An "Advanced" Roleplaying Setting

[Alexius Carthwall]

Alright, so I've been playing around with the idea of creating a campaign setting based off an ancient hightech society that has fallen into decline and thus resorted to a medieval ages technology level. However, several groups of people still retain knowledge of the past, and technology from that time period still exists around the world as "Artifacts of God" and the like. Most of the basics are just another campaign setting, however the big issue I am running into is that the players will always know far more than their characters.

The characters should act and believe they are in a medieval like world with no knowledge of the ancient civilization that the are descended from. yet players (no matter how much you try to keep it form them) will generally have a pretty good idea of the world and it's history before they start playing, and if they don't, they will certainly know if you ever try to run another campaign there again.

Now, I know many people who would never have an issue with this and play their characters exactly as they should. However, I also know just as many, if not more, people who would find this exceptionally hard to do.

So, the question is, what are your thoughts/feelings on the idea of not sharing setting information with your players and ways to do it, As well as what are your thoughts on role playing this sort of campaign? How do you think people would handle it?

Thanks!

[Nomadic]

This is an issue that comes up in most campaigns. I have found that as a DM there is not much you can do. It is up to the players to play it like that. How do they learn to do it? The play. Simply put, the only way for a player to become a good player is to practice practice practice. Of course giving them a few pointers on what makes a good player can only help.

The articles here might be helpful in showing them how to become an experienced player. In the end though, their ability to ignore the metagame influence is up to them alone. Though there are a couple things you can do to make it easier on them.

Change it Around:
Sure it is in the same setting as it was last time, but perhaps this time they start in an area they have never been to before. The game has the same overall feel, but the new location is free to have completely different cultures and races, even new major enemies to deal with. This will give it a feeling of newness that can help them get into character.

Use Proper Information Channels:
If you have any house rules that need to be known, let them all know them right off and make sure they understand. After that though only give them information through their characters eyes. They start off knowing the common stuff that any inhabitant of the land would know. If you want to keep them guessing, make the land more mysterious. Perhaps records of ancient history were lost. What happened in ancient times is still affecting them, but with no records they can do nothing more than form a hypothesis about it. It keeps them from figuring everything out so that each time they come back there is always that bit of uncertainty and newness to it. You can also occasionally reward them with new knowledge, the bookworms among you will find that as much a reward as gold or magic items. If you channel the information you give properly you can form the proper feel for the campaign. This will make it easier to play in character for them, when most of what they know is just what their character knows.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Any major revelation or something not known to the general populace is something I would never tell players beforehand. It's the kind of bombshell that, learned in game, will shape the players' memories of the campaign.

If the game goes well, they'll be happy to play in the same world again. They can either attempt to suppress the knowledge the second time around, or you might allow them to play characters that do know something of the truth (perhaps because they've might the PCs from the prior campaign).

[snakefing]

One thing that might help is to really play up the medieval atmosphere. Encourage the characters to have feudal (or whatever) relationships and loyalties. Make plenty of NPC's with very medieval attitudes (in religion, say, or maybe just plain old ignorance or parochialism). If players want to give their characters some degree of understanding derived from their own knowledge, you can't do much. But NPC's will lack the background to understand the characters' explanations, or even be actively hostile to them.

Don't describe "technology" with technological terms, not even out of character. Provide them with maps that are incomplete, inaccurate, or just limited in scope. If you work on maintaining the overall atmosphere and theme of your campaign, your players will hopefully cooperate.

You could create a skill or check for Knowledge (Ancient Secrets) that would be necessary to learn things. But this risks making it acceptable for characters to try to learn technology rather than keeping it arcane and mysterious. Depends what you are aiming for.