While in theory I love this idea, I have a few issues due to which I probably can’t make it happen:
a medias res sequence would require a moment in the story in which you will end up no matter what choices you make and I currently don’t think there will be a fittingly meaningful moment like that.
All the information I offer at the start is information that I feel is essential to enjoy the story properly without getting confused, and I haven’t been able to figure out a way to fit all of it into a story sequence
I considered some moments from the past featuring the MC’s grandfather, teasing some things that I have planned, but I mostly kept bumping into issue 2
We clearly think very differently. For me the lore is part of the story and the story part of the lore. The lore is what makes the story make sense and the story is what adds emotion to the lore. As such I can’t make one without the other. Or well I can, but it’ll be complete crap, and despite what it might seem like that’s not what I’m going for.
I think you’re missing the point — you should be writing a good story first. Focus on the relationships between the characters. Focus on the fun things that the player can do in your world. Focus on interesting sequences, tough choices, bizarre locations, surprising revelations. You don’t need one word of lore to make any of that happen, and it’s often way more fun to discover the “lore” as you go along, in the same way that a regular person in your world would learn more about that world as they adventure.
If your story is nothing without its lore, then … well … to put it bluntly, it doesn’t deserve its lore!
Fanfiction, religious texts and spin-offs are all stories based on lore and would be nothing without their lore, that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy of existence
And, regardless, fanfiction is a great example to illustrate my point — the authors spend zero time setting up the world, because you go in with an assumption of reader literacy already in place. Fanfiction is an excuse to just jump right into the meat of the story and ignore all the parts where you set up the lore. There’s actually a lot to admire about the efficiency and grace with which the best pieces of fanfiction pull it off!
Find out what expectations a reader comes into your work with and use that as a jumping-off point. Eragon has a tonne of lore but starts with a contextless action sequence with fire and magic and blood. Lord of the Rings (the movie) starts with a massive lore dump, sure, but it also starts with a badass action war sequence where a demon gets its finger chopped off and we follow a ring through history, all fully animated and acted throughout. Even something like Warhammer 40,000, which is all lore, starts you off fighting for your life against alien forces before you read one word of the context.
No. I’m writing a religious text and a spin-off of things I know in mythology. Granted I’m filling is some of the gaps, but non the less. Everything is based in something, only the things they’re based in are lacking in emotion and clarity, that’s what I’m trying to provide by writing. They both need the other, and one can’t be written without the other.
I worry that you’re sliding further away from writing cool sequences.
I feel that I have failed in my mission to get you to write cool sequences instead of lore dumps. For some reason you’ve gone evangelical about how necessary lore is, when my point isn’t even that it’s unnecessary — it’s just not fun. Let the players figure out the lore for themselves. Work it into your story. Don’t dump it all at the start.
That isn’t all of it, it’s what is necessary for the story to not be completely and utterly confusing, there is still plenty of room for mysteries and twists, but some things need to be made clear.
I see both sides, but if you have your world set in a world entirely different than our own, isn’t lore absolutely required? Otherwise I feel the reader can get lost or confused as to why these cultures/religions/whatever else exist. I’m not a fan of info dumps, but rather a place where you can go to (a library most the time) where you CAN ask questions regarding lore. Then you have a choice, if you’re confused, got to the library! If not, forget about it
Yeah, exactly – work it in naturally and believably, in a way that someone within the world would discover these things. Doesn’t have to be a library, but there are huge opportunities to capture that sense of wonder and mythology that human beings have felt as they have created stories over the past hundred thousand years. Don’t tell me the lore in a block of text, have an old woman recount tales of her childhood by a winter hearth, misremembering details, but with an understanding that to her, the details aren’t what’s important. Have a guitarist by the fireside sing a song of the ancient ways, myth mixed with history, the version changed to suit his personality and beliefs, one version among many of the same song. Have children run around, playing as their heroes from the ancient stories, urging you to join in as the spider god, a trickster who disrupts the natural order of their game and steals children away (to wash up for supper before their mom gets worried). Mythology isn’t words, it’s people.
Ah, so an info dump, but not really. Dress it up in a believable situation, I actually really like that idea! (Don’t mind if I steal that for my own WIP )
Lovely thoughts, but nothing like the mythology which I grew up to. I was told stories sure, sad little imitations of my gods intended to teach a child. What I actually learned about the god that I live and breath, who I worship, I read in books describing him, telling me who my family had devoted generations to, that lore had no emotion, my family, my grandparents and their parents and so on, are what gave that lore life, what made it real. The lore all exists, now I tell it to you and write a story to go with it, as such there needs to be some room for raw information that allows the story to thrive.
Just a thought, but what if you took your personal experience and put it in the game? Take the POV of a child like you were, and tell the stories as you remember them. THAT… would be pretty dang cool.
An excellent idea, perhaps one worthy of it’s own project, I’ll need to think about that. But for the Hidden Courts the stories I was told as a child would provide nothing, the ideas and concepts that I use have developed too far from them, taken too many influences and inspirations for the stories to mean anything for them. Though some of the stories I was told are planned to make an appearance. But that does give me another idea for how to start the story off… I will need to think about this.
Damn, the act of being told one thing by parents and then conducting your own research to find the truth — that is a REALLY excellent way of tying lore to story without resorting to infodumps at the beginning, and I’d LOVE to read a story that’s based on your experience of self-teaching against the wishes of your authority figures.
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