I am one of those players. It's not easy to keep my attention on the game, especially when playing online, but I do enjoy it a lot and am genuinely thankful for the game master making this possible. If your players are not having fun, you'll notice soon enough: it's not easy to reserve a 3-hour timeslot regularly.

As a DM, this wouldn't necessarily get me excited. It might even make me a little frustrated that you haven't been paying attention. I get the sentiment though, I'm not saying don't do this. For me, what would get me excited is players wanting to take an active role in developing the world *with me.* To me, D&D and any TTRPG is about collaborative story telling. Heavy in the collaborative part. Telling me you want to sort of "take over" making some lore for an area would get me very excited. Telling me you and another player worked together to make your backstories intertwined and woven into a location will get me very excited.

I'm at the point where I just use Faerûn. Maybe 10% of modern players know anything about it outside of 2 cities in a small region.

I discovered a couple years ago that some players *hate* being given any creative control over the setting. They're extremely passive and want to be told a story. that's a valid way to play, but very alien to me. When I had a wizard character mention his wizard school I let him color in a lot of details. I'd intervene if it was badly breaking established canon (eg: we said it's in a remote desert and now you want it to be in a coastal city), but generally it's great.

I mean, everything is a *valid* way to play so long as everyone is consenting and enjoying themselves. But I want effort from players. It's shocking to me that as a player other players are often hesitant to want to create backstories with me. It seems most people want their own little unique thing and don't want much interaction. My playgroup (I am a player, no a DM at the moment) has been better about this in our most recent campaign. Three of the characters are siblings (two bird-like creatures and an adopted dragon born with fake wings to fit in). A couple of other players agreed to have little run-ins with my character from before so we knew each other before the start. While an adoring audience is better than a bored one for storytelling, it doesn't help as much as one that participates.



Alright, I opened a new community at !DMWorkshop@ttrpg.network and posted at least a rough outline with more to come. Come on over.

Posting it here again so you get a notification: I opened one at !DMWorkshop@ttrpg.network

Oh, I personally agree. I want my players engaged and adding flavor to the world. If I didn't, I'd be better off writing a book. But I used to be more of a "you're having fun wrong" jerk in my youth, so I make extra effort now to be clear that something might not be for _me_, it's okay if you're all having harmless fun with it. ( I still struggle when people tell me about their game of modern day vampires doing political intrigue run in D&D 5e instead of Vampire, but we all have our foibles. )

Yeah.... What's fun is getting two or more forever DMs to be players. Because then the game becomes gloriously collaborative.

one, show up, please, on time please, but not like 3 hours early... two, if you want food, bring food you want. if my snack supplies don't suit your palette.... that's not my problem to solve. three, for gygax's sake remember, it's a game, a game, it's got chutes and ladders yo, it's not the instant gratification machine some think it is.

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I like my friend's approach, which is to be a sadistic mfer and finding new ways to torture his players every time.

> My favorite move there when someone points out thing that contradict is to say, "Yes. That's what you were told." Imply there's something mysterious to uncover about why those facts don't gel. Thid is how a lot of elder scrolls lore works