How Much Or Little To Provide?

I'm going to respond mostly as a member going into a new site and a soon to be admin. Take this with a grain salt if you like.

Ideally, a member should be able to read all pertinent information in under half an hour and be able to join in the game. Anything after that is basically gravy that helps the player submerge into the world you've created for them to play in. Sometimes I like being able to finish all my posts and just be able to read some superfluous history related to the game I'm playing. Of course, too much and you'll scare some people. To me, it's all about creating a culture for your game. If you want everyone to be lore heavy, provide a lot of lore. If want them to just be average roleplayers (I don't mean that negatively) then just give some race and settings. If you want both, I suggest what I wrote above.

I'm fairly certain this is what every writer asks themselves about anything they write. I don't know what to tell you except to have fun with it and be original. If you're just describing the same old races in the same old way then nobody is going to care really. Be original, be fresh, and have fun with what you're doing. If you hate writing it they'll probably hate reading it. Coming back to the first question, if your handbook is engaging enough it might not even matter how long it is.

Be very explicit about how you adapted the information and do the proper references/links. If you're paraphrasing, say so. If you're copypasting, say so. I have the same thing in providing some Old West information on a site I'm building. My plan is to extract and quote the relevant information while linking to the original source and suggesting people visit the site to read the rest.


One extra point, if you have a separate handbook that stands on it's own as a guide to your world, have you considered putting it into PDF format or at least Word documents so that people can read it offline or on their mobile reading devices?

I've often mentioned this stuff when reviewing, and that's the perspective I'm mostly going to take here, though I'll throw my personal preferences in as well, because clearly you want to know what i have to say.
How much or little information do you provide on your site?

Enough to get them started.

No, I'm being serious. Think about how much a person needs to know in order to operate in your world, then, streamline your information to give that all to people in a short amount of time. I'd stretch the limit that @charlespdk suggested to about an hour though. Most people are willing to put that much effort into reading, assuming it's something they're interested in doing. There can be additional info, but you can put that so people don't have to read if if they don't want to.

Now, for a canon site, it's slightly different. People need to know at least a little about the canon in order to engage. It's up to you whether you demand that they know that ahead of time, or whether they can find it on your site. You need to tailor your information topics to reflect that notion.

It really does come down to what kind of members you want to attract. More mature people are willing to read more, assuming it's written in an appealing manner. So that needs to be taken into consideration.

For myself: I should be able to have a character idea based off what you give me, and that should be in no more than a few hours, give or take.


If you have a lot of information, how do you make it interesting to read so people don't lose interest?

First, streamline it. Make it brief, succinct , and give them what they need to know.

When i write it, I use my personality and voice to infect it. I've found the best ways to do this are to either act like the topics are written by a character, or design some sort of NPC to write it up. I've also seen "informational pamphlet" types that work well. Ever played the Fallout games? They have a cheesy 50's-esque character that helps explain things. Makes it engaging. You can also try encouraging members to get involved with links or things along those lines.

Also, make sure it's well organized. Separate things into sensible categories. Make it easy to read, as in the font is manageable. Maybe throw a few graphics too. People like their purdeh pictures.

If you're taking a lot of information off a particular site is it better to just link to the site or write it up in your own words and credit that site?

You really shouldn't be doing this, really. If you are, then links are usually the best to go, or well documented summaries. I'd rather see something done yourself. You should know the forum well enough to summarize better than most sites would.

How much or little information do you provide on your site?

A lot, but grouped in "need to know" and "nice to know". Easing people's research is the best way.

If you're taking a lot of information off a particular site is it better to just link to the site or write it up in your own words and credit that site?

I prefer linking. Because through linking people ould have the direct voice of the site (and I woudln't be accused of plagiarism), and if the site has further links and some people want to go deeper in their research, they can.

(Yes, for me it's never too much information - I read everything, then I further deepen the research on my own).

Here's my method (and I don't always execute it flawlessly, much to my disappointment )

• Be as clear and concise as possible
• Format and separate info as much as you can to make it look like less than it is and break things into smaller, less intimidating, more easily digested chunks-- I don't want people to look at massive blocks of text and run. I also don't want them to lose their place if they take a potty break.
• Separate the need-to-now from the may-want-to-know
• Take the character-specific info out of the need-to-know-- It might be a necessary read for a specific character type, but I won't try to make everyone read that if they won't need it unless they're making X type of character.
• Provide off-site resources if that's going to help-- I'm a huge proponent of linking to off-site info in the case of historical, canon-based, or similar games. There's no reason to rewrite info that's already available or to bog people down with a million on-site threads if you can get away with a quick summary and say "If you need more, go here." Plus, that provides people with extra resources for additional info, especially if you're linking to a fandom wiki or somethin'.

I tend to stick to the fantasy and sci-fi-related genres and original settings, so my games require more reading than others might. I really rely heavily upon formatting-- headings, sub-headings, lists, bullets, etc. to make things easy to digest. In some cases I try to spice things up to make them more enjoyable, but mostly I try to be straightforward. I want people to get through that info quickly and be able to reference it at a later date with ease. I'd rather entertain them with the process of playing the game, and from what I've gathered, incoming players would prefer to just get the info and get going-- no embellishments or interesting phrasing needed or desired.

If anything, I'd focus on making sure the writing flows so it's easy to read. That'll keep people from staring at a choppy bunch of text and realizing that it's boring and dry.

When I've had games for which linking to off-site info was useful, I didn't bother with trying to re-write what was already out there. I summarized game-specific things if it seemed necessary (providing the link as an if you need more type of thing), either to make sure people got what was most important or to introduce the content of the link, but that was it.