I'm dming for a group of 5 players and we had at least 10 sessions allready. They traveld around a fair amount and talked to many characters, though be it more of a "WHERE REWARD?!" kind of attitude.
Because its a campaign i came up with and it expands as we play it, i want my players to get to know about the world they are in. Therefore i thought about political and historical circumstances - before and current.
I tried to bring in that lore in each conversation with npcs, though i didnt want to give away to much information, mainly because the npc's they talked to just dont know that much. Although i fear they are not getting intressted as much as i wish they'd be.
Last session i tried to let them "read" about lore as they find lost bags with letters or diarys in them. Some were from Soldiers reporting home and bragging of the cool new mission they were assigned to ( and foreshadowing: maybe never made it back from that), others were from townsfolk sending letters to there family abroad or from an apprentice who was send out to learn new things for his master... that kind of stuff. I just tell em what it reads and will only be prepare actual letters, when we meet up in person again.
Thats why i want to know, what others tools you use, to deliver that delicious lore you create.
Edit: Oh, i forgot ... they travel much and fight long fights so the focus of the sessions is less on roleplay parts (though i kinda feel like they develope more and more interest for that ) Thats why i kinda want information "snacks" i can give em.
Is there a template for me to use ? i feel like printing these on normal paper wouldnt be durable enough.
Do you handle loot the same way ? i thought about giving everyone loot-cards and have them draw in secret just so they can have secrets and maybe that would spawn roleplay. Would you write "misterious Dagger" or " DaGger oF GodDamN burNing HaNDs" on it ? :D
Lore can mean a lot of things: an important NPC's backstory, what incited a war, the worship practices of a minor god, a natural disaster that changed a country's landscape... Providing "information snacks" as you put it looks different for each scenario.
Some examples of lore drop hint techniques:
- A town crier announces news/updates about the king
- The party encounters an unnatural environment (like a floating river) and sees an NPC nearby
- Someone in the party receives a vision/warning from a mysterious entity
- The party overhears juicy gossip in a tavern
- The party finds a magical object...or a cursed object. Only a kooky, chatterbox shaman can identify it.
- The party enters a town that behaves funny toward them in ways they can't ignore (like arresting them for not kneeling to the statue of the Chicken Lord, only accepting payment in copper, treating one PC like she's a goddess incarnate, etc)
The more weird and funny encounters you throw at your players, the more likely they are to engage and ask questions. That said, some players couldn't care less about lore. They're there to kill monsters and get loot. Keep in mind that most of the lore you create will never be discovered by your players. You may get lucky and have some players who can't get enough (I've got one of those), but bear in mind those people tend to be on the rarer side.
The trick with lore is to break it up into lots of little pieces and spread it around the information gathering methods the players have
Divination spells
Ability checks
Conversations
Diaries, notes ect...
When players use information gathering methods they want something so you should always try to slip something in even if its not the correct spell to use or the check fails ect....
There are thing you might not think of too like
Monsters like goblins might be talking about something as the party approach's
Spells like identify are non specific about what they show so when the learn to use an item they might see an image of it's previous wielder using it
Fails on history checks can still give information just not super relevant information
out of game stuff like down time rolls. When a player crafts an item you might write down a small note of some bonus info they also find out
Elves trance ability shows past live you can give them glimpses of things through that.
You want to break it up into little pieces so it doesn't turn into a monologue and you mix it into goals players actually want to pursue so its on their initiative. If they hear the goblins talking they can listen or they can decide they don't care and kill them.
In writing it also helps to be vague and evocative. That means not dumping huge amounts of information but instead giving poetic glimpses of things. "I heard of demon that knocks 3 times before entering" or similar style of statements.
Think of which bits of lore the speaker interacts with more naturally, pepper it into conversation as it would naturally come up, don't elaborate too much unless the players ask more.
Talk about your lore as if the players already know it (since their characters might), and you might draw more interest in the little details more than if you have a more pointed infodump.
A past dm had a great way to do this that I am totally stealing. We had a discord server for the campaign because it was online. I don't seen any reason why you can't make one for irl games too. A good place to schedule or talk about this outside of session.
In this server, he had a channel called "dm teasers" where he gave images and lil bits of lore from his world. Some of it was relevant to the plot. Some just expanded the world. He did this about 2-3 day before the next session. This built up our hype and gave us more of a view into the world he created and we loved it. It may be better if they have played before so that they can separate in character and out of character knowledge. And make sure you are vague/ give nothing too important away. It would drive us crazy (in a good way) trying to figure out things in advance and then when a character or plotline was introduced officially we were freaking out.
Also, try to pay attention to the kinds of lore that interest them. Sometimes, the players are not as interested in discovering the lore as you are in creating it. So, try and keep the lore you give them relevant to the overall story of the campaign. You might want to throw in a red herring sometimes, but don't expect them to care that, say, the king's great-grandmother was really into needlepoint. Unless one of her needlepoint pieces is the clue that will solve the mystery.
Also, if you find they really pick up on something in particular, use it. Even if you'd meant it as a random throwaway detail. "The mystical sword had a blue gem in the pommel, well we need to find that blue gem." Make a sub-plot around that blue gem, and add it in to the story, and they'll think you were a genius for dropping little hints about it.
I tried to bring in that lore in each conversation with npcs, though i didnt want to give away to much information, mainly because the npc's they talked to just dont know that much. Although i fear they are not getting intressted as much as i wish they'd be.
One hard truth of DMing is that no one is ever going to love your world as much as you do. That's just how it goes.
I will dangle plenty of lore in front of my players optionally, but they rarely take it. And if they do, they forget the details later because it wasn't relevant to anything else. And I'm like that too when I'm a player. If there's something I really want to get across, I make it relevant to the plot.
If there is an ancient civilization I want the party to learn about, I have a villain who's unlocking the secrets of the old ruins and the party needs to figure out what he's doing and how to stop it.
If there's a tense political situation, I throw them in the middle of it.
PCs don't play to learn about the world. They play to change it. If you make your lore the tools they need to do that, they will be more likely to pay attention to it.
As a DM I love lore because it provides threads and internal consistency in the story. Some of that makes it through to the players ahead of events, and some of it only after the events as part of learning processes.
Generally, players are keen to get on with the bit where they are important in the story, and so spending a lot of time on lore can be detrimental to the shared story concept - but it still has to be there for when the players do decide to ask around, investigate, research, or otherwise try to obtain some information.
I find lore helps with shaping the motivations of NPC's as much (or perhaps even more) as it provides the glue that binds the pages together in our story.
So overall, lore is something that you do to a level you find comfortable for your own aspect of the story telling (some people prep it all in advance, some people wing it, and most do something in between - just make sure to keep notes for that internal consistency when you do end up winging it)
I have come to accept that a lot of lore that I bind into a campaign might not see the light of day, or not show up to be important until later on in the story when they have learned the hard way (by completely skipping any info gathering/exploration for example) - and I am ok with that. For my style of making campaigns, I still feel a strong motivation to develop and link to the lore, but I accept that the players do not always feel the same way. But overall I think it helps enrich a campaign with a depth that gives a bit more meaning and context (e.g. the NPC tells a brief story of a battle field they are crossing on their way to the next place vs. simply moving there uneventfully - it makes a place feel lived in)
So I guess in response to your original question, I try to work in snippets via NPC's mostly - the occasional handout, when it is directly relevant to the campaign, and then a lot of stuff sitting on the side for when/if characters start asking questions :)
Ok the first thing I will say is that over 30 odd years of running TTRPG games I have come to learn that actually not all, but many players only really care about lore that directly impacts them right now. They want to experiance the world they are in not spend time learning about what happened last week, last month or 100 centuries ago unless it directly impacts decisions they need to make right now, or where they are adventuring. So only provide lore that is relevant to that encounter, adventure, interaction. Also show, don't tell, and giving letters is another way of telling.
Second thing, and Matt Mercer has talked about this a lot and is 100% right, as the DM you know it all (unless like me you enjoy making stuff up as you need it rather then wasting time preparing a load of stuff your players never ask about), that inherent knowledge can mean that things you think are obvious and cool really just confuse your players, or seem completely unrelated, if they are not picking on the lore threads then give them more, and more until they get it and understand it. If your players are not interested it might be your not giving them enough to be interested about.
That also feeds into one of your points about not giving them a lot because NPC's don't know. What is it your characters know? They are probably not new to the world, but also they don't want information overload. I will generally let my players know stuff there characters would know in the moment. Sometimes based on a history check, other times I will just tell them. Your character would know all this stuff I am about to paraphrase for you. I will then tell them bullet points and highlights so the table hear it as well and let them ask me further questions out of character if there are specifics they want to know about but also, does it really matter if your NPC knows more then you think they should, it gets the story of your world across and answers questions and advances the story then have the NPC know more.
An example, my current campaign my party have been finding out about a bordering nation Etresh, now, in game the characters have ton's of things they know about that nation, but a lot of that information has not been strictly relevant to them until now, because now they are figuring out that the nation may well be a threat to continent peace. So over the past year of real time I have been telling them information about Etresh only as it has been needed. I could have written it all out in a handy "things you know about Etresh, but I can guarantee none of them would have read it because it had nothing to do with the adventure at that point. There characters have always known that Etresh has expanded aggressively, some of them have always known that as a nation they have slaves, half breeds (half elves, orcs, anything that is a mix of 2 races) are treated as an abomination and placed into slavery and families shamed. They know that a steady stream of refugees escape etresh to find a better life, they know that anything with greenskin or the like (goblin, orc, hobgoblin, bugbear etc) are persecuted as less then half breeds in Etresh. The characters know that, but I have not told the players that until it has been relevant, seeing an Etreshan Ambasador ignore the half elf of the party, rescuing a group of refugee orcs who have escaped over the border, finding out information because a town councilman is worried the etreshan trade group camped outside his walls have been there longer then planned and via that discovering how the Etreshans expand, the law of thirds, if a town or area resists Etreshan occupation 2/3rds of the population are taken, of that 66% of the opulation, 1/3 are executed and 2/3 are placed into slavery, if that town or area accepts the etreshan empire, then just 1/3 of the population are put into slavery. That is all lore the characters knew from day 1 but I didn't share with the players until starting about 4 months in real time and continuing today. Almost every other session I will say, your character would know this titbit of information about the world and then give them some extra info relevant to now. That makes it sink in and the player is more likely to remember it because it is something there character knows.
So while letters from soldiers might seem cool or giving them access to read books, if the lore doesn't advance the story, it is really just pointless exposition, or the DM taking up time that the party could be doing other things. Lore should generally have a purpose beyond "this is a cool thing I made up about my world" for it to land with players, that doesn't mean you can't do it, just realise your players probably won't appreciate it anywhere near as much as you want them to and will probably forget it, and thats another point, I don't expect my players to remember all the little lore points I give them, if there is a call back I will, out of game, tell the players, your character would remember this thing I told you before. Because sometimes, especially in remote games, you really have to hammer a point home for it to land.
PCs don't play to learn about the world. They play to change it. If you make your lore the tools they need to do that, they will be more likely to pay attention to it.
This is probably the best lore advice you will ever get.
Players care about the adventure. The challenge. The problem to be solved. Unless they need to know the lore in order to solve the problem, they likely wont care. Hell, good luck finding a group of players that even bother to remember the names of the gods, or even the continent they are on. Unless they need to know these things in order to advance the story.
Most of the lore that we DMs come up with is for our own benefit. We find it cool. It motivates us to play because we get to see the world developing, the same way a player gets to see their character developing. So do it for yourself. Go crazy. As long as you don't expect your players to care you will have a ball.
I like having the lore delivered through the world literally changing around the players. So here are a few examples.
1.) The players return to a village or town only to discover it ransacked. This is great if the players have ignored the set up for the oncoming war...and yes this has happened before. So, said party saw from a distance smoke and flames at the town they were heading to. Upon arrival they walked into a scene of devastation and destruction. One of the players literally went 'oh so that's why that NPC was talking about the Queen recruiting new soldiers'. Yes, yes, it was.
2.) Similarly, the players arrive at a city they know only to find the gates closed and extra security. There's a tribe of owlbears and the city council believe it's a precursor to an invasion so have taken a siege footing.
3.) Players arrive at their homestead/inn/base only to find the building is now occupied by a different owner, or has been boarded up with an eviction notice nailed to the door. The corrupt local lord has decided to levy a higher tax which the players haven't paid (because they didn't know about said tax).
4.) There's a curious increase of random preachers or doomsayers wandering streets. Everywhere they go there's someone yelling about the end of the world, or retribution of the gods.
So, world changing events happen using tools like that for me. These all show the players rather than tell them. Something has actually happened. If they've been paying attention to flavour text you've dropped previously (like the barkeep moaning about the tax as they waddle over to serve the group) then they'll connect the dots. Otherwise, if I'm looking at the historical lore of the world that is getting revealed it generally happens through history checks (i.e. when players ask for it). At that point, I keep to only what the players are asking for. They're more likely to pay attention.
For example, the players come across a shrine in the middle of the forest. It looks ancient and overgrown. The cleric however feels a divine energy surrounding the area. A player might ask for a history check to help them inform their knowledge of the shrine or area. As describing the history I would also throw in some of the lore. Legend says that the God of the Skies grew jealous of the God of the forests and instructed her followers to claim the forests in the name of the skies. Her human followers thus built shrines like these across the world in forests.
Maybe the players are in a diplomatic setting, trying to broker a financial deal or a armistice maybe you drop a clue when describing one of the NPCs that their brooch looks familiar. The second NPC wears a ring with a similar style of engraving. A history check here might allow you to peel the onion here and let out a bit more of the lore. Of course, that depends on whether the players pick up on said clue...often they don't. If that's the case, it's cool. It hurts the writer in you every time, but as a DM you've done your job. You gave them the option to learn more about the world. If they don't pick up on that option, that's fine.
Which is where I bring this all to the final thought. Lore is optional. As a DM we're presenting the options and the setting. The players choose which options they respond to. We can't and shouldn't force this. If they want more info about the lore great! If not, that's cool too...even if you later repossess their manor house because they ignored the info about the corrupt tax collector mwhahahahahaha :D
I'm dming for a group of 5 players and we had at least 10 sessions allready. They traveld around a fair amount and talked to many characters, though be it more of a "WHERE REWARD?!" kind of attitude.
Because its a campaign i came up with and it expands as we play it, i want my players to get to know about the world they are in. Therefore i thought about political and historical circumstances - before and current.
I tried to bring in that lore in each conversation with npcs, though i didnt want to give away to much information, mainly because the npc's they talked to just dont know that much. Although i fear they are not getting intressted as much as i wish they'd be.
Last session i tried to let them "read" about lore as they find lost bags with letters or diarys in them. Some were from Soldiers reporting home and bragging of the cool new mission they were assigned to ( and foreshadowing: maybe never made it back from that), others were from townsfolk sending letters to there family abroad or from an apprentice who was send out to learn new things for his master... that kind of stuff.
I just tell em what it reads and will only be prepare actual letters, when we meet up in person again.
Thats why i want to know, what others tools you use, to deliver that delicious lore you create.
Edit:
Oh, i forgot ... they travel much and fight long fights so the focus of the sessions is less on roleplay parts (though i kinda feel like they develope more and more interest for that )
Thats why i kinda want information "snacks" i can give em.
Put bits of lore and other things they find out on index cards. Hand them out to different players as they hear them.
Its up to them if they share the information.
Is there a template for me to use ?
i feel like printing these on normal paper wouldnt be durable enough.
Do you handle loot the same way ?
i thought about giving everyone loot-cards and have them draw in secret just so they can have secrets and maybe that would spawn roleplay. Would you write "misterious Dagger" or " DaGger oF GodDamN burNing HaNDs" on it ? :D
Lore can mean a lot of things: an important NPC's backstory, what incited a war, the worship practices of a minor god, a natural disaster that changed a country's landscape... Providing "information snacks" as you put it looks different for each scenario.
Some examples of lore drop hint techniques:
- A town crier announces news/updates about the king
- The party encounters an unnatural environment (like a floating river) and sees an NPC nearby
- Someone in the party receives a vision/warning from a mysterious entity
- The party overhears juicy gossip in a tavern
- The party finds a magical object...or a cursed object. Only a kooky, chatterbox shaman can identify it.
- The party enters a town that behaves funny toward them in ways they can't ignore (like arresting them for not kneeling to the statue of the Chicken Lord, only accepting payment in copper, treating one PC like she's a goddess incarnate, etc)
The more weird and funny encounters you throw at your players, the more likely they are to engage and ask questions. That said, some players couldn't care less about lore. They're there to kill monsters and get loot. Keep in mind that most of the lore you create will never be discovered by your players. You may get lucky and have some players who can't get enough (I've got one of those), but bear in mind those people tend to be on the rarer side.
The trick with lore is to break it up into lots of little pieces and spread it around the information gathering methods the players have
When players use information gathering methods they want something so you should always try to slip something in even if its not the correct spell to use or the check fails ect....
There are thing you might not think of too like
You want to break it up into little pieces so it doesn't turn into a monologue and you mix it into goals players actually want to pursue so its on their initiative. If they hear the goblins talking they can listen or they can decide they don't care and kill them.
In writing it also helps to be vague and evocative. That means not dumping huge amounts of information but instead giving poetic glimpses of things. "I heard of demon that knocks 3 times before entering" or similar style of statements.
Thank you guys for the input.
I'll be using some of your suggestions in my next session and hope to paint them a picture or two with these about their world :)
Think of which bits of lore the speaker interacts with more naturally, pepper it into conversation as it would naturally come up, don't elaborate too much unless the players ask more.
Talk about your lore as if the players already know it (since their characters might), and you might draw more interest in the little details more than if you have a more pointed infodump.
A past dm had a great way to do this that I am totally stealing. We had a discord server for the campaign because it was online. I don't seen any reason why you can't make one for irl games too. A good place to schedule or talk about this outside of session.
In this server, he had a channel called "dm teasers" where he gave images and lil bits of lore from his world. Some of it was relevant to the plot. Some just expanded the world. He did this about 2-3 day before the next session. This built up our hype and gave us more of a view into the world he created and we loved it. It may be better if they have played before so that they can separate in character and out of character knowledge. And make sure you are vague/ give nothing too important away. It would drive us crazy (in a good way) trying to figure out things in advance and then when a character or plotline was introduced officially we were freaking out.
Also, try to pay attention to the kinds of lore that interest them. Sometimes, the players are not as interested in discovering the lore as you are in creating it. So, try and keep the lore you give them relevant to the overall story of the campaign. You might want to throw in a red herring sometimes, but don't expect them to care that, say, the king's great-grandmother was really into needlepoint. Unless one of her needlepoint pieces is the clue that will solve the mystery.
Also, if you find they really pick up on something in particular, use it. Even if you'd meant it as a random throwaway detail. "The mystical sword had a blue gem in the pommel, well we need to find that blue gem." Make a sub-plot around that blue gem, and add it in to the story, and they'll think you were a genius for dropping little hints about it.
One hard truth of DMing is that no one is ever going to love your world as much as you do. That's just how it goes.
I will dangle plenty of lore in front of my players optionally, but they rarely take it. And if they do, they forget the details later because it wasn't relevant to anything else. And I'm like that too when I'm a player. If there's something I really want to get across, I make it relevant to the plot.
If there is an ancient civilization I want the party to learn about, I have a villain who's unlocking the secrets of the old ruins and the party needs to figure out what he's doing and how to stop it.
If there's a tense political situation, I throw them in the middle of it.
PCs don't play to learn about the world. They play to change it. If you make your lore the tools they need to do that, they will be more likely to pay attention to it.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Drop in an NPC bard.
As a DM I love lore because it provides threads and internal consistency in the story.
Some of that makes it through to the players ahead of events, and some of it only after the events as part of learning processes.
Generally, players are keen to get on with the bit where they are important in the story, and so spending a lot of time on lore can be detrimental to the shared story concept - but it still has to be there for when the players do decide to ask around, investigate, research, or otherwise try to obtain some information.
I find lore helps with shaping the motivations of NPC's as much (or perhaps even more) as it provides the glue that binds the pages together in our story.
So overall, lore is something that you do to a level you find comfortable for your own aspect of the story telling (some people prep it all in advance, some people wing it, and most do something in between - just make sure to keep notes for that internal consistency when you do end up winging it)
I have come to accept that a lot of lore that I bind into a campaign might not see the light of day, or not show up to be important until later on in the story when they have learned the hard way (by completely skipping any info gathering/exploration for example) - and I am ok with that. For my style of making campaigns, I still feel a strong motivation to develop and link to the lore, but I accept that the players do not always feel the same way.
But overall I think it helps enrich a campaign with a depth that gives a bit more meaning and context (e.g. the NPC tells a brief story of a battle field they are crossing on their way to the next place vs. simply moving there uneventfully - it makes a place feel lived in)
So I guess in response to your original question, I try to work in snippets via NPC's mostly - the occasional handout, when it is directly relevant to the campaign, and then a lot of stuff sitting on the side for when/if characters start asking questions :)
Ok the first thing I will say is that over 30 odd years of running TTRPG games I have come to learn that actually not all, but many players only really care about lore that directly impacts them right now. They want to experiance the world they are in not spend time learning about what happened last week, last month or 100 centuries ago unless it directly impacts decisions they need to make right now, or where they are adventuring. So only provide lore that is relevant to that encounter, adventure, interaction. Also show, don't tell, and giving letters is another way of telling.
Second thing, and Matt Mercer has talked about this a lot and is 100% right, as the DM you know it all (unless like me you enjoy making stuff up as you need it rather then wasting time preparing a load of stuff your players never ask about), that inherent knowledge can mean that things you think are obvious and cool really just confuse your players, or seem completely unrelated, if they are not picking on the lore threads then give them more, and more until they get it and understand it. If your players are not interested it might be your not giving them enough to be interested about.
That also feeds into one of your points about not giving them a lot because NPC's don't know. What is it your characters know? They are probably not new to the world, but also they don't want information overload. I will generally let my players know stuff there characters would know in the moment. Sometimes based on a history check, other times I will just tell them. Your character would know all this stuff I am about to paraphrase for you. I will then tell them bullet points and highlights so the table hear it as well and let them ask me further questions out of character if there are specifics they want to know about but also, does it really matter if your NPC knows more then you think they should, it gets the story of your world across and answers questions and advances the story then have the NPC know more.
An example, my current campaign my party have been finding out about a bordering nation Etresh, now, in game the characters have ton's of things they know about that nation, but a lot of that information has not been strictly relevant to them until now, because now they are figuring out that the nation may well be a threat to continent peace. So over the past year of real time I have been telling them information about Etresh only as it has been needed. I could have written it all out in a handy "things you know about Etresh, but I can guarantee none of them would have read it because it had nothing to do with the adventure at that point. There characters have always known that Etresh has expanded aggressively, some of them have always known that as a nation they have slaves, half breeds (half elves, orcs, anything that is a mix of 2 races) are treated as an abomination and placed into slavery and families shamed. They know that a steady stream of refugees escape etresh to find a better life, they know that anything with greenskin or the like (goblin, orc, hobgoblin, bugbear etc) are persecuted as less then half breeds in Etresh. The characters know that, but I have not told the players that until it has been relevant, seeing an Etreshan Ambasador ignore the half elf of the party, rescuing a group of refugee orcs who have escaped over the border, finding out information because a town councilman is worried the etreshan trade group camped outside his walls have been there longer then planned and via that discovering how the Etreshans expand, the law of thirds, if a town or area resists Etreshan occupation 2/3rds of the population are taken, of that 66% of the opulation, 1/3 are executed and 2/3 are placed into slavery, if that town or area accepts the etreshan empire, then just 1/3 of the population are put into slavery. That is all lore the characters knew from day 1 but I didn't share with the players until starting about 4 months in real time and continuing today. Almost every other session I will say, your character would know this titbit of information about the world and then give them some extra info relevant to now. That makes it sink in and the player is more likely to remember it because it is something there character knows.
So while letters from soldiers might seem cool or giving them access to read books, if the lore doesn't advance the story, it is really just pointless exposition, or the DM taking up time that the party could be doing other things. Lore should generally have a purpose beyond "this is a cool thing I made up about my world" for it to land with players, that doesn't mean you can't do it, just realise your players probably won't appreciate it anywhere near as much as you want them to and will probably forget it, and thats another point, I don't expect my players to remember all the little lore points I give them, if there is a call back I will, out of game, tell the players, your character would remember this thing I told you before. Because sometimes, especially in remote games, you really have to hammer a point home for it to land.
This is probably the best lore advice you will ever get.
Players care about the adventure. The challenge. The problem to be solved. Unless they need to know the lore in order to solve the problem, they likely wont care. Hell, good luck finding a group of players that even bother to remember the names of the gods, or even the continent they are on. Unless they need to know these things in order to advance the story.
Most of the lore that we DMs come up with is for our own benefit. We find it cool. It motivates us to play because we get to see the world developing, the same way a player gets to see their character developing. So do it for yourself. Go crazy. As long as you don't expect your players to care you will have a ball.
I like having the lore delivered through the world literally changing around the players. So here are a few examples.
1.) The players return to a village or town only to discover it ransacked. This is great if the players have ignored the set up for the oncoming war...and yes this has happened before. So, said party saw from a distance smoke and flames at the town they were heading to. Upon arrival they walked into a scene of devastation and destruction. One of the players literally went 'oh so that's why that NPC was talking about the Queen recruiting new soldiers'. Yes, yes, it was.
2.) Similarly, the players arrive at a city they know only to find the gates closed and extra security. There's a tribe of owlbears and the city council believe it's a precursor to an invasion so have taken a siege footing.
3.) Players arrive at their homestead/inn/base only to find the building is now occupied by a different owner, or has been boarded up with an eviction notice nailed to the door. The corrupt local lord has decided to levy a higher tax which the players haven't paid (because they didn't know about said tax).
4.) There's a curious increase of random preachers or doomsayers wandering streets. Everywhere they go there's someone yelling about the end of the world, or retribution of the gods.
So, world changing events happen using tools like that for me. These all show the players rather than tell them. Something has actually happened. If they've been paying attention to flavour text you've dropped previously (like the barkeep moaning about the tax as they waddle over to serve the group) then they'll connect the dots. Otherwise, if I'm looking at the historical lore of the world that is getting revealed it generally happens through history checks (i.e. when players ask for it). At that point, I keep to only what the players are asking for. They're more likely to pay attention.
For example, the players come across a shrine in the middle of the forest. It looks ancient and overgrown. The cleric however feels a divine energy surrounding the area. A player might ask for a history check to help them inform their knowledge of the shrine or area. As describing the history I would also throw in some of the lore. Legend says that the God of the Skies grew jealous of the God of the forests and instructed her followers to claim the forests in the name of the skies. Her human followers thus built shrines like these across the world in forests.
Maybe the players are in a diplomatic setting, trying to broker a financial deal or a armistice maybe you drop a clue when describing one of the NPCs that their brooch looks familiar. The second NPC wears a ring with a similar style of engraving. A history check here might allow you to peel the onion here and let out a bit more of the lore. Of course, that depends on whether the players pick up on said clue...often they don't. If that's the case, it's cool. It hurts the writer in you every time, but as a DM you've done your job. You gave them the option to learn more about the world. If they don't pick up on that option, that's fine.
Which is where I bring this all to the final thought. Lore is optional. As a DM we're presenting the options and the setting. The players choose which options they respond to. We can't and shouldn't force this. If they want more info about the lore great! If not, that's cool too...even if you later repossess their manor house because they ignored the info about the corrupt tax collector mwhahahahahaha :D
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Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.