What i love about lore is that so many people/movies/books throw them in the first bit and people hate it. What i do is kind of like the originals Star Wars. Don't actually explain stuff up front. just put them in the world, explain something a bit when it comes up or they ask, but otherwise just let stuff trickle in as it happens. In my world the God of Weather is insane (like, actually insane, multiple personalities and all that) so the weather is prone to go absolutely insane with no notice. The first few times they encountered this, they kind of freaked out, rolling to see if they know what it is and generally losing their shit. Now, the sky goes red and it gets extremely hot, the characters just roll their eyes, go "Fucking Aephos", and carry on. There's been some weather events that weren't caused b Aephos (complicated god dynamic), and they just assume it's Aephos being crazy again, which is exactly what people in the world would do.
This video could not have dropped at a better time. I'm writing a campagin and creating a world. I almost got carried away with too much boring information. Great video as always Guy!
Good video! Giving the players only three names were talking about a historical event and turning the dive into history as a puzzle event is something I will definitely utilize.
Rach? Ah, ha! The murderer has a red face! (It's a Sherlock Holmes reference, if i remembered correctly. If i misremembered, then i'm looking silly right now. Oh, well... Maybe i can save my own red face by saying how much i love this channel: a lot! :D )
Insightful and extremely helpful. Made me realize that ive done this without realizing and thats why my friend keeps asking about an item outside of game (even in the middle of exams )
I've recently helped create the history of a continent from scratch in a fantasy world I'm sharing with some friends. I know exactly what direction I'm going to take it in, but having never DMed before, being a boring DM is one of my biggest upfront fears. This is gonna be a good one, alongside the rest of your tips to get me started. Thank you in advance!
What i did was, make a couple handouts giving a very brief overview of the history (basically, War happened, lasted a while, ended when King died, this guy made a thing, etc.) just very basic and most important bits. I don't know if they all actually read it, but it doesn't really matter. They've learned all the lore during play. In my world, Weather's a bit nuts, since the god that controls it is literally insane. The first few times the sky turned to fire, they freaked out, rolling everything they could to know what that was. Now, when it starts raining blood, they just shrug, pull up their hoods and go "Fucking Aephos" and carry on. Only give them the basics and let it come up in play. There's 2 entire kingdoms that they know pretty much nothing about other than, one is cold and has a lot of pirates, and the other has people mutated by magic. Which is exactly what the average person knows about them. I have had a couple times where a PC did a thing, and i then interrupted them and gave them some information that their character would know that would change what they would do, and we quickly rewound a bit. This has only happened like 5 times, and we've been playing for over a year and a half.
Another thing to add to the previous reply, is give the characters a bit of lore that they specifically would know. Maybe it's a legend or a bit of local history about where they grew up, but that in itself gives them a reason to be invested in their characters as well. I find that players dedicated to their characters are dedicated to the story. Make sure they know they're making a difference. One of my players was a good hearted individual who made some mistakes and ended up working for some less than savory people. He got out of it and now he's being hunted those people, and the party has already had some encounters with them. You'll be fine. As long as you constantly look at how you can improve, you'll get better and better, and your players will be telling your stories for decades to come.
I've always said that after being told something then the GM can say "*Thump*, that was the sound of a plot point landing on your lap, then you are doing it wrong."
Had to come and re-watch this because I absolutely fell into the trap of flooding them with info and then hearing crickets after the NPC's monologue. I guess on the plus side, they wouldn't have kept track of everything during that flood -- so I just need to take the key points and scatter them around now, and HOPE they feel engaged enough to follow up
The times that I had dispensed information and lore successfully to my player groups, I had done just what you described here... accidentally XD I wish somebody had put this to me in so many words sooner - this advice is incredibly useful! We certainly could've had more of those fun information gathering sessions and less of the 'information falls flat on the floor and. nobody can be bothered to pick it up' sessions. Great video!
I'm about to run my first Starfinder campaign and didn't realize I had bogged down so much info. Thanks for helping me condense the important information!
Everything I create for my campaign I put in a Worldanvil article to keep it organized and easy accessible. In the sessionreports my players can read more in the mentioned articles in their own time if they want. Saves both me and them from searching for a note about that guy in the village after we killed the hydra. And if they do look it up, they might find some lore that was never told because it wasn't relevant.
I get troubles thinking of ways to naturally mention quick stories about NPC's. Like how a fancy fashionista goes by a fake name because she wanted more x's in the name. Or how Mr.Halfluck got his name because he got brutally injured in the first 5 minutes of his very forst battle but miraculously survived and started a thriving bussiness. My players usually dont question these things and this kind of stuff is left unsaid.
Some of my players are so enthousiastic that I often realize after the session that I forgot, or had no time, to mention something. In the sessionreports I write in worldanvil they can find the lore and additional information that would otherwise never become told.
Thanks as always for the video Guy! I've been watching you for a while now and recently went back to watch stuff from two years ago. You've been a great asset for my imagination so thanks for everything you do
Very good video! My predicament's with looking unprepared. I enjoy making elaborate backstories to things and I do try to follow tips like yours when it comes to not just flooding the players, but sometimes I get the feeling they'll think the world is empty, or something isn't happening, or I've not prepared anything, if they don't get that information quickly.
I run many Delta Green campaigns, and this is a pain to sort out, among witnesses, research, and experimentation. Thank the various pantheons for this channel
I don't mind too much information. If story is good it can be deep as hell. But that's when hero's diary becomes handy :) especially when there is some drinking during sessions :D
HA *HA*! Iv *already* played whit the timeline. In fact thats the idea of the story. So its now all figured out, and clear for me. Every single small detail is connected to other parts of the stuff. Past or future. Or this timeline, or another. And in the end... well the middle, but its the end of the story. But ... look its confusing to explane. Anyways, in the end it all makes sense, and there are a lot of unknown stuff, but whit some sense, and if youv paid atenchon, you will figure it out. So what do you say to THAT? Oh wait... this is for the GMing, not the book writing... oh well. Too far to delete it now.
This is exactly why I stopped taking games seriously and started making asinine jackass characters like "Richard Twinklestar the flamboyantly gay looking mage that beats people to death with his 12 strength and quarterstaff", or "Bargg the Barbarian Dwarf with a 4 charisma that smells like he crawled out of a cat's hairball and speaks only at maximum volume." or "Lord Periwinkle Von Fontlebottom", the gayest named noble ever made whose name was so obnoxious that the DM actually gave him a fey ancestry and turned him into a literal half-fairy. Oh and then there was "Deric the Generic Cleric" Who you can't pick out from a crowd because he looks like everyone else and is completely average in EVERY way. He's basically one of the men in black but for clerics. Or my blue mage from the Book of Erotic Fantasy who's summoned dryad was purely used for sexing up the town guards and making tons of gold, and who's only spells involved : Remove Clothing, Power Word: Orgasm, Animate Rope, and Enlarge Breasts... oh yeah and grease. Ah... good times.. I can't help but be an ass, because stupidly elaborate character names, backstories, and DM history pushed me to the breaking point of not giving a shit about my own characters anymore. To be fair, the characters were all fun to play regardless of how dumb they started.
I personally just ignore the backstories and history entirely. I only care about the dungeons and getting through them. Everything else is just irrelevant word vomit that I'd rather not listen to.
Dear GODS I wish my DMs would listen to this.... I seriously don't care about your 5000 year history of your campaign world... so please just let me hit something already... This is the worst worst worst part of games... I'd rather play Diablo style. Where the backstory exists but it's minimal at best, and the entire focus is on the dungeon, monsters, and traps. Everything else is just too annoying to listen to. There is literally no way to make your 50 pages of made up history interesting enough to prevent me from wanting to kill myself.
...sounds boring either way tbh. I'd rather not interact with npc's at all if it can be helped, and I certainly don't care about shit like ancient treaties and an assassination that happened centuries ago. unless the queen is a lich that's going to annihilate the planet, I would rather not hear it.
Nick Larocco eh, I like a story, I just don't like a back story. exposition in any form of media is boring, especially when you're forced to sit through the exposition in order to figure out what the story actually is.
Bamboozly Well, think about this. the first halo game had the best story of the franchise and yet there was very little exposition. they quite literally dropped you in the middle of a fight over halo, an object they had never seen before, with an alien force that we, the audience, had never seen before. they peppered exposition in every now and again but it wasn't very much and it wasn't very often. by the time the game ended we didn't know all that much about the covenant other than their core races and a little bit about their religion, despite the fact that the conflict with the covenant is much older than the conflict with the flood on halo. Ya see, you don't need a lot of exposition to make a good story. In a good story, they show, they don't tell.
Chat with us and other awesome role players around the world on our Discord Channel: discord.gg/Znwtkd2
What i love about lore is that so many people/movies/books throw them in the first bit and people hate it. What i do is kind of like the originals Star Wars. Don't actually explain stuff up front. just put them in the world, explain something a bit when it comes up or they ask, but otherwise just let stuff trickle in as it happens. In my world the God of Weather is insane (like, actually insane, multiple personalities and all that) so the weather is prone to go absolutely insane with no notice. The first few times they encountered this, they kind of freaked out, rolling to see if they know what it is and generally losing their shit. Now, the sky goes red and it gets extremely hot, the characters just roll their eyes, go "Fucking Aephos", and carry on.
There's been some weather events that weren't caused b Aephos (complicated god dynamic), and they just assume it's Aephos being crazy again, which is exactly what people in the world would do.
Stealing that. Stealing that so hard
This video could not have dropped at a better time. I'm writing a campagin and creating a world. I almost got carried away with too much boring information. Great video as always Guy!
Good video! Giving the players only three names were talking about a historical event and turning the dive into history as a puzzle event is something I will definitely utilize.
Rach? Ah, ha! The murderer has a red face!
(It's a Sherlock Holmes reference, if i remembered correctly. If i misremembered, then i'm looking silly right now. Oh, well... Maybe i can save my own red face by saying how much i love this channel: a lot! :D )
You are indeed correct. It was assumed to be German for revenge, but was actually a woman's name Rachel... or the other way around lol!
Insightful and extremely helpful. Made me realize that ive done this without realizing and thats why my friend keeps asking about an item outside of game (even in the middle of exams )
I've recently helped create the history of a continent from scratch in a fantasy world I'm sharing with some friends. I know exactly what direction I'm going to take it in, but having never DMed before, being a boring DM is one of my biggest upfront fears.
This is gonna be a good one, alongside the rest of your tips to get me started. Thank you in advance!
What i did was, make a couple handouts giving a very brief overview of the history (basically, War happened, lasted a while, ended when King died, this guy made a thing, etc.) just very basic and most important bits.
I don't know if they all actually read it, but it doesn't really matter. They've learned all the lore during play.
In my world, Weather's a bit nuts, since the god that controls it is literally insane. The first few times the sky turned to fire, they freaked out, rolling everything they could to know what that was. Now, when it starts raining blood, they just shrug, pull up their hoods and go "Fucking Aephos" and carry on.
Only give them the basics and let it come up in play. There's 2 entire kingdoms that they know pretty much nothing about other than, one is cold and has a lot of pirates, and the other has people mutated by magic. Which is exactly what the average person knows about them.
I have had a couple times where a PC did a thing, and i then interrupted them and gave them some information that their character would know that would change what they would do, and we quickly rewound a bit. This has only happened like 5 times, and we've been playing for over a year and a half.
Another thing to add to the previous reply, is give the characters a bit of lore that they specifically would know. Maybe it's a legend or a bit of local history about where they grew up, but that in itself gives them a reason to be invested in their characters as well. I find that players dedicated to their characters are dedicated to the story. Make sure they know they're making a difference. One of my players was a good hearted individual who made some mistakes and ended up working for some less than savory people. He got out of it and now he's being hunted those people, and the party has already had some encounters with them. You'll be fine. As long as you constantly look at how you can improve, you'll get better and better, and your players will be telling your stories for decades to come.
Don't be afraid of being boring, your friends will let you know when you are and next time you'll do better.
I've always said that after being told something then the GM can say "*Thump*, that was the sound of a plot point landing on your lap, then you are doing it wrong."
Had to come and re-watch this because I absolutely fell into the trap of flooding them with info and then hearing crickets after the NPC's monologue. I guess on the plus side, they wouldn't have kept track of everything during that flood -- so I just need to take the key points and scatter them around now, and HOPE they feel engaged enough to follow up
The times that I had dispensed information and lore successfully to my player groups, I had done just what you described here... accidentally XD I wish somebody had put this to me in so many words sooner - this advice is incredibly useful! We certainly could've had more of those fun information gathering sessions and less of the 'information falls flat on the floor and. nobody can be bothered to pick it up' sessions. Great video!
Excellent guidance! Small irregular doses with ups and downs and irregular payoffs is exactly how Vegas gets their players hooked!
I'm about to run my first Starfinder campaign and didn't realize I had bogged down so much info. Thanks for helping me condense the important information!
Everything I create for my campaign I put in a Worldanvil article to keep it organized and easy accessible. In the sessionreports my players can read more in the mentioned articles in their own time if they want. Saves both me and them from searching for a note about that guy in the village after we killed the hydra. And if they do look it up, they might find some lore that was never told because it wasn't relevant.
I get troubles thinking of ways to naturally mention quick stories about NPC's. Like how a fancy fashionista goes by a fake name because she wanted more x's in the name. Or how Mr.Halfluck got his name because he got brutally injured in the first 5 minutes of his very forst battle but miraculously survived and started a thriving bussiness. My players usually dont question these things and this kind of stuff is left unsaid.
Some of my players are so enthousiastic that I often realize after the session that I forgot, or had no time, to mention something. In the sessionreports I write in worldanvil they can find the lore and additional information that would otherwise never become told.
So what happened in 1162? What is the Nocturn? You can't set that up and not give the payoff!!!!
I agree! We need answers!
I have a notification for this video on my phone, and I keep reading it as 'how to avoid being a great GM' when skimmig my messages
Thanks for the info. I’m relatively new to this type of gaming as well as being a gm. I am slowly getting the hang of it though. Awesome channel!
This is great advice. I think that a GM would be wise to give some resolution if they intend to lead their players along on a long storyline.
Thanks as always for the video Guy! I've been watching you for a while now and recently went back to watch stuff from two years ago. You've been a great asset for my imagination so thanks for everything you do
gotta say, that book-idea sounds so cool :D
Very good video! My predicament's with looking unprepared. I enjoy making elaborate backstories to things and I do try to follow tips like yours when it comes to not just flooding the players, but sometimes I get the feeling they'll think the world is empty, or something isn't happening, or I've not prepared anything, if they don't get that information quickly.
I run many Delta Green campaigns, and this is a pain to sort out, among witnesses, research, and experimentation. Thank the various pantheons for this channel
Most appreciated, Guy.
I don't mind too much information. If story is good it can be deep as hell. But that's when hero's diary becomes handy :) especially when there is some drinking during sessions :D
Rache? Nice sherlock Holmes reference!
Library of Leng you say. MTG references are aways appreciated.
Yes! Love these videos
Looking handsome today!!
Great video!
Thanks for this!
HA *HA*! Iv *already* played whit the timeline. In fact thats the idea of the story. So its now all figured out, and clear for me. Every single small detail is connected to other parts of the stuff. Past or future. Or this timeline, or another. And in the end... well the middle, but its the end of the story. But ... look its confusing to explane. Anyways, in the end it all makes sense, and there are a lot of unknown stuff, but whit some sense, and if youv paid atenchon, you will figure it out. So what do you say to THAT? Oh wait... this is for the GMing, not the book writing... oh well. Too far to delete it now.
Two words: Dark Souls
Is jy 'n Gautenger, tjomma?
Nee man, ek sa Rooinek van Natal...
Am I the only one who listens to these videos on 1.5 speed?
I put it on 2x speed.
I love to fill in the blanks, but that part of Rogue One was so fucking stupid...
This is exactly why I stopped taking games seriously and started making asinine jackass characters like "Richard Twinklestar the flamboyantly gay looking mage that beats people to death with his 12 strength and quarterstaff", or "Bargg the Barbarian Dwarf with a 4 charisma that smells like he crawled out of a cat's hairball and speaks only at maximum volume." or "Lord Periwinkle Von Fontlebottom", the gayest named noble ever made whose name was so obnoxious that the DM actually gave him a fey ancestry and turned him into a literal half-fairy.
Oh and then there was "Deric the Generic Cleric" Who you can't pick out from a crowd because he looks like everyone else and is completely average in EVERY way. He's basically one of the men in black but for clerics. Or my blue mage from the Book of Erotic Fantasy who's summoned dryad was purely used for sexing up the town guards and making tons of gold, and who's only spells involved : Remove Clothing, Power Word: Orgasm, Animate Rope, and Enlarge Breasts... oh yeah and grease.
Ah... good times.. I can't help but be an ass, because stupidly elaborate character names, backstories, and DM history pushed me to the breaking point of not giving a shit about my own characters anymore. To be fair, the characters were all fun to play regardless of how dumb they started.
I personally just ignore the backstories and history entirely.
I only care about the dungeons and getting through them.
Everything else is just irrelevant word vomit that I'd rather not listen to.
Sad
Dear GODS I wish my DMs would listen to this....
I seriously don't care about your 5000 year history of your campaign world... so please just let me hit something already...
This is the worst worst worst part of games...
I'd rather play Diablo style. Where the backstory exists but it's minimal at best, and the entire focus is on the dungeon, monsters, and traps.
Everything else is just too annoying to listen to.
There is literally no way to make your 50 pages of made up history interesting enough to prevent me from wanting to kill myself.
...sounds boring either way tbh. I'd rather not interact with npc's at all if it can be helped, and I certainly don't care about shit like ancient treaties and an assassination that happened centuries ago. unless the queen is a lich that's going to annihilate the planet, I would rather not hear it.
Sounds like you just want a dungeon crawl then.
Or some kind of tactical combat boardgame.
Nick Larocco eh, I like a story, I just don't like a back story. exposition in any form of media is boring, especially when you're forced to sit through the exposition in order to figure out what the story actually is.
Ya like story as long as you get to avoid talking with any npcs and want no exposition. Tbh "here is a baddie go kill it" sounds way more boring
Bamboozly Well, think about this. the first halo game had the best story of the franchise and yet there was very little exposition. they quite literally dropped you in the middle of a fight over halo, an object they had never seen before, with an alien force that we, the audience, had never seen before. they peppered exposition in every now and again but it wasn't very much and it wasn't very often. by the time the game ended we didn't know all that much about the covenant other than their core races and a little bit about their religion, despite the fact that the conflict with the covenant is much older than the conflict with the flood on halo. Ya see, you don't need a lot of exposition to make a good story. In a good story, they show, they don't tell.