Making players to make assumptions: is it nice?

In some video games--RPG in particular--most players would start as a rather clueless character being put in a setting where they can start exploring or figuring out what they can and can't do in the game. Wandering around, talking to NPC, visiting several places, finding companions, getting into the quests, you name it. I've found this scenario in most of the games I've played so far, and the game I'm making is no exception.

However, given the contexts that player is totally clueless about the story where they take part in and the information given at the beginning is not that much, is it good to leave them alone and let them make assumptions on everything around them?

Asking this because I don't want to spoonfeed players with much information at the beginning and in most parts of the story--it would break the essence of exploring and spoil the surprise players would find as they make progress. Also, I know letting players be too clueless is not quite nice, so... yeah.

it's not a bad choice.
in fact, I would encourage that.
I hate when every other RPG tells you the story of the universe wherever you go..... people in the real world don't do that, they have their own concerns, which *sometimes* they'll tell you about.
if you want to take that route, you'll need a good quest/dialogue system which would allow you to write long conversations, so that the player can ask about what they want to know.
that is what is not usually available, so makers take the obvious route: spoonfeed information to the players, so they won't ask.

If you go to that route though, there are some players who will also never seek the lore themselves, and ended up not knowing the lore. All they know is "well, this game has fun gameplay, but idk what this game all about, but I don't care".

You're making the lore optional. And you obviously need to get used to some players who didn't get the lore if they didn't find it themselves. My cent is, if your goal is to introduce the world / lore of it, you gotta spoonfeed them. If you don't, and make the lore as a justification of the gameplay, and you focused on the game itself, it's not a bad choice.

Why im thinking of this thread? https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/how-much-lore-is-too-much-lore.98443/

I don't think it's a binary choice between an info dump, however that is handled (including NPCs, books, etc.) and wandering around clueless. The characters themselves ought to know something about their world, and there are many opportunities to write a tiny snippet of dialogue which gives some information. For example, all players are going to open an obvious chest - put a little something there. Short bits of conversation when the party first enters a town is another place. Your maps themselves should be telling you a story about your world. A statue can tell you something, even if you don't interact with it to read the inscription; a gated off section of town surrounded by hovels; having a gallows in the market place; shops selling really fancy goods or only basics; etc. etc.

So, there are two major paths ahead: deliver the full lore directly to players (a.k.a. spoonfeeding) so the won't ask and give players just a bit of information (or hooks, as my friends called it) which they can find the rest of it if they're curious enough. These paths are interesting on their own, but I'm reconsidering which one I shall take for the rest of the game development.

For now, I've spread bits and pieces of the lore across various places. The possibilities that players might overlook the information are taken into account whenever I write dialogues/narrations or arrange the places where the story will take place; but still, it's beyond my reach as a developer. Would be a good stuff to discuss with players and developers alike, I may reckon.
Though, what should I deliver if the lore itself is still nonexistent? Well, I need to work on it as well sometime later...

As a player myself, though, it's customary for me to get around and look for possible information, mandatory or not.

Anyway, is there any pros and cons of leaving the assumptions to the players, aside from the visible chance of letting them clueless throughout the game?

As a player who favor "Quest Scenario" more than a "Text of Lore", I tend to ignore optional lore. Thus, an option to dig deeper into the world itself I usually ignored. Unless when I want to. You have two places, both tell different lore. If I'm not interested in another one, so I skip it. For sure me as your player will miss the one I skipped.

I do also hate that when the dev just decide to rub a wall of text on my face that it was supposed to 'spoonfeed' me with lore / information. That's why I favor a creative "quest scenario" that exactly tell the lore. If I want to read the lore, I'd be better just go head to the game wiki if available. Reading book in game is really quite inconvenient. I'm playing game, not reading a book.

And to answer your question, probably the cons if you wanna talk about your game lore with your clueless players, they're likely not going to understand it unless you give them an extra information. The pros is, welp I can't think one. But you can cover that by focusing on gameplay. You see, some of mobage player doesn't care about the character's lore either. As long as they get SSR and waifu collection they happy.

The balance to seek (or at least I try to) is to give the player enough lore to know the basics of the world through item descriptions, banter, conversations, quest dialogue, cut-scenes, etc. and leave the rest optional. Also rewarding the player when they do hunt down optional lore without it breaking the game or leaving the players that don't feel like they miss out on something. As for books, usually those don't get found by anyone but those truly interested in the lore so keep that in mind. Anyway that's what I think

I'm with @TheoAllen - I want to run across anything that is directly relevant to the events happening around me, and I don't even mind if that's spoon-fed to me - but I don't want a lot of "lore", history, or background story (that is not immediately relevant) dumped upon me.

Everything from items to NPC dialogue can flesh out the details of the world and its past; that's not particularly important to hit every bit of. But missing important details about what the player's party is actually doing or fighting against can be dicey, and should only be allowed when the designer is very confident that it will heighten the sense of mystery (and/or the impact when things are clarified later) more than it creates total confusion.

So, from this thread, I can draw a line that there's a balance between extensive lore and how it can be presented. Interesting.

Well, I have some concerns about the presentation itself. Based on my experiences in playing story-driven games, lore takes little place in the whole game--to find some bits of this particular article, however, I still can dig around the game with relying on neither the dev (the spoonfeeding, yep) nor the wiki someone would make sometime later.

I believe there is an art of conveying information in a subtle manner without making players feel being choked with massive yet not that useful information; seems like it's the time for me to study more on story presentation in video games. Converting confusions into mystery seems like a good idea, I'd say. Might will give it a try, since it's what I'm trying to achieve in my project.

Know that some players will simply dismiss the information the game tries to deliver. I can't blame them. Still, for this project, I can't just rely solely on the gameplay; it's an RPG, after all, and it has to have some story and situations for players to know.

procedural TV shows (cop drama shows, medical shows, etc) do this in a covert way.
they'd often *state* information, that the characters would have partial knowledge of, which would be unnecessary, but *is*, for the audience.
you can rely on that as a storytelling tool, but make sure you carefully *develop* the information through careful, covert, blatant dumps of exposition.
basically, you would present a vague concept through general statements, only to refine it through more statements as the dialogue progresses.
my suggestion would be to watch a movie that has a sequel, that is an original product (not based on a book or anything), because if there is a sequel, there's probably implicit information the characters won't mention because it was already mentioned in the first movie, so their interactions would be particularly casual.
there has to be a sense of familiarity, somehow.

@richter_h Some traditional ways of conveying the lore, history, or the important information thought to talk with NPC like @Wavelength said. I do know not what is Quest Scenario that @TheoAllen? Like walking to memories land or dreamland?
I think you could make cutscenes inform the players what is going on at the beginning of your game.
For me personally, I like to try a new experimental way of conveying the situation of the world by spreading the piece of information around the maps. Players could collect the piece of information when the piece of information connect together; they will become a paper which tells the whole history of that particular subject. That way, you encourage the players to explore and investigate the buildings.
Bad Joke: People in this world are so friendly enough that they will talk to the stranger about their feelings and their hidden knowledge.
I hope that helps you someway.

Quest scenario is basically "show", don't "tell". You show them through quest.

In Skyrim, Nords who die will go to Sovngarde, it's a lore. But I don't care, and probably forget what is Sovngarde even if it had been mentioned several times. However, the main quest brought me to the place by any means that somehow the "quest scenario" lead me there. The dev can just make the player defeat Alduin (main villain) right away, but the "scenario" make it so Alduin retreat to Sovngarde to restore his strength, and you as the dragonborn player make a pursuit, which imo the right way to tell lore.

In short, you mentioned something, show what it looks like. If you mention a person, show how the person looks like. If you mention a place, show how it looks like, if you mention how things done in your world lore, show how it's done in game. If it shown in game by text (book), I won't care and likely to forget it.

@TheoAllen, ok I get what are you trying to say now and thank for clarifying. I agree that cutscene is the most effective way to explain an idea to a player.