How deep is your lore, /tg/? In your opinion, how deep should lore be?
>>47496227
deeper than your mum
>>47496227
Layered.
Mundane shit the players do might have ties to something deeper, but it's on the surface. There's a deeper history only hinted at that can be discovered, or read up in books, or investigated more thoroughly firsthand, and then really deep shit that starts getting metaphysical and surreal. Nearly all of it is copped from other literature and modified as needed in the moment most of the time because writing all this shit out beforehand would require either years of work of pre-cogniscience in order to write exactly what the player will run into.
>>47496227
All of the lore.
>>47496227
I do my lore like DS lore, the depth is mostly in the imagination of the players. I have a lot of knowledge about theology, philosophy, and politics, so I also base a lot of stuff on obscure but real things.
The biggest departure from conventional worldbuilding for me is about gods and religion. Most people seem to have a genuine pantheon around which individual polytheistic cults are based. I never have gods as explicitly real and instead of being some universal pillar of reality that has a specific cult, I do religion in a more genuine fashion, with different belief systems and histories that often have no relation to each other.
For example, in my primary setting, the largest religion is technically Gnostic but in practice is basically Pure Land Buddhism with a blend of Christian and pyromantic aesthetic features. The second largest is a monotheistic animism heavily based on nature and geometry, but real historic and messianic roots. Its aesthetic is like Hermetic Shintoism.
>>47496227
"Deep enough" to both questions. I work on background that's relevant to the players, and only slightly beyond that should they go looking.
I'll sometimes build up long tangents just to get into the right state of mind, but that's pretty rare. I find my players are pretty good at filling in those blanks for me without realizing it.
>>47496227
deep enough to be interesting, but i dont need to hear the last 1000 years tax laws on elven goods imported, kevin, for christ sake
>>47496227
>how deep should lore be?
Depends on the setting, do you want a really deep sci-fi or fantasy roleplaying experience or are you playing an extended game of Fiasco?
>>47496227
>how deep
Shallow. Superficial. Incomplete.
In case some are unaware, it's the players' jobs to add depth to the place, so a persistent setting can grow depth from previous sessions, but anything more than minimalist set decoration is just self-indulgent GMing.
>>47497411
>self-indulgent GMing.
What a meme. Entitled little player bitch like you thinks it's all about "muh player agency" and "why are you making us sit through this exposition i just wanna kill goblins lol"
>>47497411
>How do you do lore in your game anon?
>Shallow. Superficial. Incomplete.
What? Why would you ever say this?
>>47499397
to bait you
Greg Weisman-tier.
>>47496227
Why am I turned on by these lizards? They have nice eyes...
>>47500038
They really do, and are quite cute. Leopard Geckos are pretty qt.
>>47496227
We must have at least a thousand pages of dialogue, lore, and history for our world. IN fact, we have so much, I'm compiling a wiki for it.
I love it. As an aspiring video game writer, its a HUGE creative outlet, so I end up producing 85% of what's written.
More lore the better, especially when its a collaboration world like ours, where everyone had a hand in its creation.
>>47500189
I mean fuck, I had my physicist friend PC write up a draft explanation of how magic and psionics work, thaumic sciences. Shit's as embarrassing as it is exciting, for me.
>>47496227
>In your opinion, how deep should lore be?
Shallow enough to be succinctly described in 10 words or less.
Deep enough to build at about three sessions around.
Anything more is superfluous.
>>47500235
This anon gets it. I start with keeping my lore very simple, I basically toss in whatever comes to my mind, and then afterwards start connecting the dots to draw inspiration and build up from there. You don't want huge, monolithic lore that stifles but quick, agile, organically grown one that feeds your imagination.
>>47499397
Some people hate settings having any depth or details beyond what needs to be killed now, and view such as intellectual GM masturbation
>>47496425
I prefer this.
Broad as a sea, deep as a puddle until someone enquires.
>>47496227
As deep as it can get.
