Capital-L Lore vs actionable info
Something my players did in this week's game made me think. They trekked several days out from their home village, completely of their own accord, to visit a repository of lore (aka a library) and learn about... well, everything. History, people, places - lore stuff. It set me thinking, because you see a lot of GMs on the internet asking how they can get their players to care about their lore (and how to deliver it without "Lore dumps"). I've long had a pet theory on this, and in my mind this experience confirmed it. It basically amounts to the following principle: Action Principle: Players fundamentally care about stuff that affects their actions in the game. Specifically as regards information, this gives us the principle that players only really care about information that is actionable . And this is a big problem for lore, because the word 'Lore' has effectively evolved into a bespoke game term referring specifically to the information players receive...