[RPG] How to tell your players about the setting without make them read

I like to work like this: I give the basic information to the players. One single page of 8.5 x 11 with all the info they certainly know. I tell them everything that is outstanding. How many moons, color of the sky, name of the main constellations if they are relevant. Any info about the basic religion, main genesis myth everything relevant for the first adventure and their basic character creation. This page is info that even a farmer knows.

Then I let them create their characters and ask me all the questions they want. I keep note of my answers in a form of a Q&A by email (or my own private website for my group).

This method works for both Homebrew settings and really odd settings.

I make sure the first adventures are introductory to the tone of the setting and the campaign so they know what's going on. I once started a campaign by a paladin executing a child in public for stealing food from the Temple. I wanted the players to understand that in my setting, alignments are more complicated than they look.

My biggest piece of advice would be: Don't take all the job on your shoulders. This is obviously optional, but if you create the broad strokes for a game setting and you say something like: Elves are the dominant race in a world of floating islands, humans are haunted for their skins and orcs are invading the world from the moon with their army of jetpack wearing soldiers. That's all good. But leave it like that. When questions arise about the world, turn the question back to the players and use their answer. Build the world with them. When you know something and you're sure about your answer and how to portray the world, just do it. But in doubt, turn the question to the players. Their character will certainly know better.

In the past, I've developed histories, theologies, and factions with a combination of Microscope and Kingdom.

In the living history I've developed, you can see the records of a game of Microscope which developed the history of the world, and a game of Kingdom, which detailed the factions and history of one of the local towns they lived in. By setting givens of the character races of the D&D world and some other generalized "this is how my world is." I made a far richer history than I would otherwise have been capable of.

To do this properly, I would have players engage in this world building before character creation, and then employ my methodology at the end of this paper. While the group character creation process is alien at first, it flows naturally from the group history and group politics and allows for remarkably nuanced and well-rounded characters. Obviously in a game like 4e, the group character creation can only really impose narrative requirements. The mechanics of the characters can be left to the people of the group who enjoy that sort of thing.