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[Mesenterium]

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[Ace Cream]

Choose the theme. I understand the excitement of building a world and have other people explore it, but if the world is too intricate that the players might not understand it immediately then you'll risk turning it into showcasing your universe instead of an RP. Players would get confused, hesitate to add their own flair and might even feeling left behind. Choose a theme, let you and your players explore it. Have fun together.

 

[Grey]

Keep all that work on file and use it to inform smaller RPs using the material. I have 70k words of worldbuilding for one of my RP settings, and I never expect anyone to read all of it, or to use more than ten percent in any given RP. I just decide what story I'd like to run at any given time, what part of the setting it takes places in, and what kinds of people are involved.
Players choose their level of engagement by asking questions or reading extra material, but no actual person knows everything about the world, so why should a character living in another world be a complete expert about theirs?

 

[Grey]

Maybe even informing the roleplayer about small details as we roleplay.

I often fill in details through narration or in response to character investigation, but many of my games involve investigating and uncovering things about the setting.
Do the members of that organization need to know, or does their leadship know and tell them what they need to do their next job?
Maybe they're even lied to about their goals to keep them in line?
Maybe in the course of play they discover some of these concepts and question their role?

 

[Crow]

I think the real issue here is flexibility. People admire a fine lore but in a roleplay context, having too little room to wiggle is one of the very last things anyone ever needs!

 

[Idea]

What I would regarding something like this would be trying to give things in chunks. These would require you to answer two questions:

1. What is necessary to know? “Necessary” here includes things players have to know in order to make characters, things that are relevant to know in such a way that they will not be upset at not being told later (for instance, if there is some major restriction or trick for extra power, and a bunch of other things which are too setting-dependent to list ), matters which their characters would have known, and such.

2. Is the world working consistently? Are things really tied together or are they just slapped into the world without real cause, effect and significant presence?

Give your players the most necessary information once your world is consistent. This should come in a simple and summarized form. If you can’t make this much relatively short, you’re making things too complicated.

Beyond this, leave the players some access to the more in-depth information, but don’t make it so that information is required to be understood to understand what is relevant to the players-their characters and the story they are in. Make sure to establish with a moderate pace any information that does become necessary (as you shouldn’t really fix the plot, but rather be flexible with the choices of your players and keep them relevant).

Lastly of course, be very very patient and understanding. Be ready to answer a lot of questions, and a lot of repeated questions, and to do so with a smile on.

Hope this helps, best of luck and happy roleplaying!

 

[Lorsh]

My worldbuilding is relatively complicated, but the context of my roleplays is usually smaller-scale and region-locked. The characters don't need to know much beyond vague details about all the history, because their characters may very well be completely ignorant of it.

So probably just provide lore as-needed, but allow them to read up on the other stuff if they want to.

 

[Idea]

1. In fact, there isn't much the roleplayer needs to learn. Just what the possible powers look like and the logic behind them. This part, however, is when things get a bit tricky, as the explanation to such is dense, scientifically speaking.

That "scientifically speaking" there kinda worries me. Surely you don't mean that players are required to have real-world knowledge about a particular scientific subject in order to fully understand the system from which you are going to make a roleplay? Cause if you do, then I must recommend you drop the idea. Most of your "audience" is probably not going to be versed on the topic to begin with- much less interested in being lectured about it. So either they can't or they won't want to understand the system, if indeed it has that kind of basis as necessary for understanding.

Furthermore, whenever scientific realism is brought into the matter of superpowers, by my experience, it inevitably results in people trying to exploit it for power, in arguments over what could or couldn't happen, in obscure facts being brought up to justify plot-breaking stuff and so on...

And this would take a few pages of explanation

If it takes several pages to explain the fundamentals, then as I mentioned previously, it is probably too complicated.