Continouos information about the lore, or revelation at end?

[NekoNutchi]

How would you prefer the lore of a fantasy or sci-fi world be revealed in a VN?
I suppose this could be asked for all types of stories, but genres that require a lot of world-building usually harbors many secrets or reasons for events that have happened throughout the story that doesn't get revealed to the reader/player directly. The basic structures i've seen in VNs is either:

a) Everything gets revealed at the end in a series of twists, maybe where different routes deal with a different part of the lore (i think Rewrite did something like this).

or

b) We're thrown into the lore directly, often with the MC less knowledgeable than the rest of the cast, who conveniently enough teaches both the protagonist in the story and the player about the world. (Traditional peasant-boy in a fantasy RPG for example.)

or

c) Similar to b), but with info-dumps at the beginning or through a log, usually from an omniscient perspective.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but merely the alternatives i could think of.
Now, there are a few advantages and disadvantages of these methods that come to mind, mainly that a) could easily get boring and make the player quit before reaching the interesting revelations near the end, while the advantage is, if played through, it will probably have a stronger impact by explaining things that were previously unclear. Sort of like the satisfaction of everything falling into place at the end of a mystery/crime novel.

Using b) or c) however, although it would be easier to keep the story interesting as a whole, I'm worried that the ending might fall flat, and not enough part of the lore are left to encounter and explain. The reader would feel confused and maybe quit early, or get bored by large chunks of info thrown at them in a way that is most convenient for the writer. I know a lot of people dislike info-dumps, and i can understand why, but personally i don't mind if e.g the climate and history of planets in a sci-fi story are revealed in this way, especially if you can access them through a map or log in the user-interface whenever you want. (This advantage is actually one of the reasons i prefer VNs over regular novels, since you can get this optional overview of the information without having to turn to page x and find it.)

I hope this topic makes some sense, and feel free to go off on tangents, add alternatives to the list or just voice your opinion.

[Aurélie]

This post may be all over the place since I just finished a long day at work, apologies! My heart's in the right place. And that place is worldbuilding, because I love worldbuilding.

When it comes to the inclusion of lore/worldbuilding, there's an excellent quote of Scott Lynch's that I think really understands the interdependence of a narrative with its constructs. (Emphasis is my own.)

"People too often conceive of worldbuilding strictly as background research, asa sort of dry and exhaustive homework. Every tiny and immediate detail in a story can be worldbuilding. Every button and widget can imply or reveal something to the reader. You can replaces pages of deadly boring infodump with a few comments in conversation, a few glances at what people wear or eat or venerate. You shouldn’t think of worldbuilding as something boxed off from the rest of the text. It can be intrinsic with dialogue, description, etc. It’s crucial (and liberating) to realize that every word you put on a page can and should perform multiple duties simultaneously. Description can be worldbuilding. Dialogue can be character development. Messages within messages, revelation within revelation. Also, remember that nobody can follow all these guidelines all the time without exception or flaw. The point is just to keep aiming higher. It’s art as well as craft. Some parts of it you can measure almost scientifically. Some parts are mad whack inscrutable alchemy. But chances are, if you work hard to lay a solid foundation of craft, you’ll strengthen everything that’s more numinous and subjective, too. There is no “one true way” to write anything, nor one true goal in writing/publishing. Treasure beautiful oddballs and weird experiments."

I'd consider that quote the golden mean. On the "continuous information" side, you don't want something like this to happen. And on the "revelation" side, you don't want to take up a long span of the player's time dumping info at them. Even if you think revealing all the information will make them rethink the entire game in that moment, it probably won't. I know the last fifteen minutes of Bioshock: Infinite left my brain sore with new information, so I couldn't process it alongside the game I'd just played. Unless the lore twist is something that completely changes the tone of the fiction - and I mean completely, I'm talking Toy Story 3's Sunnyside Daycare style - I don't think you need to rely on a twist to get lore out there.

When it comes to the "outsider protagonist" thing, it really depends? You can include worldbuilding into something without the protagonist having to ask questions in place of the player/reader. It happens in books all the time. If you're having a protagonist who is foreign to the lore you want to explain, think of other ways you can reveal it. Through turns of phrase by knowledgeable characters, maybe accompanied by a "oh, that means [x]. Sorry". Maybe the protagonist needs to be tutored. Maybe another character tells them a myth from the lore as a way of empathising with them.

If I had to pick one, I'd choose continuous revelation. Introduce pieces of lore a little bit sooner than you need it, or right before, depending on intended impact. Avoid info-dumps unless they're fair cop (a "Once upon a time.."-esque prologue, a lesson, a story told).

You could also go with the option of making codex pages like Mass Effect/The Wolf Among Us, if there's lore that isn't exactly dire for the characters/plot but is important to you.

[gekiganwing]

I don't have a definitive answer. I just have a couple thoughts about this topic to consider.

Read what other people have written, and then think about it. Did you think their stories were weighed down by exposition? Did you think there was a lack of crucial details?

How would you prefer the lore of a fantasy or sci-fi world be revealed in a VN?
... We're thrown into the lore directly, often with the MC less knowledgeable than the rest of the cast, who conveniently enough teaches both the protagonist in the story and the player about the world.

Using a main character who is still learning about their world is not a bad idea. As you said, relevant information can be presented to the reader and the MC at the same time. But what if the main character is a person who's already had a lot of life experiences? Then let them find out things about their world which they had never previously known or considered.

This advantage is actually one of the reasons i prefer VNs over regular novels, since you can get this optional overview of the information without having to turn to page x and find it.)

You can include an in-game encyclopedia if you want. I think it's wise to make sure it's only a supplement, rather than necessary for understanding the story.

[NekoNutchi]

Interesting replies so far, thank you!

Read what other people have written, and then think about it. Did you think their stories were weighed down by exposition? Did you think there was a lack of crucial details?

Yeah, i think the best way of reaching a conclusion about what works and doesn't is by reading and analyzing what effects the writing in various kinds of books has on you and why. For example, LoTR got away with a massive info-dump at the beginning due to the fact that Bilbo was writing a book about his travels in which it made sense to include that information. At least personally, i didn't find it boring or out of place, which might have been the case if the author introduced seemingly random facts about the world without making them integral to the story.
This brings me to Aurélie's reply…

"People too often conceive of worldbuilding strictly as background research, asa sort of dry and exhaustive homework. Every tiny and immediate detail in a story can be worldbuilding. Every button and widget can imply or reveal something to the reader. You can replaces pages of deadly boring infodump with a few comments in conversation, a few glances at what people wear or eat or venerate. You shouldn’t think of worldbuilding as something boxed off from the rest of the text. It can be intrinsic with dialogue, description, etc. It’s crucial (and liberating) to realize that every word you put on a page can and should perform multiple duties simultaneously. Description can be worldbuilding. Dialogue can be character development. Messages within messages, revelation within revelation. Also, remember that nobody can follow all these guidelines all the time without exception or flaw. The point is just to keep aiming higher. It’s art as well as craft. Some parts of it you can measure almost scientifically. Some parts are mad whack inscrutable alchemy. But chances are, if you work hard to lay a solid foundation of craft, you’ll strengthen everything that’s more numinous and subjective, too. There is no “one true way” to write anything, nor one true goal in writing/publishing. Treasure beautiful oddballs and weird experiments."

Very a useful quote, it sort of summarizes what i want to achieve in regards to revealing the lore throughout the story. And i guess the actions and dialogues at the end will be more centered on the characters associated with the lore (e.g fantasy-creatures that the main characters have met and gotten to know in during process), so it would probably come naturally to have more "info-dumps" (for lack of a better word) at the end anyway. Then again, they wouldn't necessarily contain any new info since the player will be relatively familiar with the world at that point (esp. in a VN where other routes have been played).
Now, all i can do as a beginner writer is embark on this weird experiment and see where it goes…

[Mad Harlequin]

You could also go with the option of making codex pages like Mass Effect/The Wolf Among Us, if there's lore that isn't exactly dire for the characters/plot but is important to you.

I've always rather liked this approach---especially in The Wolf Among Us. Fans of Fables won't really need to look at the lore, but people new to the world and characters will appreciate the information. I know I did, and now I'm determined to pick up the comics.

But the choice really depends on the specific nature of the story in question. For example, if there's a mystery to unravel, infodumps would kill it.

[Chocopyro]

Well, I'm working on at least one medieval fantasy game, and what I ended up doing, since I'm a bit of a nut when it comes to historical and sociological depth in terms of a setting, was probably something along the lines of B. I design my world to work more like a D&D or Pathfinder tabletop setting with tons of pothooks, cultures, complex politics, map out at least a year's worth of timeline lore in the macro scale of politics, commerce, ext, then I pick where I want to place the setting, what kinda character the protagonist is, and completely disregard everything else unless it's relevant to a character or an episodic plot. As opposed to making my protagonist kinda more ignorant to the world than the rest of the characters, I tend to make them a specialist in a certain field, and the characters they interact with are more specialized in other fields, that the others aren't as familiar with, so the explanations they give about the world are conveyed through the characters relying on one another's knowledge on a particular subject, which works more organically in my opinion.

In this particular story, my protagonist is an adventurer, so he knows a lot about things in that trade. The best times to travel, the best times to try to get work, where to get work, how to survive in a dungeon or wilderness ecology, what sorts of contacts they should establish when arriving in a new region for an extended stay. His actions are explained to the player when he makes them in a way that doesn't seem stupid, and he is an amateur historian who avidly geeks out about certain treasures and places he visits, but then you have other characters, like the alchemist store owner, who really knows her stuff on both topics of local mercantile trade, alchemy, and even magic, having graduated from a local magic academy. So in terms of the occult, botany, and economics, she could really kinda take the stage when explaining to the character why an embargo on "puffblossom pollies" is both a good and a bad thing. Obviously bad, because its such a common potion ingredient, but the good news is that she, from both her alchemical knowledge and being a local to the area knows of a way to make a huge amount of money in a flash and get ahead of her competition by getting him to exploit an indigenously common, but often overlooked local substitute resource in mass. The player doesn't even need to know what puff blossom pollies are, or even that the reason behind the embargo could be enough to base an entirely new game off of those events alone, but it makes for an exciting success story if told right. Then you have the thief, who would know all kinds of stuff about not just street smarts, but how to pull political strings to his advantage. This guy may know everything there is to know about what sparked a cold feud between two shady minor noble families that the adventurer would have absolutely no reason to know, and the alchemist may not even care about. The blacksmith's apprentice may be one of the few people who could tell them everything they need to know about forging crucible steal, which would undoubtably leak some knowledge about the pseudo viking region of the world, and the druid...? Dear god, that's a whole other world of depth waiting to be explored. Even a character who is as dumb as bricks may know the water ways and river fish better than anyone else wold, probably from traveling up and down them so often in search of a fabled pot of gold. XD

So the world exists, and is fully fleshed out, whether the player knows or not. But no matter how deep it gets, its still more used as backdrop for the characters as I tell stories that focus on the emotional level as opposed to dumping every painstaking detail on them. And not just that, but lets say there were some really cool details I fleshed out that my story didn't even touch upon... Like say that before mentioned trade embargo. SEQUELS! SPINOFFS! BRAND NEW CHARACTERS! A strong setting could be reused as many times as you need to and will always provide something brand new to the player! The players who do love the world lore may take notes on every referenced detail, but the ones who are more there for the story may not care so much as to understand why and how everything works, but they would certainly recognize that their favorite character looks pretty awesome when they take their specialties into the spotlight.