How "alive" should the world be - outside the scope of the PCs?

[Imaculata]

The point of the "living world" here seems to be as a way for the GM to direct the content of the shared fiction. If you want to do that, as a GM, then the "living world" is one way to do it.

Exactly. I use the living world as a means to:

-Show the players that their actions (and inaction) have impact on the world.
-To provide plot hooks (when the plot comes to them).
-To provide hints when the plot is going on elsewhere in the world, which they are free to seek out or ignore.
-So that plot twists don't entirely drop out of thin air. If evil is afoot, someone is bound to notice some of it.

For example, I had one npc approach the players at some point, while they were visiting a city and doing some shopping. The npc informed them that she had seen a battle in progress at a nearby coastal settlement. She had seen lots of smoke, and heard many gunshots, but she was unable to determine what the settlement was fighting against. This was a bit of clever misdirection on my part. I knew the players would presume that the town was under attack from pirates, and that they would not expect the twist...

It seemed that a left over plot point from the start of the campaign, had come back to haunt the players. Many sessions ago they had fled from a massive living ship, and they were only able to escape, because they befriended a giant, who picked up the living ship, and threw it somewhere on the island. But they never believed they were truly rid of this foe. Since the players were quite a distance away from the settlement, having an npc relay the story was the only logical way to let them know this was going on. The players now had a choice: Finish up what they were doing, or hurry to assist the settlement.

By having this npc show up, I was able to inject some excitement and suspense into the campaign, at a point when I felt it needed some action. The players were hanging around in the city for a long while, and not much was happening. So I gave them an exciting plot hook to respond to.

-If they responded right away, they would be able to join the battle, and prevent a lot of damage to the settlement.

-But if they waited, the battle would be over by the time they arrived, and the damage to the settlement would be severe.

Both outcomes are interesting. The first choice obviously throws them right into a battle, which is always fun and exciting. The latter has them witness the aftermath of the battle, and piece together exactly what happened, which is also quite interesting.

As it just so happened, they delayed, and a large part of the settlement was in ruins by the time they arrived. Some huge creature had left a path of destruction throughout the coastal town, which was not at all prepared to deal with this threat. The players talked to eye witnesses, and collected bits and pieces of what had transpired. At the town square they found the corpse of the massive living ship; riddled with gunshot wounds and covered in arrows. By the looks of it, it seemed like the entire town had fired just about every weapon they had at it to bring it down. In the local tavern they learned that it was the local weapon smith who had stood his ground, and emptied every last of his merchandise on the creature. He now was the hero of the town... but at a grave cost; his shop lay in ruins.

The players sat with the smith, and offered him a drink. They commended him for his heroism, and then decided to offer the poor smith a job to work for them. They felt responsible for what had happened, and offered to pay for the rebuilding of his shop. And so it all ended well. It was a fantastic role playing moment, where the players were confronted with the consequences of their own negligence.

 

[Aenghus]

It's not all gravy. The bad way to make the setting alive is to use it to punish players for not being interested in the same things the referee is interested in. Frustrated novelists, obsessiveness, onetruewayism, I've seen various referees get upset that their players don't agree with him or her on elements of the gameworld and what they mean and use their setting as a weapon to punish their players repeatedly.

IMO referees can benefit from a certain amount of mental flexibility when dealing with a setting they love. Players often don't care, and make fun of the setting or burn it down, often both physically and metaphorically. You can't reliably force the players to play the way you want, or care about the in-game things you care about.

Going ahead with the end of the world because the players didn't follow up on one plotline of many a number of months ago, a plotline the players have probably totally forgotten, is to my mind a massive overreaction and smacks of GM revenge.

Being aware of these pitfalls allows a referee to better avoid them and run a game that's entertaining and fulfilling for everyone, not just him/herself.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Can you elaborate? This sounds like you're talking about a 5e-style "GM empowered" game, but maybe I've misunderstood.

Not, for once, in this case. What I meant, in the context of 3e since that was the current ed back then, is that the living-world style makes it very difficult for players to predict the opposition, challenges, & pacing of any given day's worth of adventuring. That serves as an equalizer between the Tier 1 casters (who can really leverage any sort of fore-knowledge) and the Tier 2 (who can be more tactical/reactive) and between both of them and the benighted non-casters in Tiers 4 and under.

 

[Lanefan]

If a PC party doesn't do something and it still needs doing, there's lots of NPC adventurers out there who can see to it...and get rich doing so...or fail...or cause further problems of their own...

In the OP's extreme example, some options might be:

The PCs didn't go out after the hermit but another party did. When the PCs get back to town the hermit has captured the NPC party and sent in a ransom note. Do the PCs want to mount a rescue? (if not, someone else can do this too; and the PCs' heroic reputation among fellow adventurers might take a serious beating)

Or later: the PCs repeatedly didn't go out after the hermit and he completed his machine...but it failed to kill everyone. What it did manage to do was to blight the landscape for tens of miles around - it only kills plants, not animals! - and it's not done yet. Do the PCs want to go out and stop it? Or do the PCs want to mount a mission to bring magic seeds from the Elven gods to replant the region before everyone starves? Or do the PCs want to go take down the hermit before he builds another one? Or do the PCs sail off into the sunset and just leave all these headaches behind them?

Or at some point does the King, aware of the PCs' heroic reputation, just order them to take this on? (and what happens next if they decline, or agree and then abandon the mission?)

Lan-"there's always a plan B"-efan

 

[pemerton]

The whole idea that something would "need doing" - so that if the players don't have their PCs do it, the GM has to invent some other stuff in the background to do the needed thing - strikes me as pretty ridiculous.

I mean, think about it: first the GM, on his/her own, makes up some story about what needs doing. Then s/he presents it to the other players, who don't find it very exciting/interesting/engaging. And so the GM makes up some more story about how some other stuff happened (the NPCs who save the day).

Why isn't this GM just writing his/her own story? What has this sort of solitaire fiction creation got to do with the social activity of roleplaying?

 

[jasper]

Ok, this depends on how far you take the living world. Blowing it up a no no. Having Evil Jasper take over New Jersey because they did not follow up a plot hook. A Ok. But this is assuming you have session zeroed your players. The players mostly agreed x,y, z plot hooks sounded interesting. And do not do this all the time with major campaign related hooks. Minor aka B story plots knock yourself out.

 

[Mort]

Ok, this depends on how far you take the living world. Blowing it up a no no. Having Evil Jasper take over New Jersey because they did not follow up a plot hook. A Ok. But this is assuming you have session zeroed your players. The players mostly agreed x,y, z plot hooks sounded interesting. And do not do this all the time with major campaign related hooks. Minor aka B story plots knock yourself out.

I think the real key is trust between the players and the DM. If there is a sense of trust that the DM is doing what he believes is best for the fun of the campaign, most things are possible.

Blowing up the world with the PCs on it likely violates the fun requirement. Unless there is a fun reason in place eg. Adventures in the afterlife that the players are looking forward to.


Sent from my SM-T567V using EN World mobile app

 

[pemerton]

I think the real key is trust between the players and the DM. If there is a sense of trust that the DM is doing what he believes is best for the fun of the campaign, most things are possible.

But why would solitaire fiction creation be the most fun for the campaign? Isn't this just the GM reading the other players a story?

 

[Lanefan]

The whole idea that something would "need doing" - so that if the players don't have their PCs do it, the GM has to invent some other stuff in the background to do the needed thing - strikes me as pretty ridiculous.

Things in a typical game world always 'need doing' - that's why there's adventurers around to go out and do those things.

Consider this: it's the start of a campaign, PCs are rolled up and ready to rock. DM doesn't want to force any particular adventure or story onto them so when the PCs start looking for adventure and excitement (which in theory they'll do at some point) she drops hooks for three or four adventures or missions or whatever, such as:

- lizardpeople are reported to have been raiding a couple of villages twenty miles down the coast [DM is looking to launch into U1-U3 from this]
- strange lights have been seen lately in the abandoned castle on the ridge [DM has a homebrew adventure cooked up for this one]
- there's been a couple of unexplained disappearances lately from a farming village ten miles inland, over the hills [DM is vaguely thinking about a modified B10]
- the local Baron is looking for some people to guard a special cargo on its journey to the capital [DM is planning to make this one up as it goes along if need be]

So, right there are four things that more or less need doing; never mind if the PCs decide instead just to jump on a ship and see where it takes them. Realistically the PCs can only do one (or none, but then what's the point?) of these, so what becomes of the other three? Do they vanish right into thin air? Of course not. They continue, either unchecked or until thwarted by other adventurers soon or the PCs later...by which time three or four other completely different missions might be competing for their attention.

I mean, think about it: first the GM, on his/her own, makes up some story about what needs doing. Then s/he presents it to the other players, who don't find it very exciting/interesting/engaging. And so the GM makes up some more story about how some other stuff happened (the NPCs who save the day).

Why isn't this GM just writing his/her own story? What has this sort of solitaire fiction creation got to do with the social activity of roleplaying?

How are the PCs/players ever going to know what adventure(s) might be out there if the DM doesn't somehow tell them? And if the PCs/players wilfully ignore all the hooks, what then? DMing a bunch of PCs sitting around the tavern telling stories of what they haven't done yet gets a bit stale after a while...

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Blowing up the world with the PCs on it likely violates the fun requirement. Unless there is a fun reason in place eg. Adventures in the afterlife that the players are looking forward to.

Or everybody thinks their characters are crap this time and welcome the chance to start over...