D&D General Does a campaign world need to exist beyond what the characters interact with?

[pemerton]

No aspect of the setting exists if the characters are not interacting with it.

<snip>

So what do you think? How do you run it? Is your campaign setting realized and existing even without character interaction? Or do you only detail what the characters are interested in?

There seems to be a misunderstanding that I run improvised settings, or settings that "serve" the players. I don't think this is true... I run settings that serve the characters and grant the players fun, interesting challenges! Usually what I'll do when the characters enter a new setting is that I'll create a list of "truths" about the place. I'll also ask the players for ideas of what might be there, or what they want to encounter ("I've always wanted to fight a beholder" or "we haven't encountered any magic item shops yet" for example). When the characters are exploring and investigating, I'll pull results from my list of truths, or create new truths based on ideas they have.

For example, if the characters are coming to a seaside port city, I might have truths including "ruled by a corrupt hedonistic baron" and "pirate merchants sell illicit goods" and "an abandoned island temple may house a pirate treasure hoard." As the characters talk to NPCs, investigate the city, and as the players ask me questions, I'll pull out stuff from the list. Whatever doesn't make it usually gets tied into the next setting.

If you're asking only about D&D, I think there are some challenges in running a D&D setting in an improvisational or "just in time" mode. 4e comes the closes, but still has some limitations in this respect. Here is something I wrote around 10 years ago about that:

In this respect 4e resembles a game like The Dying Earth. I've never read the Vance stories, but feel that I could run a game of Dying Earth from the rulebook. It gives me the "vibe" and "meta-setting", plus tips on how to set up situations/scenarios that will exploit that vibe to produce a fun session.

My feeling is that 4e was written with the intention to be GMed in this sort of way. I say this because (i) it fits with the game's emphasis on the encounter - combat or non-combat as the basic unit of play; (ii) it fits with the obvious effort to create that default atmosphere, with the gods, race backgrounds and so on in the PHB and the little sidebars in the Power books; (iii) when you look at the original MM (with most of the campaign info located in skill check results), plus think about how skill challenges should play out (with the GM having to make calls about NPC responses, and other elements of the gameworld, on the fly in response to unpredictable player actions), and even look at the whole emphasis on "situations" rather than "world exploration" as the focus of play, the game seems intended to support "just in time" creation of world details, using "points of light" and the default atmosphere as a framework for doing this in; (iv) it fits with the absence of a developed setting.

Unfortunately, though, the rulebooks don't do much to support GMing this sort of game. A contrast is provided by The Dying Earth rulebook, which does offer tools to help the GM with this sort of situation-based preparation and play.

For 4e, this is really provided by Worlds and Monsters. Good art, interesting stories, and (most importantly for a GM) good discussions of the way in which those stories have been designed to help make an interesting game. Big chunks of this book should have been incorporated into the 4e DMG, in place of (what are in my view) unnecessary or overlong parts of it like the tedious discussion of giving adventure locations personality and the random dungeon generation. If they had been, that would have gone some way - though not all the way - to helping GMs run games in the sort of fashion that the rulebooks seem to intend.

In other systems, which have better support for this sort of play - I'm thinking especially of Burning Wheel and Torchbearer in my own case, and also to an extent MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic - doing "just in time" setting creation, where setting is established as needed to support the needs of play (typically either framing, or failure narration), works very well.

There are also one-shot-ish systems like Cthulhu Dark and Wuthering Heights which don't need any setting beyond a sense of "OK, we're in late Victorian London".

Unless it's a railroad by definition a world must consist of more than the party interacts with. Because otherwise there is never the possibility of options not taken and choices offered and turned down.

I read the rest of your post, but I think I still disagree with this claim. A setting doesn't need to be established, and certainly doesn't need to "exist" in the form of a GM's notes, for the players to be able to make choices and declare actions for their PCs. It's true that players need some sense of open possibilities, but I think this can flow from framing and associated expectations, without requiring the GM to have actually built out the "world" in which those possibilities might be realised.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

That's probably about right for me too. Doesn't mean I'm not going to do it, or that I don't enjoy it as much or more than what happens at the table.

I think my DM enjoy’s it more actually.

 

[Oofta]

I frequently improv stuff, but if it's of consequence beyond the current encounter it gets added to my notes a canon. I don't have a ton of details planned out for most of my world so I can fill in the blanks as I go. But I do have a general outline so I can keep everything straight and have something to base my improvisation on.

Some people can probably improvise absolutely everything and keep it all straight, but many people fail. I remember talking to someone about potentially joining their game and they and their friend were talking about how he improvised a town. The PCs had gone in a direction he hadn't anticipated so the first NPC they came across was named Bob. Then the next NPC was also named Bob. Welcome to Bobtown where everyone, male and female, was named Bob! This may have worked for the DM and his friend, but that would just be too goofy and obviously an idea that should have garnered a second look.

On a related note it's also why I have random lists of things like town, shop, NPC names. If someone goes off the map and I have to come up with a town, I just glance at my list and pick names that make sense. It makes a lot more sense if Drywell has a tavern named The Spotted Toad and the bartender's name is Lars and is owned by Tuli, a female dwarf. This information also goes into my notes. Improv is fine, but I want some predefined structure and tools for that improvisation.

 

[Mort]

It matters if (or, IME inevitably, when) the DM ad-libs herself into blatant contradictions or inconsistencies due to not remembering or not writing down what we saw there last time or what we-as-characters/players already knew about the new area.

I've found it's much more about the DM and their comfort with responding to situations/experience than it is about whether they've prepped or are ad libbing. Just because something is "written down" or prepped doesn't mean the DM will be able to respond to curve balls well - that's the kind of thing that usually comes with experience.

Parts of the world that never - and never will - intersect with the players/PCs, sure. But how do you know ahead of time which parts those will be unless you intend to somehow force your players to keep their PCs within a predefined area?

Generally, things work more smoothly when players find and stick with the DMs proffered plot hooks. If they constantly veer off in random directions, doing random things not related to anything the DM has put forward, there is little room to complain when things they encounter come off as half baked!

I played with a guy once whose character's motto was "Where the map is blank, I'll go." And he did, all over the setting world. Characters like that - or even the potential existence of characters like that - are why I think a DM wants at least a vague idea in mind of what's where in the world beyond just the adventuring region.

That kind of player would irritate most groups, not just the DMs of those groups. If I set up a campaign based in Balder's Gate, have prepped Balder's Gate with plot hooks etc. 3 of the 4 characters are exploring the city and #4 decides 10 minutes in that Baldur's Gate is boring, I'm going hop the next caravan or ship to Candle Keep! The DM is perfectly within his rights to say "OK #4 the rest of the group is exploring Baldur's Gate, Rexnar can hop the caravan to Candle Keep sure, he's out of the current set of adventures for now - you can pick him back up if/when the group ever makes it to Candle Keep. How about you roll up a new PC that has some motivation to stay in the city/with the group?"

 

[Voadam]

Which is why efficient worldbuilding is oriented towards a purpose. The idea of big campaign settings that can be anything to everyone and covers whatever style of fantasy you could ask for, like Forgotten Realms in particular, is nice on paper. But you end up with so much mush that is rarely going to be of any use to anyone that it makes finding and remembering the more useful elements more difficult. Not to mention the amount of writing time that is spend on it.
I regularly feel that the best campaign settings are the ones that have a general idea of what kinds of stories are going to take place in them, instead of offering a place to play any kind of story, but being spread thin on useful specifics everywhere.

I find diverse kitchen sink settings with lots of options like the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Golarion pretty useful as a player and DM.

They provide a lot of character hook options. If you or one of your players come up with a Celtic or Viking or Ancient Egyptian or East Asian fantasy character concept there are places in the world that these exist with some history and integration in the setting to build off of that is ready to go.

If you have modules you want to run you can often find an analogue type of place and modify the module to fit in. If you want to run the Freeport Trilogy in Greyhawk there are Pirate Kingdoms ready to go to set the adventure in. If you want to follow that up with running the Legacy of Fire adventure path as a tonal change of pace you can place them in one of the Baklunish Greyhawk fantasy Arab kingdoms and it should work well, while keeping the pantheons and world history you are familiar with.

 

[Oofta]

...
That kind of player would irritate most groups, not just the DMs of those groups. If I set up a campaign based in Balder's Gate, have prepped Balder's Gate with plot hooks etc. 3 of the 4 characters are exploring the city and #4 decides 10 minutes in that Baldur's Gate is boring, I'm going hop the next caravan or ship to Candle Keep! The DM is perfectly within his rights to say "OK #4 the rest of the group is exploring Baldur's Gate, Rexnar can hop the caravan to Candle Keep sure, he's out of the current set of adventures for now - you can pick him back up if/when the group ever makes it to Candle Keep. How about you roll up a new PC that has some motivation to stay in the city/with the group?"

To me, this really depends on campaign style. If I've agreed to play a module, I'll do my best to color within the lines and stay on track. If we're doing more of a sandbox campaign like I run, then if they want to ignore all the plot hooks, we'll figure something out.

However there is a limit. I had a player once that went out of his way to avoid plot hooks, even ones designed to appeal to his stated character goals. Not only was this annoying to the rest of the group, but if I ever tried to insert an important NPC or event the first thing he would do was run as fast as possible in the opposite direction. He finally left the group stating that he wanted to play a game where the group was in a tavern and "stuff happened". What stuff, other than running up a bar tab? I have no clue because he rejected anything and everything I set in his path.

Now? I ask poll the players after a we resolve whatever story arc they chose last time (usually takes 2-4 sessions) what they want to do next session so I can prep for it. I still improvise a lot but we've all agreed that if the group is investigating why all the cattle have disappeared in the local village, that's what we're going to do. How they go about the investigation and what they do about it is totally up to them. Meanwhile the thread they didn't pursue about people in the poorer part of town going berserk with rumors of a new drug may just fade away or be tied into a future potential arc.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think my DM enjoy’s it more actually.

Me too if I'm being completely honest.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Me too if I'm being completely honest.

Frankly I think most dm's who do any worldbuilding do it for this reason: it's fun, in and of itself.

If you have the chops to wing it and don't want to bother worldbuilding, more power to you. But I prep settings because it's fun and it make the inevitable improv easier. I don't need to. I want to.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

blatant contradictions or inconsistencies

Rule 1 of the Thieves' World stories was "there are no inconsistencies". Rule 2 was "if you find an inconsistency, see rule 1".

(Rule 3, per C.J. Cherryh, was "you write your first TW story for money; you write your second for revenge".)

 

[Lanefan]

I've found it's much more about the DM and their comfort with responding to situations/experience than it is about whether they've prepped or are ad libbing. Just because something is "written down" or prepped doesn't mean the DM will be able to respond to curve balls well - that's the kind of thing that usually comes with experience.

Generally, things work more smoothly when players find and stick with the DMs proffered plot hooks. If they constantly veer off in random directions, doing random things not related to anything the DM has put forward, there is little room to complain when things they encounter come off as half baked!

The second claim can be mitigated by the first - and you're right about experience helping - but hitting those curveballs is something IMO a DM has to at some point learn how to do, and do well.

That kind of player would irritate most groups, not just the DMs of those groups. If I set up a campaign based in Balder's Gate, have prepped Balder's Gate with plot hooks etc. 3 of the 4 characters are exploring the city and #4 decides 10 minutes in that Baldur's Gate is boring, I'm going hop the next caravan or ship to Candle Keep! The DM is perfectly within his rights to say "OK #4 the rest of the group is exploring Baldur's Gate, Rexnar can hop the caravan to Candle Keep sure, he's out of the current set of adventures for now - you can pick him back up if/when the group ever makes it to Candle Keep.

The map-is-blank guy did just this - his character went on a solo trip around the world, which the player and DM took care of in their own off-cycle sessions.

And I'm cool with this as both player and DM, as if it's what the character would do then so be it. Further, as DM I have to be ready to handle the outcome if any of them do find Baldur's Gate boring. Early in my current campaign, for example, I'd kinda set things up such that when they got to a particular city they'd run into all sorts of spy stuff, political intrigue, factions, and so forth. After their first real engagement with some of this, they left that city as fast as they could and didn't go back for years (and in some cases, never); so bang went all those ideas.

That was 12 or 13 real-time years ago. That setting is still active today, and I'm still hoping one day that a party will go into that city and engage with what's going on there; as even though five-ish in-game years have passed it's still a maelstrom of spying and intrigue.

How about you roll up a new PC that has some motivation to stay in the city/with the group?"

How about you roll up a new PC - sure. IME a player like this (who can sometimes be me) would already have dice in hand before this question even got asked. But, asking the player to play it a certain way is sometimes a near-guarantee of exactly the opposite end result.