[D&D 3.5] A world without its creator

[contracycle]

I think there are two different issues here.  The first is, how much information is needed to play effectively.  The second is, how much information is needed to fully internalise the setting. The first is possible in an introductory lecture.  The second is not.  This turns into a problem only when the two are confused, with a couple of caveats.

In Romeo & Juliet, the chorus comes on first and tells you that:
- the story concerns two families "alike in dignity"
- that we are in Verona
- that the lovers are doomed
- that their deaths brings an end to the feud
- and its going to take 2 hours.

The opening crawl to Star Wars tells you that:
- it is a period of civil war
- the rebellion has just won its first battle
- in the process they acquired the death star plans
- Leia has the plans and is being pursued
(and we know how long its going to take from the billing)

In both cases the initial data dump is very limited but gives you enough information to understand what is going on.  There is still plenty of stuff to be discovered in the development of each story, though.

Certainly RPG is not directly analogous for multiple reasons, possibly the most important being that we need to make informed decisions at character creation.  However I think we can still get carried away over-estimating how much is required, especially when working with a Sim aesthetic.  You can do quite a bit of exposition within character creation itself; part of the problem I think is that we take the view that the character should be fully authored by the player without let or hindrance by the GM, but perhaps if we let go of that idea a bit, and allowed/expected characters to be altered, rewritten, or simply swapped for another at a later date, many of those problems may go away.  The player then does not need perfect information with which to create the perfect the perfect character, but only enough information to create a functional character.

This may even have an element of positive feedback because if you accept that the first characters made for a given game/setting are conditional, temporary, disposable (or at least potentially so), then the GM can also agree with a player to bump a PC off in order that they can be replaced, and this could itself be done for with an eye to exposition.  In fact there are probably some forms of exposition that you can only do with a character death; it can be exploited, for example, to show a villain getting their credentials, or demonstrating just how dangerous a noxious environment or predatory beast really is.