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?
Have your characters be from Somewhere Else and and make being in a strange place part of the story and any “lack of info” becomes a feature instead of a bug.
Have premade lists of random names for people, places, etc. and cross off stuff as you use it.
Don’t be afraid to let the players do some work to fill in lore: Character 1:“GM, which town has the best smithy?” GM: “Character 2, you said your father was a smith. Which town did he always talk about?” GM: “Character 3, why is Character 2’s dad mistaken?”
Lastly ChatGPT can help with this a LOT. Feed it a few prompts about a place or thing and ask it to generate a few points of interest.
I would like to play an insurance agent on vacation, and I would like a familiar that carries all of my things