Passing on the Lore

The 5e adventure "Storm King's Thunder" has a genuinely great concept. Firstly in the simplicity of the statement "Shakespearean Giants", and also in the detail (spoiler: King Hekaton's court is largely lifted from "King Lear"). Unfortunately, it falls down badly in the execution, because for the vast bulk of the campaign the PCs spend their time wandering around the Savage Frontier having adventures, gaining XP... and although they do deal with a lot of giants who are kicking off in various ways, it's seldom clear exactly why.

It is only later that the PCs run into a giant who explains all this - and who is essentially the Font of Exposition for the campaign.

The fundamental problem there is that there's a whole lot of lore behind the scenes, but it needs to get into the hands of the PCs. And the reason for this post is that "Storm King's Thunder" is far from being the only adventure or campaign to have this problem. Indeed, getting the lore to the players is a fairly inevitable challenge - there's bound to be something that it would be better that they knew, so how to tell them?

Some thoughts:

• One option is simply to inform the PCs, either in the role as DM or through an NPC simply providing exposition. That works, and has the advantage that there's no ambiguity there. The downside is that it's a blunt instrument - "show, don't tell" is considered good advice for a reason!
• One thing I've used to good effect in the past is the "Five things you know about..." post. I really should re-institute the use of this device. That's not much better than just telling the PCs (indeed, in many ways it's exactly like that), but it can at least be use for incidental lore, rather than tying directly into the matter at hand.
• I'm very much of the opinion that PCs should be rewarded for choosing relevant proficiencies. Therefore if a PC has relevant skills (be it a 'knowledge' proficiency, their background, or whatever), they should be fed an abundance of information... that may or may not be relevant.
• The best way of all is to provide lots of clues, and let the players build up the picture. This needs a lot of care, and will take loads of time. (Remember the Three Clue Rule!) And it's best to avoid false information. But it does have the big advantage that it gives the players the opportunity to go off exploring the various details that get dropped in, rather than just being guided by all the answers.