My Life As A Gamer: If You Want Lore To Matter, Make It Useful

Gelantinous Rube cut a new video.

I will focus this to the older editions of D&D.

Information has to be found. It is a form of treasure in itself. Therefore, like all other forms of treasure, it must be sought and recovered. Like other forms of treasure, if it has no immediate utility then expect it to be socked away in a vault (literal or otherwise).

This has clear implications. You, the Game Master, need to be generous with information of certains types under certain circumstances; out in the field, that's environmental- you need to tell them what they see, smell, taste, hear, and feel. This means that you, in turn, need to know what they can sense; those plunged into pitch black darkness will see nothing unaided, those rendered deaf hear nothing, etc.

Likewise, information of a tactical nature--of immediate utility--will be more valued to most players than that which is not. Knowing where the narrow defile is, what comprises it, and what its dimensions are will matter more to most players than knowing the name of a king from a realm long gone that died generations before they were born.

Yes, you can complain--many do--but it is what it is, so deal with it. Most people today neither know nor care who rules over them, so that's hardly unusual.

This means that lore has to possess utility for most players to care about it. You want them to care about a dead king from a realm long gone? Make that information matter to the situation at hand. Password for a magic door? It's in a language most don't speak because it was made by a culture long gone. Found some swords? Made by a smith serving that dead king in that lost realm, and the local sages and bards can't give full details so off you go to the ruins thereof to find them.

For AD&D 1st Edition, there are procedures for locating and consulting Sages; use these for a lot of downtime-intensive information hunting. They, in turn, will point players to locations heretofore unexplored- which has perils all its own. Once again, Gygax has a Perpetual Content Creation Procedure in place and people do not use it.

Treasure maps are a thing, and so is unraveling their locations. Same thing applies.

Divinination spells, once they become available, greatly speed up the acquisition of this information at the cost of requiring the caster to spend time and valuable resources either in casting or recovering from casting such magics. (Yes, even if it's just making ready to memorize another spell of that level; check the times- they are not swift.)

However, the fundamental lesson remains: it is not immediately useful and relevant, it gets ignored.

Your job, then, is to encourage the players to make things relevant; don't worry, they will once they get into being active agents in the campaign and focus on getting shit done, and suddenly they will see the value in taking notes for later reference and not just be myopically focused on the present like the high time preference madness encourages from the plebs.