HOMEBREW DMs: How much of your campaign design is Reactive? Proactive?

[The_Universe]

I was talking to one of my players the other day, and the conversation turned to how much of my homebrew campaign world design was based on things that I had consciously planned, and how much of it was simply decided when certain issues came up, or based on player action.

For me, about half of my world is based on my conscious designs - NPCs that I have always intended to be important, plot elements I wanted to bring in, locations and ideas that I fully intended to bring into the campaign before it began, or at least long before the player's could have had any effect on the idea. I call that "Proactive" campaign design - I'm creating stuff for them to find, independent of who their characters are and what they have done.

The other half is "Reactive." For instance, a character might ask about the history of an abandoned temple that I intended to be no more than ancillary to the story - as a result, it doesn't have any firm purpose or backstory. But, since the question has been asked, it must be answered (if you want to preserve verisimilitude in the world, that is). Thus, what was only supposed to be the place to find a couple of refugees suddenly becomes an ancient elven basilica, dedicated to a long forgotten god. The elves have not re-dedicated the temple to a new god, I decide, because calamity always seems to befall people who would remove the last bastion to this forgotten deity....blah blah blah.

The point is that that part of the game world didn't exist at all until the players asked - it was created reactively.

So, how much of your game world is created proactively? Reactively? Do you have a totally different way of thinking about such things?

Tell me about it!

 

[Gez]

I'd say 95% of my design is proactive. Most of the reactive design concerns plot-irrelevant elements, like the name of an unimportant NPC or the topography of a city.

 

[D'karr]

70:30 split.

I'd say 70-80% of my homebrew is preplanned. The other 20-30% is reactive due to player interaction.

I have long lists of NPC names, places, and other miscellaneous information that I use to supplement that 20-30%.

It also helps that I've been playing in this world for over 20 years so it is very familiar to me. The 30% reactive, amounts to me winging an NPC or the location of XYZ.

Before a game starts I always have an idea (even outlined many times) of the relevant plot. I use a decision tree (flowchart) format. This helps in keeping the reactive stuff to a minimum.

Two game sessions ago one of the players did something absolutely unexpected and from that point on the session was completely "off the cuff". It worked well because I could always use the seed of the idea from the decision tree. I was just forced to change setting and environment.

 

[Warden]

The first adventure that I wrote my campaign was pretty much 100% proactive...and those players went everywhere else with it. So now I plan out the details (locations, NPCs, and such) so that I can be ready for anything. When the game starts, I have one or two pages of notes and a computer by my side with the stats for anywhere they should go or anyone they should meet, within reason that is. Once the dice start rolling, I have no idea how it will turn out and the players choose the course of action for the story. If they decide to turn back and head home, then they turn back and head home.

Luckily, four years of the Improv Club in high school help out with this a lot.

 

[diaglo]

i plan for everything.

but those plans are numerous.

so the players can do whatever they wish.

the world reacts to them. or doesn't depending on how much or how little happens

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

I'm all about the players contributing to the world-building. Their ideas are subject to my approval, of course, but in the homebrew campaign I ran for 10 years (and am now reworking slightly to return to), I doubt I'll have as much input as I used to. The three players who drove that campaign have all moved on, and my players now (who are all great players and "imaginists", still tend to just expect me to do most of the work.... reason #252 why I'm so burned out right now.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Typically, probably around 60-40. I try to keep things outside the players' immediate sphere vague, and then fill in as they start moving in a certain direction.

 

[Pinotage]

I only play PbP games, so I've got plenty of time to react. As a result it's a 20:80 split. I come up with the grand plot, and then react to how the players work to solve the mystery/defeat the BBEG etc. If they go to an unexpected location, I just make things up as I go along. I only feed them the necessary plot hooks and events.

Pinotage

 

[Wombat]

I do a lot of work on creating a world ahead of time -- maps, legends, NPCs, new monster types, retooling rules to fit the view of the world, collecting up photos and drawings as examples, etc. Within the first 3-6 sessions (as well as pre-game e-mails and meetings), there is pretty much a "data dump" on the players. They learn a LOT about the world.

At the same time, the players start sorting through this info and creating bits of the world themselves. Whole new religions, ideas about food (would you believe they have created four recipes for our current world?), ideas about schooling, art, more fables and tales, and dozens of other details spring from their minds.

By the time the campaign really gets going, it is not MY world or THEIR world, but OUR world.

That is why I love rpgs

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I'd say that I'm somewhere between 30-40% proactive. Some NPCs and the specifics of most NPCs and some places I don't come up with till it interest the players. Recently I've been a little bit more proactive than usual but thats becuase one of the PCs is a goverment employee now (a Dwarven Defender) and since war has broken out they need his services but he just actually went against orders recently to try and save his mother which will have dire consequences on the whole.