Edit sorry I was way to vague and bad explained question. But great explanation everyone.
If you start playing as a player in a homebrew world that I built. How little information would you feel needed to be able read before you can build a character in it?
I have been planing to start looking for players soon but I struggling as I don’t want to give them a whole novel of mostly boring lore dump but sending them like two sentients feels just silly.
Not to mention would you as a player like reference to other mediums so you could quickly know what to expect or would you rather have a in game view of it?
Dose it need a written form so you can look over in peace and quite. Or could it be like three sentences more getting sense of it and if you have further question you could ask the DM?
This would be a conversation I’d have with my DM during character creation. And the level of detail depends on the DM. If the DM says “they’re like regular elves but blue”, then that’s easy. But if the DM says “they’re nothing like regular elves, you need to read this 3-page short story in order to understand elves in my setting” then I probably just wouldn’t play an elf.
In my experience as a DM, players don’t like the information overload of a handout that covers things they don’t need to know about.
Yeah that information overload is what I trying to avoid but still not making them feel you are a blue elf that was adopted or something.
I’d make sure you have the “elevator pitch” for your world down to a few sentences, but then be able to expand on certain topics if players show an interest there.
Like my elevator pitch is simply, “It’s like 1800s North America but with many of the fantasy elements you expect from a D&D setting. There’s a continent called Novum that was discovered within the last 500 years, and because of its recent settlement, it is much more of a cultural melting pot than other parts of the world.”
Oh no mine is like 12 now. Right more goes on the ever growing checklist
You can always elaborate when your players ask questions. But don’t just overload them up front with stuff they don’t care about yet.