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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Does the world exist for the PCs?
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<blockquote data-quote="Urriak" data-source="post: 7613242" data-attributes="member: 6996219"><p>IMO the world exists for the PCs, to the extent that it's needed for them to roleplay and experience adventures. At the same time, that doesn't mean you should be making a world solely revolving around the player's existence like a bad video game. They can both be true at the same time.</p><p></p><p>I just watched an episode of Overlord recently that shows this rather well. The knight and his sidekick entered a tavern, where some ruffians tried to pick a fight. The knight threw one of them across the tavern, where he smashed into a table, breaking a mercenary' potion. The mercenary who had the potion angrily confronted the knight, saying she had saved up her money and gone hungry several meals to pay for it. She points out that the knight broke the potion because of his carelessness, and that by his fancy armor is the only person in the tavern who could afford to replace it.</p><p></p><p>In this scenario, the tavern is designed as a hook for the PCs (the knight and his companion). They get in a tavern brawl, and need to replace someone's potion. At the same time, they are not the center of the universe, despite being the most important people in this tavern. Their actions in the brawl intersected with that of the mercenary, who otherwise would have continued to go on with her day.</p><p></p><p>Without the PCs, the tavern, ruffians, mercenary and potion would all still exist, and nothing would contradict that. The PCs add complications by walking in and having a brawl, but that doesn't stop the mercenary from having her own independent life.</p><p></p><p>The best DM's create settings like this, that behave less like a character walking up and saying "Hi do this quest for me!" and something more like what would really happen in daily interactions.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Urriak, post: 7613242, member: 6996219"] IMO the world exists for the PCs, to the extent that it's needed for them to roleplay and experience adventures. At the same time, that doesn't mean you should be making a world solely revolving around the player's existence like a bad video game. They can both be true at the same time. I just watched an episode of Overlord recently that shows this rather well. The knight and his sidekick entered a tavern, where some ruffians tried to pick a fight. The knight threw one of them across the tavern, where he smashed into a table, breaking a mercenary' potion. The mercenary who had the potion angrily confronted the knight, saying she had saved up her money and gone hungry several meals to pay for it. She points out that the knight broke the potion because of his carelessness, and that by his fancy armor is the only person in the tavern who could afford to replace it. In this scenario, the tavern is designed as a hook for the PCs (the knight and his companion). They get in a tavern brawl, and need to replace someone's potion. At the same time, they are not the center of the universe, despite being the most important people in this tavern. Their actions in the brawl intersected with that of the mercenary, who otherwise would have continued to go on with her day. Without the PCs, the tavern, ruffians, mercenary and potion would all still exist, and nothing would contradict that. The PCs add complications by walking in and having a brawl, but that doesn't stop the mercenary from having her own independent life. The best DM's create settings like this, that behave less like a character walking up and saying "Hi do this quest for me!" and something more like what would really happen in daily interactions. [/QUOTE]
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