BookTenTiger
He / Him
I consider myself a very collaborate DM, and I love it when my players help me build the campaign world. It is my dream to eventually run a game in which I am only one of many architects of the campaign world, with players designing settings, NPCs, villains, magic items, and narratives they're interested in playing through.
I know this isn't a style shared by everyone, but it's definitely my preference!
If you do enjoy it when players participate in world building, what are your favorite ways of seeing this at the table? Do you prefer it to stay in Session 0 or Character Backstories? Are players free to come up with "truths" about the campaign world mid-session? (For example: "Oh, my character's cousin is a smithy in this city." or "What if in this region, the dragons are worshiped as gods?")
Would you ever invite a player to design an upcoming city, organization, or NPC? What about a dungeon or villain?
Here are some of my experiences with players participating in campaign building:
1. Dwarven Lore
I played in a 5e game for a few years that I've mentioned here before, in which two other players and I played as dwarven cousins. After the campaign started, the two other players and I got together and played a little backstory adventure, brainstorming details about our extended dwarven family, the patriarch of the clan, the holds we came from... We were playing in the Forgotten Realms, but we got to add a lot of details. Our patriarch, Adric Amberhelm, wound up being the secret Big Bad Guy of the campaign!
2. Backstory Adventures
During that campaign, the players worked together to design "Backstory Adventures." During these sessions, the DM took a turn as a player while another player ran the game. These adventurers were always set in the past, filling in details about the backstories of our characters. For example, I once ran a session in which everyone played as kids in a gang in Skullport, one of the players playing a kid version of his own character.
3. Designing the Home Base
As players, we really wanted a small town we could adopt as a home base. The DM wound up asking me to design the town, and I did so on Inkarnate (I'm attaching the map below). I came up with all the NPCs and even a bunch of adventure hooks. The DM used my notes when we arrived, and it was so fun seeing everything come to life!
Later, when the DM needed a break for a while, so I took over and we played out a few months in the town. I got to use all those plot hooks as the characters helped townsfolk with their various troubles. My character was busy in the Wizard's Tower studying arcana.
(By the way, Revel's Lift is an anagram of "First Level," since this was supposed to be like the starting town of a campaign.)
I know this isn't a style shared by everyone, but it's definitely my preference!
If you do enjoy it when players participate in world building, what are your favorite ways of seeing this at the table? Do you prefer it to stay in Session 0 or Character Backstories? Are players free to come up with "truths" about the campaign world mid-session? (For example: "Oh, my character's cousin is a smithy in this city." or "What if in this region, the dragons are worshiped as gods?")
Would you ever invite a player to design an upcoming city, organization, or NPC? What about a dungeon or villain?
Here are some of my experiences with players participating in campaign building:
1. Dwarven Lore
I played in a 5e game for a few years that I've mentioned here before, in which two other players and I played as dwarven cousins. After the campaign started, the two other players and I got together and played a little backstory adventure, brainstorming details about our extended dwarven family, the patriarch of the clan, the holds we came from... We were playing in the Forgotten Realms, but we got to add a lot of details. Our patriarch, Adric Amberhelm, wound up being the secret Big Bad Guy of the campaign!
2. Backstory Adventures
During that campaign, the players worked together to design "Backstory Adventures." During these sessions, the DM took a turn as a player while another player ran the game. These adventurers were always set in the past, filling in details about the backstories of our characters. For example, I once ran a session in which everyone played as kids in a gang in Skullport, one of the players playing a kid version of his own character.
3. Designing the Home Base
As players, we really wanted a small town we could adopt as a home base. The DM wound up asking me to design the town, and I did so on Inkarnate (I'm attaching the map below). I came up with all the NPCs and even a bunch of adventure hooks. The DM used my notes when we arrived, and it was so fun seeing everything come to life!
Later, when the DM needed a break for a while, so I took over and we played out a few months in the town. I got to use all those plot hooks as the characters helped townsfolk with their various troubles. My character was busy in the Wizard's Tower studying arcana.
(By the way, Revel's Lift is an anagram of "First Level," since this was supposed to be like the starting town of a campaign.)