Lore & World Building

Every RP that is submitted starts with an OP. It'll describe the world the characters will live in and help shape. How detailed the world is all depends on the game master, the literary God of that world, really. As a roleplay goes on, the world starts to change, as the players leave their fingerprints upon the world. As a GM, how much freedom do you give players in introducing and expanding upon the lore of your world? As a player, how much freedom do you like? What's the right balance between blank slate and a lore bible?

World building is my favourite part of GMing, I love creating different worlds for people to explore and watching how their characters effect the world.

I tend to keep a bit of involvement with the more minor stuff and try to maintain a decent amount of control over the larger plot points but for the most part - so long as the RP isn't plot-based - I give RPers a lot of freedom.

Actually, I most often make RPs based on existing lore and worlds. Pokémon, digimon, Star Wars sort-of-Homestuck... Of course, sometimes there are differences between my vision and the "canon" ones, and then I have to describe those.

I did make a RP set in a made-up region of mine once, called Arcanum. There, I described the history and culture as briefly as I could while still giving all the relevant points across. I tried to make it not too tedious and detailed to read, and I also did want to give the players a bit of space to imagine their own characters without feeling either lost or too restrained.

I would really like to make a completely original RP at some point. It would be really fun to do some proper world building. Knowing myself though, it might end up being a RP that is set in our real world with some twists, haha. I haven't been much for completely original works, I guess. Not really sure why.

I try to give enough descriptions so that people can really expand and create a character that can fit the world. I think of questions that would help me better shape and come up with my own character and relay that information in the OP. I think that's a big part of world-building for RP purposes - can someone make a well-defined character from this?

I want to leave enough freedom so that the players can come up with their own lore, but not too much that they feel obligated to do so because that can be intimidating.

Coming from a player perspective, I'd like to have a well-thought out world already in place for me to explore. And I agree with Retro Bug. Players need a world that has enough in it for us to create a complete and rich character. We need the geography of the world for appearances, culture for personality, and the general lore for history. Do I make a blue kid whose mother was just killed by a green orc in a space suit? Is that even possible in the story?

The lore basically sets the tone for any RP ever

It depends on the roleplay. If it's the type where roleplayers tend to be centered around one area as a hub, that area should be pretty well detailed, with the roleplayers potentially fleshing out the smaller (and typically less important) details.

In larger areas, there should definitely be a general outline, but players should be given some freedom for their own creation. Not to mention that it's typically beyond the GM to finish every detail of such areas, lol.

I find that what i find most enjoyable is having a schedule of sorts that allows for free range until something major is introduced. Whether that be a Pokemon Tournament or some big meeting but in the meantime up to that point, we are able to build our characters and stories.