How much is too much?

[wrotenbe]

I'm about to run a Vampire: The Requiem game using the Requiem for Rome setting. Naturally, this means I have a whole universe of research available on Ancient Rome. What I want to know, my fellow GMs, is how much research is too much? When do you stop photocopying sections about Gallic dress styles and the Roman public education system and just wing it? On the one hand, this shit is downright fascinating, but I've done this all long enough to know that too much material just makes your head spin and most of the time the players don't give a shit either way as long as the story's interesting.

Especially those of you who've done more sandbox style games, what major points do you hit on in terms of fleshing out a place or a culture that come in most handy? Is having random factoids you can summon up at a moment's notice a good thing that both informs and enhances gameplay (oh shit, edutainment!) or in the end does it really just become too much of a pain in the ass trying to achieve authenticity that the game just falls apart under its own weight? I know a compromise between the two is best, but I was wondering if I should lean more one way or the other.

[jak7890]

You're the boss, man, you decide how much you can take.

For my own $0.02, I'd say that it'd probably be better to decide what year and cities that your story takes place in and then focus on all of the big events that happened in those times and places. Everything else you can probably research as you go once you figure out what direction your players are going to head in.

[JonHook]

Unless certain things will have impact on the game scenario, I wouldn't worry about doing research on things like the public education system. Just knowing that they had public schooling, and a rough idea of how it was conducted, should be good enough.

Now, if in your scenario you have a player who needs to infiltrate a public Roman school in order to take down the school bully, then I guess you would need more info then.

I say keep things light and fast. Most everything is just going to be background flavor. Just focus your research on the areas that you feel will have the greatest impact on the scenario.

[Boyos]

Flavor as in cooking and most everything else is realy to the consumers taste. If you put too much it ruins the purity of the item too little and its just a bit bland, so just go with what your players are enjoying if they want more give it to them if not then tone it down.