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kellyda4
2016-12-16, 02:57 AM
I wanted to get opinions on different ways the worlds players are in are introduced to them. For example, if a DM says you're playing in Golarion do they expect you to know all about the world and read up on it in advance or will they just tell you the details about the world associated with the current campaign as needed or as you discover things? Is there ever a time where they just send you stuff to read on your own before a session to familarize yourself with a world whether it be something like Golarion or a homebrew world they have created? Or if it's a homebrew for example and you're with a new group, do they give you some hand outs and maps so you know basic info when you begin playing or just have all players start in a random spot and show them the world as needed?

Just wrestling with how/when to expose players to the world they are in and some cool ways people do that. Thanks,

Knaight
2016-12-16, 03:07 AM
Handouts and maps work pretty well - I wouldn't expect more than a few pages to be both read and remembered, but that's generally fine; you can work background details into descriptions.

hifidelity2
2016-12-16, 08:27 AM
Most of the worlds I use are mine – as in made up

I will normally give them the basics up front

Some details about when they live (A basic map if they are staying in the area, a rough sketch of the country they are in (location of nearest major town, capital etc)
Who is their lord
Basic political structure

I can add more detail as they go along

The only 2 I use that is regenerated is Gorlanthia for RuneQuest and Starwars – here I will read up and if I have a player(s) who knowns more than me I will generally have a OCC discussion with them and either advise them that its only “Based” on the setting so I will change things or that I want to keep it more pure and if they notices me making a mistake to let me know and then I can then get the world back on track

Corsair14
2016-12-16, 08:37 AM
I usually have a pretty in depth handout about the area the PCs live in, major history events they would know about, current events they would know about and so on. Also included would be which races and classes were allowed(I have no issue limiting either depending on my campaign for example warlocks and monks have no business in my world, hell, monks outside of an Oriental Adventures campaign have no business in DnD except in a cloistered monastery copying books). If there are additional races I add them to and will show the area the campaign is based in's general attitudes towards different races. You wont be seeing hobgoblins in my main city for example, although draconian traders and mercenaries from Tyr are fairly common(Current campaign takes place in northeast Krynn-esque).

darkmammoth
2016-12-16, 12:56 PM
What you do depends largely on the experience and familiarity of the setting. If you have players that are veterans to games like d&d or pathfinder then little explanation should be needed. If you are using homebrew settings or very obscure published world then some explanation is needed. Handouts and maps as already mentioned are good but also use the Web as you can find images or wiki pages, fam pages, etc. that have the information for you. This also comes in handy for differences in the same setting. Example: D&D's forgotten realms had pretty different world maps before the spell plague event and after.

Mastikator
2016-12-16, 03:09 PM
I second the handouts. Keep it short and easy, just a few paragraphs that cover the important basics. Give them enough information that they can make accurate assumptions to fill in the gaps.

Then make more handouts for the players with character knowledge. Start with the most relevant information. And again, keep it short. A few paragraphs. If you expect them to read a dozen pages then you may find yourself having written a whole lot and having nobody read it.
If you want to write several pages worth of information and have that as an entry requirement then tell the players.

Make sure that the players create characters with you around (either by phone or in the flesh) so that you can make corrections, suggestions and answer questions. The character creation process will help them absorb relevant world info since it won't just feel like exposition dump.

Freed
2016-12-16, 05:19 PM
If homebrew I let them go along and tell them basic knowledge if they ask, otherwise I have them roll.
If pre-made, same thing, but if a player already knows something I'll let them know it unless their character definitely would not.

RazorChain
2016-12-16, 08:39 PM
I tend to give the basic up front, like a one pager in homebrew and then expand upon it as requested or through play.

During play I might hand out something about local legend to the characters that have appropriate lore skills if its relevant to the adventure.

Between session when I update the campaign journal I slip in additional information as well. All handouts also end in the campaign journal

Baelon
2016-12-16, 09:28 PM
My answer, personally, is a bit on the extreme side. When I was introducing people who'd never played in my homebrew setting to the setting the summer before last, I wrote a 42 page player's guide detailing the region they'd be playing in, some history of that region, the races found in said region, the region's major religions, and how the classes in core Pathfinder related to that region. Which is insane and I'm well aware of that.

Now, mind you, I didn't expect even a tenth of the information therein to be actually retained. It was meant to serve as reference material. It was something to skim through during character creation and maybe looked at sometimes between games. It had pictures and maps and made up quotes and prose and other fun stuff. It was very much modeled on the player's guides that Paizo puts out for their adventure paths. It wasn't a text to be read and memorized, it was one to be referred to when necessary.

If anyone read the whole thing, bully on them, they'd be far more prepared to roleplay in the setting. If they didn't and just used it as a reference, they'd still be good to go.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-12-16, 09:53 PM
Don't.

I get that world-building is a lot of work (I engage in it myself) and its nice to have that work appreciated but most players just don't care.

As long as you've got your rules/houserules clearly defined, just dump 'em in the starting location, give 'em the basic outline of that place, and go from there; feeding them relevant world information as it becomes needed or when they ask for it.

If you do otherwise, it'll just go in one ear and out the other and you'll have wasted your breath/ paper.

bulbaquil
2016-12-18, 03:21 PM
Generally, expounding on world lore on an as-needed/as-relevant or as-requested basis is the way to go.

Now, for certain campaigns, "as-relevant" information may become apparent during character creation or even beforehand, or will become apparent very quickly in play.

2D8HP
2016-12-18, 04:49 PM
Don't..I agree witg Kelb.
Read below for putting it in practice.


So, I am having trouble with my players. All new to 3.5, all fairly inexperienced with 5e and D&D in general, they nevertheless signed up to join my campaign. I sent them everything they neededOK sounds like a good start.

Am I unique now in thinking it a good idea to actually start a game knowing a little about the world as though I grew up there? Unusual? Unfortunately not.

They dont read anything, they make no attemptYour surprised?
wrote a fairly compact players guide to my world, including character creation and world background, house rules, geography and, most importantly for tonights rant, the pantheon of both the country they are playing in (a custom pantheon), and the rest of the world (listed where to find information on the gods).Geography and Pantheon? That hardly sounds compact, and actually sounds detrimental to the experience.

My main issue is the lack of understanding of game rules.Yeah that can be problematic, they're so many of them and......
Oh!
You mean the players??!!
When I started playing DnD the players weren't supposed to know all the rules:You are a DM aren't you? Because
As this book is the exclusive precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player possessing it as something less than worthy of honorable death.

OK, I think I perceive the problem. The "players" want to have fun exploring during play the fantastic world you created, whilst you want them to play act inhabitants from the start.
Just stop that. It is contrary to how the most gloriously fun game ever created was originally played.
But by Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Worvan, we can fix it!


The first version of what became D&D was the rules system inside Dave Arneson's mind.

The rules are there because players want some idea of what the odds are first, and it's easier to choose from a catalog than write on a blank page.

When D&D started there was no mention of role-playing on the box!
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DSs2bX13hVc/SfSTvUzCu4I/AAAAAAAAA9A/9bUyti9YmUk/s320/box1st.jpg
While the 1977 Basic set did indeed say "FANTASY ROLE-PLAYING GAME"
http://i2.wp.com/shaneplays.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/dungeons_and_dragons_dd_basic_set_1stedition_origi nal_box_holmes_edition.jpg?zoom=4&resize=312%2C386
The phrase "role-playing" was not part of the 1974 rules.
http://i2.wp.com/shaneplays.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/original_dungeons_and_dragons_dd_men_and_magic_cov er.jpg?zoom=4&resize=312%2C494
Notice that the cover says "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames", not role-playing!
I believe the first use of the term "role-playing game" was in a Tunnels & Trolls supplement that was "compatible with other Fantasy role-playing games", but early D&D didn't seem any more or less combat focused than the later RPG's I've played, (in fact considering how fragile PC''s were avoiding combat was often the goal!) so I wouldn't say it was anymore of a "Wargame". I would however say it was more an exploration game, and was less character focused.
Frankly while role-playing is alright, it's the 'enjoying a "world" where the fantastic is fact' part that is much more interesting to me.

These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs'
Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find Dungeons & Dragons to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last
bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a "world" where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!
E. Gary Gygax
Tactical Studies Rules Editor
1 November 1973
Lake Geneva, WisconsinWhile I'm ever grateful to Holmes for his work translating the game rules into English, perhaps he (an academic psychologist) is to be blamed for mis-labelling D&D with the abominable slander of "role-playing" (a psychological treatment technique).
It's too late now to correct the misnomer, but D&D is, was, and should be a fantasy adventure game, not role-playing, a label no good has come from!

“If I want to do that,” he said, “I’ll join an amateur theater group.” (see here (http://www.believermag.com/issues/200609/?read=article_lafarge)).
While Dave Arneson later had the innovation of having his players "roll up" characters, for his "homebrew" of Chainmail:
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/04/the-original-dungeon-masters/

At first the players played themselves in a Fantastic medievalish world:
http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/2016/10/in-celebrate-of-dave-arnesons-birthday.html?m=1

So a wargame was made into a setting exploration game, and then was later labelled a "role-playing" game.
While it's still possible to play D&D as the wargame it once was, I'm glad that the game escaped the "wargame" appellation, which makes the game more attractive to those of us with 'less of an interest in tactics, however I argue (to beat a dead horse), that the labeling of D&D as a role-playing game is hurtful ("Your not role-playing, your roll-playing! etc.).
Just label D&D an adventure game, and people can be spared all the hand-wringing, and insults when acting and writing talents don't measure up to "role-playing" standards, and instead we can have fun exploring a fantastic world together.
Please?

Start with some basics, explain verbally that Dungeons & Dragons is a table-top adventure game in which you control the action attempts of adventurers exploring a fantastic world.

Tell them the DM describes a scene.

Players say what actions their PC attempts.

DM makes up a percentage chance of success.

Player rolls dice.

Then the DM narrates the results.

That's the game.

You will be the eyes and ears of the PC's.
Tell the players what their PC's perceive including what the PC's think the odds are. Ask them what the actions of the PC'S are like this:
"Fafhrd (use the PC's name, not the players name, this is to help immersion) you see the Witch King approach what do you do?".

Further explain that the PC's whose action attempts the players control have hit points, and when the PC's suffer damage, the PC's lose hit points. When the PC's have no hit points left, their PC's die. Stress this.
Then explain ability scores.
Start with Strength. Explain that most people have average Strength of 10, and that one in a thousand are so strong that they have a Strength of 18, and that one in a thousand are so weak that they have a Strength of 3.
Explain the other "abilities" likewise.

Next the PC's backgrounds.
Somehow (Worldbuild a reason by Crom!) the PC's speak the language of the region the adventure starts in, but they come from somewhere else, "a small village", "the forest", :the Hall of the Mountain King", together you can add details later.

What gods do the PC's worship?
None.
They worship a goddess who goes by many names:
Tyche, Fortuna, Dame Fortune, The "Lady" (luck). Her holy symbol is dice used as a necklace, and her worshippers hymn is "please, oh please, oh please! ".

Introduce the rest of the Pantheon in play, through what the PC's see and hear. Likewise the Geography.

What brings them to the adventure site?

Treasure!

I'd have to say that I would like to start the campaign In medias res, by the DM telling us something like:
“In the Year of the Behemoth, the Month of the Hedgehog, The Day of the Toad."

"Satisfied that they your near the goal of your quest, you think of how you had slit the interesting-looking vellum page from the ancient book on architecture that reposed in the library of the rapacious and overbearing Lord Rannarsh."

“It was a page of thick vellum, ancient and curiously greenish. Three edges were frayed and worn; the fourth showed a clean and recent cut. It was inscribed with the intricate hieroglyphs of Lankhmarian writing, done in the black ink of the squid. Reading":
"Let kings stack their treasure houses ceiling-high, and merchants burst their vaults with hoarded coin, and fools envy them. I have a treasure that outvalues theirs. A diamond as big as a man's skull. Twelve rubies each as big as the skull of a cat. Seventeen emeralds each as big as the skull of a mole. And certain rods of crystal and bars of orichalcum. Let Overlords swagger jewel-bedecked and queens load themselves with gems, and fools adore them. I have a treasure that will outlast theirs. A treasure house have I builded for it in the far southern forest, where the two hills hump double, like sleeping camels, a day's ride beyond the village of Soreev.

"A great treasure house with a high tower, fit for a king's dwelling—yet no king may dwell there. Immediately below the keystone of the chief dome my treasure lies hid, eternal as the glittering stars. It will outlast me and my name,"

100 years ago the sorcerer Zenopus built a tower on the low hills overlooking Portown. The tower was close to the sea cliffs west of the town and, appropriately, next door to the graveyard.
Rumor has it that the magician made extensive cellars and tunnels underneath the tower. The town is located on the ruins of a much older city of doubtful history and Zenopus was said to excavate in his cellars in search of ancient treasures.

Fifty years ago, on a cold wintry night, the wizard's tower was suddenly engulfed in green flame. Several of his human servants escaped the holocaust, saying their rnaster had been destroyed by some powerful force he had unleashed in the depths of the tower.
Needless to say the tower stood vacant fora while afterthis, but then the neighbors and the night watchmen comploined that ghostly blue lights appeared in the windows at night, that ghastly screams could be heard emanating from the tower ot all hours, and goblin figures could be seen dancina on the tower roof in the moonlight. Finally the authorities had a catapult rolled through the streets of the town and the tower was battered to rubble. This stopped the hauntings but the townsfolk continue to shun the ruins. The entrance to the old dungeons can be easily located as a flight of broad stone steps leading down into darkness, but the few adventurous souls who hove descended into crypts below the ruin have either reported only empty stone corridors or have failed to return at all.
Other magic-users have moved into the town but the site of the old tower remains abandoned.
Whispered tales are told of fabulous treasure and unspeakable monsters in the underground passages below the hilltop, and the story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of the older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.
Portown is a small but busy city 'linking the caravan routes from the south to the merchant ships that dare the pirate-infested waters of the Northern Sea. Humans and non-humans from all over the globe meet here.
At he Green Dragon Inn, the players of the game gather their characters for an assault on the fabulous passages beneath the ruined Wizard's tower.

:smile:



To avoid "railroading" don't drop the PC's into a situation that is lame with their having no choice in the matter
Instead, as in treasure seeking examples, the DM has dropped the PC's into a situation that is AWESOME! so of course the players would choose it.

Don't forget to have someone say:

"When do we get there?"
"Real soon!"

"Demon Dogs!"

"What is best in life?

"This goes to eleven".

"What about you centurion, do you think there's anything funny?"

"A shrubbery!"

:wink:

Your welcome..

LibraryOgre
2016-12-19, 02:49 PM
Depends on the group and their standing familiarity, but I like to prepare two different levels.

One is the Executive summary. A single page of pertinent information, usually with a map of the nearby area.

The second is the dossier, for those who want to read it. This can be several pages long, and it's the full set of player information.

Jay R
2016-12-20, 12:33 PM
Mark's approach of a summary and a long form is good. Don't forget that there are also subsets. I wrote a longer description of the gods that went out to the cleric's player alone. Similarly, if there is anything unusual about the magic, there's no reason a fighter or rogue would know about it, but the players of the casters should be told.

And don't forget that informing them of background information is an ongoing process. Three episodes into the game, you might realize that you never told them that there are two moons. Even then, nobody should have to roll to learn what they've seen in the sky all their lives.

In my most recent game, I had them all grow up in an isolated village, so they wouldn't know much about the world, to improve the fun of exploration (and to hide a couple of important themes until they become relevant).

You will begin as first level characters with very little knowledge of the outside world. Your character is just barely adult – 14 years old. You all know each other well, having grown up in the same tiny village. Everyone in this village grows their own food, and it’s rare to see anybody from outside the village, or anything not made in the village. There is a smith, a village priest, but very few other specialists.

You are friends, even if you choose to have very different outlooks, because almost everybody else in the village, and absolutely everyone else anywhere near your age, are dull villagers, with little imagination.

By contrast, you and your friends sometimes stare down the road, or into the forest, wondering what the world is like.

The world is basically early medieval. You all speak a single language for which you (reasonably) have no name. If you learn another language, you’ll know more about what that means.

It’s a really small village. There are fewer than 100 people living there, which is smaller than it used to be. There are chickens, goats, sheep, a couple of oxen, but no horses or cows.

The village has a single road going out of town to the north and south, and you’ve never been on it. The only travel on it occurs when a few wagons go off to take food to market – and even that hasn’t happened in the last few seasons. Very rarely, a traveler may come through, and spend the night with the priest. You have all greedily listened to any stories these travelers tell. Your parents say this isn’t good for you – what’s here in the village is good enough for you, and all travelers are always liars, anyway.

A stream runs through the village. (This is primarily so you can learn fishing if you desire.) There are also a few wells.

The village is surrounded by a haunted forest nearby. You have occasionally gone a few hundred feet into it on a dare, but no further, and never at night. I will modify this (slightly) for any character who wishes to start as a Druid or Ranger. Nobody gets to know the modification unless they choose one of those classes.

Three times in your lifetime the village has been raided at night from the forest. You were children, and were kept safe in a cellar. Some villagers have died, but by the time you were let out, whatever the attackers were had fled or been buried.

There is very little overlap between the D&D adventurer class “Cleric” and the average priest. Most priests will have about as much magical ability as seen in medieval stories, i.e. no more than anyone else. (If you want to play a cleric, let me know. There’s a way we will handle it, but no player except one with a cleric PC will know about it.)

Similarly, not all thieves are in the Thief class, not all bards are in the Bard class, etc. Most fighters are “0th level”. There might be a fair number of 1st level Fighters; anybody else with levels will be uncommon. If you meet a bard on your travels, he will probably be a singer/harpist with no adventurer skills or class.

There is an old witch at the edge of the village. Your parents disapprove of her, call her a fraud, and are afraid of her. Everybody knows that the crop blight three years ago was because she was mad at the village.

The old folks in the village sometimes talk about how much better it was long ago. There was real travel, and real trade. Nobody knows what happened since.

You have heard many mutually conflicting tales of all kinds of marvelous heroes. You may assume that you have heard of any story of any hero you like – Gilgamesh, Oddysseus, Sigurd, Taliesin, Charlemagne, Lancelot, Robin Hood, Aragorn, Prester John, Baba Yaga, Prince Ōkuninushi, Br’er Rabbit, anyone. The old stories seem to imply that occasionally there have been several Ages of Heroes. Your parents don’t think these tales are good for you. Takes your mind off farming.

DO NOT assume that you know anything about any fantasy creatures. I will re-write many monsters and races, introduce some not in D&D, and eliminate some. The purpose is to make the world strange and mysterious. It will allow (require) PCs to learn, by trial and error, what works. Most of these changes I will not tell you in advance. Here are a couple, just to give you some idea what I mean.
1. Dragons are not color-coded for the benefits of the PCs.
2. Of elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, kobolds, goblins, and orcs, at least one does not exist, at least one is slightly different from the books, and at least one is wildly different.
3. Several monsters have different alignments from the books.
4. The name of an Undead will not tell you what will or won’t hurt it.
5. The first time you see a member of a humanoid race, I will describe it as a “vaguely man-shaped creature.” This could be a kobold, an elf, or an Umber Hulk until you learn what they are.

I will answer any reasonable questions about the village and its denizens. You do not know anything that cannot be learned in a backward, isolated village. (And yes, that’s why you’ve grown up semi-isolated.)

2D8HP
2016-12-20, 12:51 PM
....In my most recent game, I had them all grow up in an isolated village, so they wouldn't know much about the world, to improve the fun of exploration...... I like D&D best when exploration and adventure are emphasized, and it's more fun for me to play characters that don't know much of the history and mores of the region the adventure is set and to instead discover them in play.

Jay R's approach sounds well worth stealing emulating.

Segev
2016-12-20, 01:15 PM
While obviously, RPGs are not novels, and trying to run one like a novel (or a movie, or a TV series) will lead to problems, there are some tricks we can crib from these media.

When reading a new fantasy novel by a new author (or at least in a new setting), it is generally not assumed that the reader knows anything about the world. Perhaps he read the back of the book, or the inner panel of the dust jacket, and that drew him in. Perhaps he heard something about it from a zeitgeist that has developed around the work's popularity. But none of these things are assumed.

This is why it is common for a main character to be an "insertion" character: he's from our world, he knows what we know, and he is dumbfounded, flabberghasted, confused, and "asking stupid questions" that the rest of us all share as we read from his perspective, allowing the author to give exposition on the setting and its rules that "everybody" native to it knows.

You don't want to use that, however.

You want to look to Dragonriders of Pern, or the Mistborn trilogy, or the Wheel of Time.

In fact, the latter two are ideal for first-time players in a new world. Though the setting is full of people who know all sorts of things the main characters will come to know, by starting them in a backwater surrounded by myth and rumor, even if you immediately thrust them into the thick of things, they are ignorant bumpkins who know only the raw, one-paragraph blurb about where they started.

The world is covered in ash, spewed forth by ever-erupting volcanoes in the distance. The outlying Dominances are ruled by cruel, uncaring lords who work the working-class (known as the ska) like the serfs and slaves they are. Mysterious Mists, unrelated to any weather, rise at night, and are said to bring terrible Mistwraiths that do horrid things and bring down curses upon those who see them.
Four Corners is a collection of small villages with outlying farms where simple lives are led by complex people. The village headman and the village Wisdom are the chief men and women of the town, and the Elders advise the headman and the womenfolk advise the Wisdom. The Wisdom also serves, frequently, as the town apothecary and doctor. Far away are big cities, including the capitol at Andor and the magical White Tower in Tar Valon, where the witches known as the Aes Sedai practice amazing magics and hunt down magic-wielding men, who invariably go insane and hurt themselves and others.

If you'd rather go with something where the PCs start more knowledgeable, still begin them in their positions, and let them tell you what their role is. Then negotiate back and forth as you outline to them what fits in the setting. Feed them information as they would have it become relevant. Don't hand them booklets to read all at once. Hand them slips of paper with notes. And then, when they ask, tell them more. They'll CARE, then.

Put pantheon information where it will matter to people as they start to play the game: in the chargen section for people who actually get mechanical benefit from it (e.g. clerics). Assume that players - even if their characters would - do not know anything at first. So when things come up, give hints in the game, or give very short blurbs (a sentence or two) of explanation as to what the significance of Pelor is to the situation and why the mayor is deferring to a simple priest of this god.

Even when the PCs know more than the players, just use that as an excuse to feed dribs and drabs of setting information as it becomes relevant. Don't expect the players to remember significant details of the setting. Tell them to them when they come up. "Bob, your character's position as apprentice to the moneylenders of mu means she deals regularly with the elves, and so she knows that taking off one's hat is a sign of condescension in their culture. So when they did so before bowing, they were probably mocking Jenny's paladin."

Thinker
2016-12-20, 02:29 PM
This is why it is common for a main character to be an "insertion" character: he's from our world, he knows what we know, and he is dumbfounded, flabberghasted, confused, and "asking stupid questions" that the rest of us all share as we read from his perspective, allowing the author to give exposition on the setting and its rules that "everybody" native to it knows.

You don't want to use that, however.

You want to look to Dragonriders of Pern, or the Mistborn trilogy, or the Wheel of Time.



This is how The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter approach their worlds, too. Narnia does a good job of using it to help get the children into trouble so that the reader can see the story from the antagonist's point of view as well. Harry Potter goes all-in on the wonder of the revealed world.

2D8HP
2016-12-20, 02:56 PM
I've read that in the predecessor to D&D, Dave Arneson's "Blackmoor" campaign, at first the players played themselves in a Fantastic medievalish world:
http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/2016/10/in-celebrate-of-dave-arnesons-birthday.html?m=1

Similar to how Villains and Vigilantes did it.

Beleriphon
2016-12-20, 03:36 PM
Check my signature for a what I do. I have a wiki, it has a page for each player race, a page for common monsters/critters. A brief overview of religion that anybody passingly familiar with the several that exist in the setting would know, as well as a brief over view of the major NPCs and organizations.

Sabeta
2016-12-20, 03:47 PM
I ran an amnesia plot.
Is it cliche? Yes. Did my players actively investigate every nook and cranny for every bit of lore trying to figure who or what they are. Also yes.

Now that they know my world, I can safely reuse it without amnesia plots in the future.

Âmesang
2016-12-20, 03:58 PM
This reminds me of wanting to type out a miniature campaign setting guide for "The Sundered Empire" containing the bits of lore that were present in d20 Chainmail, various DRAGON Magazine articles, as well as filling in the blanks using the LIVING GREYHAWK™ Gazetteer, Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, Miniatures Handbook, and whatever other lore I can obtain regarding Western Oerik.

Granted, aside from e-mailing pdfs I'd probably just print out single page, double-sided handouts that'd give a rather brief description of local lands and peoples; just enough to explain things without appearing overwhelming.

Jay R
2016-12-21, 01:48 PM
I've read that in the predecessor to D&D, Dave Arneson's "Blackmoor" campaign, at first the players played themselves in a Fantastic medievalish world:
http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com/2016/10/in-celebrate-of-dave-arnesons-birthday.html?m=1

Similar to how Villains and Vigilantes did it.

Someday I'm going to invent a group that are the D&D version of my players, and have them attack the party. Hilarity ensues!