are, but better than if they're just corrected.

TylertheCreator
2015-01-05, 06:11 PM
I'll note that this is why many stories have characters who start out clueless: so the setting can be explained to the viewer. Why not start with characters who, for whatever reason, just don't know that much about the world?

I just can't think of any stories where the characters who are native to the world are ignorant of huge parts of it. Especially if the character is someone who has studied their entire lives and makes a point to state how well-learned they are.

If someone makes a noble character, nine times out of ten, they're going to know noble etiquette.

If someone makes a wizard, ten times out of ten, they're going to know how magic works.

And so on.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 06:24 PM
I just can't think of any stories where the characters who are native to the world are ignorant of huge parts of it. Luke Skywalker, Bilbo, Frodo, Willow, Harry Potter, Jason Bourne, etc.


Especially if the character is someone who has studied their entire lives and makes a point to state how well-learned they are. That's why the main characters or narrators are often not such a character.


If someone makes a noble character, nine times out of ten, they're going to know noble etiquette.

If someone makes a wizard, ten times out of ten, they're going to know how magic works.

And so on. Well, they could always just not make such characters.

Or, you could abstract things more, until they get the hang of it. A player doesn't need to know proper etiquette any more than a player needs to know how to swing a sword. That's exactly the point of skill checks: so that people can play characters who know more than they do. I don't need to know about stoplights, if I can just tell the GM that my character travels to the location.

TylertheCreator
2015-01-05, 06:28 PM
Well, they could always just not make such characters.

Or, you could abstract things more, until they get the hang of it. A player doesn't need to know proper etiquette any more than a player needs to know how to swing a sword. That's exactly the point of skill checks: so that people can play characters who know more than they do. I don't need to know about stoplights, if I can just tell the GM that my character travels to the location.

I think this comes down to a playstyle difference. Yours seems to work great for you and your table, but it wouldn't work for me and mine. The topic at hand, though, was what sort of things I should put into a player packet before the game.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-05, 06:30 PM
I think this comes down to a playstyle difference. Yours seems to work great for you and your table, but it wouldn't work for me and mine. The topic at hand, though, was what sort of things I should put into a player packet before the game. And one answer to that question is: nothing.

If that answer appeals to you, and you'd like to know how to achieve that, I'd be happy to talk with you about it. Feel free to PM me.

Flickerdart
2015-01-05, 06:37 PM
So I have this campaign setting that I and my friends been working on for a couple years now. The gaming group that I'm with right now is used to playing in it, and a couple of them have even worked with me to make their former PCs important NPCs in world events. These guys know the world just as well as I do, because they helped me build it.

However, I'm moving to a new area for college starting this semester, and I'm not going to be able to play with my old group anymore. I have a new group of people lined up to start playing with, and I'm excited to get going. So how do I get these guys relatively up-to-speed on the setting without overloading them with information? I'm considering doing some sort of player packet, but I don't know what all I need to put in and what I can possibly leave out. Any help would be appreciated!
Conservation of detail is your best friend. Info packets are like instruction manuals - nobody reads them. If you are confident in your writing ability, a little short story in the style of George Martin might be nice (every book has a chapter at the start from a one-off PoV). Use the story to drop things like place names and cultural quirks.

Instead, start with what the players care about. Ask them to pitch to you broad character concepts. Someone said a Rogue on the run from his partners due to a deal gone wrong? Well it just so happens that so and so guild exists in such and such a city, and hey they have this code and this relationship with the local Duke. 2-3 paragraphs of character-related information that you're only giving him. Let the player build his character based on this stuff, and if he has more questions, answer them.

Then in the game, once you cross the government, the player can go "oh yeah, the Duke, I know him, nicked this sword from him once" because he has this knowledge special to his character. Anyone else could roll the Knowledge check (either to get that info or to learn more) but this initial seed is what makes that possible.

JetThomasBoat
2015-01-05, 06:41 PM
This reminds me of the few times I tried to get my friends to play a game in Eberron. I didn't know about the idea of having a Session 0 and so I sort of just talked with them a bit and gave them like a week to look through stuff in the ECS. None of them had jobs at the time, so it wasn't an issue of time. I just didn't realize that it would be so hard to get them to read anything at all about it.

This was a long time ago, though, and I was even worse as a DM than I am now.

Algeh
2015-01-05, 08:19 PM
I'd go with a page of "if you're from Generic Starting Point, this is the setting information you should know when creating a character" bullet points (things like "transformation magic is outlawed" or "the society is matriarchal" or "half-elves are incredibly rare and of high religious status as a result" or "no one but nobles may train with a sword or ride a horse" or whatever first, then less critical to character creation choices but still relevant background info like "the country is recovering from a civil war 30 years ago" to round out the page).

Then, I'd add another page of "optional suggestions for character plot hooks/archetypes/skillsets/whatever that would do well in this campaign" for players who still don't have a clear idea of what to create for characters in this setting. Even if they don't end up fleshing out something (or combination of things) from that list, it will give them more clues about the setting that may help them get ideas for something else they would like to play. These can be plot-hook-specific like "The church of Blah is concerned about the growing influence of the Cult Of MacGuffin and would like to send a Paladin or cleric to the city of Starting Point to investigate" or less colorful "it would be helpful if someone focused on a diplomacy-centered build, and in this settling that would probably be HomeBrew Race #5 if you're trying to optimize" or "we will be doing a lot of dungeon delving and maybe someone should be good at disarming traps". The richer these are the more information it gives about the setting, and having a bunch of these to choose from can help players pick something that both sounds interesting to them and will fit well in your campaign rather than something that doesn't make sense for reasons they don't know about yet. Be open to them writing a character concept not on the list (and make that clear to them) but it can help clarify what kind of setting you've got going on ("of course you could have played a dragon-unicorn hybrid PC! What do you mean it never occurred to you ask! It's obvious!").

Lappy9001
2015-01-05, 09:02 PM
I'm actually running a game now that is a custom world. The players knew nothing going in, except that pretty much any chapter concept works fine. They helped me build the world too; their backstories become canon and I take great strides to include things from their character's histories into the game. This has worked splendidly in two groups, one with my normal group with years of experience, and another in a group of relative newbies.

I think the key to this approach is to add in setting information slowly, and record it for yourself and the players. If it's a fantasy kitchen sink, it should work fine. If your world is completely tropical and doesn't have dwarves or iron weapons...you would need to make that known to the players before they make a dwarven fighter in plate armor. It's actually the setting being recorded in my signature if you'd like to see the results.

Kami2awa
2015-01-06, 03:48 AM
I'd say, whenever you give players information of any kind keep it short and simple, as much so as possible. I've seen published modules with huge blocks of descriptive text that take forever to read out - why bother? Even keeping descriptions to a sentence or two, I have players interrupt me halfway through to rush into the room I haven't finished describing yet.

Also, I'd advise not giving players written information - tell them verbally. It's more sociable and ensures they have at least been exposed to the information.

Solaris
2015-01-06, 12:21 PM
I'd say, whenever you give players information of any kind keep it short and simple, as much so as possible. I've seen published modules with huge blocks of descriptive text that take forever to read out - why bother? Even keeping descriptions to a sentence or two, I have players interrupt me halfway through to rush into the room I haven't finished describing yet.

Also, I'd advise not giving players written information - tell them verbally. It's more sociable and ensures they have at least been exposed to the information.

You're contradicting yourself here, unless you suggest the setting information should be limited to a sentence or two.
There's also the fact that people remember more of what they read than what they hear - and having it written means they can reference it later.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-06, 12:23 PM
People recall poorly things they've merely read or been told. They recall well things they've actually helped create.

Solaris
2015-01-06, 01:46 PM
People recall poorly things they've merely read or been told. They recall well things they've actually helped create.

You mean to suggest players have a hand in creating their setting? Heresy! Players exist to be dictated to and treated as though they were lesser beings, and if they don't like it then they're wrong!

Joking aside, re-creating the setting with the players is probably the best option unless they're really, really not the slightest bit interested in world-building.

Beta Centauri
2015-01-06, 02:06 PM
Joking aside, re-creating the setting with the players is probably the best option unless they're really, really not the slightest bit interested in world-building. True, though I find that people who are really, really not the slightest bit interested in world-building still go about making assumptions that they think should be true about the world. If the GM accepts those assumptions as true, and adds on to them, the player has helped build the world. If the GM blocks those assumptions, the player might be fine with that, but might begin to feel that the world doesn't make sense, and from then on will probably ask questions rather than make even quite reasonable assumptions.