I think it also depends where in the story your info dumping.. It makes a big difference if your in chapter 50 of 76 or during the prologue or at the start
of a chapter. If its the first thing there you can do a classic 'suiting up' sequence... which means two to four paragraphs of various character's
points of view going over what they are doing during check points or during parts of the lull at the start of the mission.... separated by half a page to two
pages of the briefing from that persons perspective. If its in the middle of a chapter somewhere, even more so if it causes a lull during the 'good
parts', your going to have to be more creative... the problem is not the infodump itself its keeping the infodump from being a hinderance to the flow of
the story. If at any point the reader starts think along the lines of... 'Yeah, I get it already. Its mazelike and we can't use explosives... The
enimy is likely to include magical bunny shaped peeps with flamethrowers for eyes.... Get on with the good parts already', your doing something wrong.
Epsilon's Caper film method of spreading the briefing out over several scenes... basically using bits of the briefing as if they were the pre-opening theme
scene. They are used to set the mood but aren't used in that really, really infuriating way where key pieces of info are withheld until after they are
important. Its a bad method, that involves making the plot twist come out of nowhere... because if they mentioned it ahead of time they'd be unable have
it as a suprise plot twist. Info dumping after the fact, makes a mean spirited gotcha moment from nowhere hit you. A more effective method is to go for the
rereadablitity / rewatchablity trick of giving little clues along the way that add up to a twist later... the kind of thing that in hindsight makes perfect
sense but is unimportant at the time. For good briefing in section introbits example watch Ocean's 11 or its sequils
You can steal an idea from Second Raid itself... someone made a tangential comment about something random and it saved the mission. Any changes you make can
be used later or not. This is again an important placement issue... if your going to have it be a start for the fanfic you can get away with a different
pacing then if the changes started months previous and your getting to that point later on.
A more difficult, but if successful method, is the dueling breifings. This is where you swap between the briefing for the Psychotic Nutbar Lord's planning
and the Mithril briefing... With this method you can clearly explain the differences in plot/time line without having it rely on a single source of explaining
the changes. For instance, if your starting off the fic with the briefing you can have flash sideways to the PNL ranting/gleefully raving about what went
wrong/right... granted your going to have to get inside said PNL's head for a bit and the mooks he randomly kill during his rant will probably hate you
from the afterlife.
In short, always remember that the goal of an info dump is to have the info flow through in a manner that the reader/watcher feeling like its a breeze or a
gentle current rather that like they are slogging through armpit deep swamp mud or sewage.
of a chapter. If its the first thing there you can do a classic 'suiting up' sequence... which means two to four paragraphs of various character's
points of view going over what they are doing during check points or during parts of the lull at the start of the mission.... separated by half a page to two
pages of the briefing from that persons perspective. If its in the middle of a chapter somewhere, even more so if it causes a lull during the 'good
parts', your going to have to be more creative... the problem is not the infodump itself its keeping the infodump from being a hinderance to the flow of
the story. If at any point the reader starts think along the lines of... 'Yeah, I get it already. Its mazelike and we can't use explosives... The
enimy is likely to include magical bunny shaped peeps with flamethrowers for eyes.... Get on with the good parts already', your doing something wrong.
Epsilon's Caper film method of spreading the briefing out over several scenes... basically using bits of the briefing as if they were the pre-opening theme
scene. They are used to set the mood but aren't used in that really, really infuriating way where key pieces of info are withheld until after they are
important. Its a bad method, that involves making the plot twist come out of nowhere... because if they mentioned it ahead of time they'd be unable have
it as a suprise plot twist. Info dumping after the fact, makes a mean spirited gotcha moment from nowhere hit you. A more effective method is to go for the
rereadablitity / rewatchablity trick of giving little clues along the way that add up to a twist later... the kind of thing that in hindsight makes perfect
sense but is unimportant at the time. For good briefing in section introbits example watch Ocean's 11 or its sequils
You can steal an idea from Second Raid itself... someone made a tangential comment about something random and it saved the mission. Any changes you make can
be used later or not. This is again an important placement issue... if your going to have it be a start for the fanfic you can get away with a different
pacing then if the changes started months previous and your getting to that point later on.
A more difficult, but if successful method, is the dueling breifings. This is where you swap between the briefing for the Psychotic Nutbar Lord's planning
and the Mithril briefing... With this method you can clearly explain the differences in plot/time line without having it rely on a single source of explaining
the changes. For instance, if your starting off the fic with the briefing you can have flash sideways to the PNL ranting/gleefully raving about what went
wrong/right... granted your going to have to get inside said PNL's head for a bit and the mooks he randomly kill during his rant will probably hate you
from the afterlife.
In short, always remember that the goal of an info dump is to have the info flow through in a manner that the reader/watcher feeling like its a breeze or a
gentle current rather that like they are slogging through armpit deep swamp mud or sewage.