Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 225 - Lore Part 2

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

Lore can be doled out in small measures any number of ways at your table from dreams to treasure, holidays to PC backstories.  I hope the last two weeks have made you think about how you use lore in your worlds.   #dmtips #gmtips #dnd #pf2e #5e #lore   Resources: Matt Colville - Lore Delivery Systems - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tBXnD9g0XY  Sly Flourish - Bathe Your World in Lore - https://slyflourish.com/bathe_your_world_in_lore.html Alphastream - Make Lore Actionable - https://alphastream.org/index.php/2022/06/02/your-games-lore-make-it-actionable/

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. If you want to really embrace the lore concept, I'd encourage my beloved GMs out there to include lore in character creation. Work with your player to tie that character's or someone in that character's family history to the lore of your world. The player says their character is a military dropout. Great! Ask them if they're a veteran of the war or did they join the military after it? I've got my hot tea, the pollen counts lower today, and my Premier League team can't hurt me again until August. It's a great day and thank you for listening to The Taking20 Podcast, episode 225, part two of my tips for handling lore in your world. Episode 225, part two of my tips for handling lore in your world. I want to thank this week's sponsor, Lobsters. Hey, I did shrimp last week and I might as well keep the theme going.

Although I am kind of having a hard time thinking of lobster puns, but I guess I better get cracking. Slightly different ask this week. If you have some comments or suggestions or just want to reach out and say hi, feel free to message me at taking20podcast on social media or via email, feedback at taking20podcast.com. I love hearing from listeners and I love getting advice and suggestions or unabashed praise, of course. I'll take them all to heart, especially the unabashed praise, because my ego needs massaging. No, please reach out, even if you'd only just want to say hi and tell me where you're listening from. Last week, I did say that if you don't want to write any lore for your world, you don't

have to. I think it makes your world richer and deeper, but it is more work for my hard-working DMs and GMs out there. I also alluded to, but didn't say it in so many words, that you can't make your players care about the lore of your world. If you dangle the bait out there and they don't bite, there's no reason to get upset about it. Maybe change bait and try again later in the campaign. Some groups, no matter what you do, they don't give a gram of shit about the history of the world.

They come to the table to make jokes, strategize in combat, and stab things until they don't move anymore. Hopefully though that only includes things in the game and not around the table. Killing a water elemental, good thing. Killing the DM, and I say this as a DM, bad player. No, we don't kill our fellow players at the table. No, bad, sit down.

What could I possibly talk about that required an additional episode just on lore? Well, okay, yeah, I mentioned sharing lore via art, NPCs, magic items, and via the environment last week, and those are a good start. But I did get a question this week specific to the environment example, so I want to start off this episode by expanding on that topic just a little bit. If you remember my temple example from last week, okay, I could just say you remember when I talked about that last week and we'd all nod

sagely and be done with it, but I don't know about you all, I may not even remember my example from last week. So the temple last week had art like statues and tile floors that indicated the lore of the demigod Yamiant. That was an example of an indoor environment that helps build on your world's lore. The art that was depicted helped tell parts of that lore story. The same could be true for paintings and documents and statues and carvings into the walls themselves. Even the building's style may hint at something about the lore of your world. Fair warning, for this example it's going to get really nerdy and you know me, if you've listened to this podcast, if I warn you it's going to get really nerdy, you know me if you've listened to this podcast if I warn you it's gonna get really nerdy you

Know we are going deep into a nerd. Well, let's talk about Greek architecture Do you remember the three examples of columns that are discussed in Greek architecture most often? Doric ionic and Corinthian. Well, there you go. There's your useless crap to remember that shit stuck in my brain But I don't remember what I had for lunch yesterday. Welcome to my weird-ass world. You don't want the tour. Well Doric columns were developed in the 7th century BCE. Ionic in the mid 6th century BCE and Corinthian in the 5th century BCE. So what does that mean? It means that if there are Corinthian columns the oldest the building could be is somewhere around 430 BCE.

The first two emerged from the transition from wood to stone buildings, while Corinthian came from the Ionic column tradition. Thank you for listening to the Columns Podcast. Tune in next week when I'll talk about the architecture of rows. And having covered rows and columns, the next week will be all about spreadsheets,

Excel and macro programming. I am doing way too many aside jokes this week. Sorry about that. The indoor environment of your world might reference the lore somehow in the architecture or decorations, the building style, or even the building's existence might reveal lore. You've probably heard of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris at the end of the Champs-Elysées. But do you know why it was built? I mean, I knew it had something to do with Napoleon, but according to the seconds of research that I did on the topic, it was built to honor

Napoleon's military victories and to glorify the French army. I didn't know all of that, but it all does point to the lore of Napoleon. Which, by the way, last week I mentioned that lore can be true, false, or a mix of the two. Napoleon was, of course, a real person, but we have phrases like the Napoleon complex which seems to indicate that Napoleon was short. He wasn't that short for his time. He was somewhere between 5'2 and 5'7, that's by the way 1.57 to 1.7 meters, depending on who you ask and the source that you check, but the average height of men around that time was about 5'6", or just under 1.7 meters. So the lore isn't always correct, and nor does it need to be.

What you may not have known is that Napoleon didn't want Josephine to bathe before they got intimate. He wrote her saying that he'd be home in three days and asked her not to bathe that entire time. Listen, hey, I'm not one to yuck someone else's yum. If they both enjoyed it that way, y'all just enjoy going to Funky Town on each other and leave me out of it. As another example, this time in a more natural outdoor setting, also where there's not a

lot of bathing, imagine a fight between titans and gods that happened in a particular valley. You could describe the cliffs and fissures in straight lines as if carved from enormous sword swings and footprint shaped permanent indentations in the rock and earth of the valley. The sky was scorched and lightning strikes in the valley far more often than it should naturally. The environment is your classic example of show, don't tell. Give the information to the PCs,

see if they bite on trying to find out more about the lore of whatever happened that would affect the environment that they're observing. Hopefully that helped explain environment, but there are other ways to share lore with your players besides what I listed last week and environments. You can also show your lore and give hints about it via treasure, both what they find and what others have. The PCs find a very valuable and ancient grimy crown with the symbol of the nation of Ostium stamped on it. How did this crown get here and what happened to the nation of Ostium because it's not around anymore? Tales of lost rulers and kingdoms can be told by the items the PCs find,

but imagine that same crown shows up in the hands of a poor, waify orphan who stumbles up to the PCs and asks them to buy this artifact. How did this poor person come to have this valuable crown? And what happened to the princess who was wearing it and went missing, what was it, 75 years ago? And why does this little girl have the same name as the princess, but looks like she hasn't aged a day. Hmm. Lore can be tied to an adventure and

make for an amazing campaign. If you need the players to discover the lore of Ostium to complete the adventure then the little girl is maybe five to six years old and doesn't remember much of the goings on so the PCs will have to discover it using other sources. However, if you want this little girl to be able to tell stories about Ostium, give some of the lore of Ostium, then maybe she's 11 or 12 and remembers more. That is, if she really is the princess she claims to be. Lore can also be revealed via remembrances and holidays or other special days throughout the year. Many nations, for example, celebrate Armistice Day or Veterans Day, depending on where you are, on November 11th each year,

tying it back to the end date of World War I with people wearing and displaying poppies, like I mentioned last week. In Flanders, feel the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row. That's lore from long ago revealed in a remembrance day every single year. If you want to really embrace the lore concept, I'd encourage my beloved GMs out there to include lore in character creation. Work with your player to tie that character's or someone in that character's family history to the lore of your world. The player says their character is a military dropout. Great! Ask them if they're a veteran of the war or did they join the military after it. They say their family venerates the dwarven forge

father god. Great! Ask them what that worship looks like for their family. The cleric worships a deity of the Sun. Which one? Is there an aspect of the deity that the cleric should focus on that ties to the lore of your world? I bet there is. Maybe it's the power of the sun to damage or harm undead. Sounds like a great focus for the character creation, and you've just created, or enhanced, a deity in your game world. Connect your barbarian to the history and lore of their people, their home, their beliefs. They are a hobgoblin and became a barbarian to avenge the loss of the Chona

Peninsula when the dwarves took it from them. The human became a bard to duplicate the actions of Kaidan Kaalian who took the test of the star stone on a drunken bet and became a god because of it. Both PCs and NPCs could benefit if you revealed the lore via flashbacks by the way. This is the first one though I'm going to say, use sparingly and with caution because if your game just becomes a massive series of flashbacks one scene after another after another that can be a little overwhelming and maybe boring for your players could cause them to disengage from your game looking down at their phone while you finish the scene where the jilted lover becomes the lich 30 years later. It might be important to

the story but if you bury that flashback among three others, the power and import will be lost. I'd definitely stick to only one at a time and only have them when necessary, and also only if your players seem to be enjoying them. Another thing you can do is that lore can be revealed to PCs via overheard conversations and rumor. Two townspeople are talking in a bar and one of them says, by Brogan's bones, I'll never vote for Kaladine as mayor.

Who the hell's Brogan? Why are they swearing oaths by his bones? Was he a town founder, great hero, evil villain? You can reveal lore also via superstitions and foibles, particular to a group of people. If you're like me and enjoy making weird little encounters that pay off down the road, maybe the PCs enter a remote town and they're chastised for not shaking off their boots and sandals before crossing the city gate. Or they get in trouble because they have silver pieces

on their person after dark. Or they're told they must touch the lintel of the doorway before entering someone's home. There could be stories and lore behind every little bit of weirdness, particular to a family or town or even entire region. My next tip for you by the way is to make your lore actionable. Give the lore a purpose and make it something you the DM or players can both latch on to and have it affect the current adventure. An esoteric piece of lore about some lost war is fine, but that in and of itself isn't that interesting. Instead, what if the lost war connects to

the current adventure in some way? The current version of your world is still feeling the effects of the war, hearing the echoes from that war in the past, even if they don't know or acknowledge it out loud. For example, the town of Mithral Del was conquered in the Great War of 4189 and once they regained their freedom they were determined to keep it and pay for a large police force, a huge standing army surrounding the town, and even hire mercenaries to resolve certain situations. That is lore with a hook and both players and DMs can grab it easily and have it affect the current campaign.

There's a whole article on this by the way over at AlphaStream.org with guidelines for actionable lore. I'll put a link in the description and would encourage you to give that a read if you would like to know more. I want to leave you with one final tip when it comes to lore. Leave gaps in your lore that you can fill in during the adventure. The most practical reason is that it leaves stuff that the PCs can discover. And wow, those knowledgeable NPCs out there, they don't know what the PCs just discovered. And a book that details the lost years of the Cyclopean Empire, a temple whose walls have detailed carvings that say how the gods were created. The humble origins of the big bad, Favilles the Conqueror. I'm sure you've seen Lord of the

Rings. Remember the tale of the ring at the very beginning of the first movie, The Fellowship of the Ring? With the voiceover by Galadriel telling us all about the history of the ring. Some parts of the history were widely known. Isildur's taking of the ring and refusal to destroy it. Isildur's death at the hands of orcs and losing the ring, but then it becomes murky and to quote Galadriel, history became legend, legend became myth. Much of what was is now lost. It's revealed in the story we experience that the ring was lost in the river Anduin and discovered by a store hobbit named Smeagol about 2000 years later. Leave gaps in histories and lore where it makes sense to do so.

The amulet was sealed in a box in a massive warehouse like the end of Indiana Jones. The sword was in a dragon's hoard. All the worshippers living in the temple were killed or turned into mindless undead. How? When? Who put it there? How did it get there? Don't come up with an answer right now. These gaps can be the why of some of your adventures, leading to discovery, or for more practical reasons, maybe you don't have a good answer right now why the sword was there all those years, and leaving it blank buys you time to come up with something later, or maybe even get ideas from your players. What's that? You think the sword was captured by the dragon and was picking over the corpses of the Battle of Reyes Hill? Yup, you are very smart. That is exactly what happened and I planned it that way the whole time and I won't hear any accusations to the contrary.

But Jeremy, I'm running a game on a published world like Faerun and Galarian that has a lot of lore built into the game. That means I don't have to come up with any lore, right? Well, my answer to that is the same as what I said earlier in the episode. Lore can be as present or absent in your world as you'd like. Wizards of the Coast provides some lore and history for Faerun for DMs to reference.

And Paizo, say what you want about whether you like the Pathfinder 2E system, their lore is second to none. It is deep, detailed, and omnipresent, but what I like about it is that it's not about whether you like the Pathfinder 2e system, their lore is second to none. It is deep, detailed, and omnipresent, but what I like about it is that it's not complete and comprehensive, giving you my beloved GMs out there some freedom to create your own. And just because there's lore from a game system creator doesn't mean you have to adhere to it like it's a religious text. You can add to it, customize it, or discard it to your heart's content. Do you not want there to be a crashed spaceship in the middle of

your fantasy world? No problem, just don't include any of that lore for that area of your pre-built world. Do you want the two undead rulers who have been fighting a war-lasting millennia to be fighting over the love of the same demigoddess or maybe even be ex-lovers themselves? Hey sure, sounds fun. Even if you're running a game in a pre-built world where a lot of the lore is written, it's still your version of the world to change and adapt how you see fit. Customize the lore, the history, the origin stories however you would like. It's your world for your players. Jason Bullman's Galarian will be different than yours, just like Chris Perkins' Sword Coast

will have its own unique lore that yours won't, and vice versa. Just because there's a book written that defines the history doesn't mean you have to follow it like it's wholly writ. And honestly, I'm gonna stop here, because this episode could probably go on another 15 minutes talking about lore, but the advice becomes more and more esoteric the longer I go

So I think I'm just going to stop here and hopefully this piques your interest in the topic the hows and whys of lore Extremely deep well of topics and the conversation could go on for hours If I could sum up, lore can be all over your world or hardly present at all Use various methods to put the lore in front of your player characters, but don't be surprised if they ignore it all. Encourage your players to tie character backstories and world connections into your lore, and yeah, I'd be willing to bet that you and your characters would have fun doing it.

Please like, rate, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you happen to find it. Tune in next week when I'm going to give a brief review of the Pathfinder 2 ebook Howl of the Wild I just got it and I love it and give DMs some tips on running games with monstrous PCs. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Lobsters. Did you know that almost all lobsters celebrate the holidays in December? Not only do they believe in Sandy Claus, they've seen him. This has been Episode 225, Part 2 of Tips for Handling Lore in Your Game. My name is Jeremy Shelley,

and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 podcast is a publishing cube media production. Copyright 2024. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.