Mystery Man
First Post
Wow, that's no way to run any campaign setting.The Grumpy Celt said:
Thank goodness!
PCs changing the campaign world
- Thread starter dreaded_beast
- Start date
In the light of TGC's post, I feel I must clarify mine.
Incidental slaying of an evil organization's members will not affect organizational strength. They will replace as fast or faster than PCs can off them.
However, if the party goes after the organization, it should be handled like any other adventure. If that organization has 47 members, and the PCs kill 38 of them, including all of the top brass, then that organization has effectively ceased to exist.
Of course, there may be ANOTHER organization that will move in to fill the underworld power vaccuum.
And those 9 surviving the sweep may go on to seek revenge and reorganize their decimated organization.
Incidental slaying of an evil organization's members will not affect organizational strength. They will replace as fast or faster than PCs can off them.
However, if the party goes after the organization, it should be handled like any other adventure. If that organization has 47 members, and the PCs kill 38 of them, including all of the top brass, then that organization has effectively ceased to exist.
Of course, there may be ANOTHER organization that will move in to fill the underworld power vaccuum.
And those 9 surviving the sweep may go on to seek revenge and reorganize their decimated organization.
Mystery Man said:
The runnig joke, told by one DM after we killed Manshoon's dragon and several of his assistants only to find they had been cloned, was "Crunch all you want, I'll make more." I have gamed under more DMs who had this philosophy than those did not.
dreaded_beast
First Post
The Grumpy Celt said:
I am vexed, not because I am discouraging it (which I hope wasn't the tone of my original post), but because I am unsure of how to handle it.
I am all for PCs changing and shaping the world, but I want to be sure that as a DM, I make it a fun and enjoyable experience for the PCs. If the PCs want to have some grand impact on FR, I want it to be meaningful. For example, if they want to burn down Shadowdale or turn the Stonelands into a habitable area by planting trees there (which they have expressed interest in doing since they have a keep there), I want it to be done in such a way that the PCs feel that they accomplished something. My fear is that I will make it "too easy" and the PCs may not feel like what they did was important.
I guess I wouldn't worry so much if it was stuff that I made up on my own, but since this is FR, which I really like and enjoy DMing and playing, I am a bit more unsure of how to handle changes. I guess I want to give both the PCs and the FR setting the respect it deserves when dealing with campaign changing events.
On another note, I have played in an FR game where it seemed as if our PCs actions had no real effect. Granted it was a VERY fun game and the DM did make his own personal changes here and there, but the DM followed most of the timeline canon in the book, which meant that if it was going to happen in the future, it was going to happen. For example, we went on this adventure to stop this great evil from arriving in Faerun, which turned out to be the City of Shade. We failed, and Shade arrived. However, the DM said that basically he wanted Shade to arrive anyway, so even if we succeeded Shade would have come eventually.
While I respect my DM for wanting to incorporate events that he wants in his campaign, it left us as players with a feeling of being unable to change the world around us. So I've been there and don't want to end up being a DM like that either.
Templetroll
Explorer
My first group of players ended up finding a castle and exploring it. It was enchanted and the main problem was stolen from Fritz Leiber's story in that gems allowed the castle to be sentient and defend itself with moving stone blocks. They worked this out and a few went in on a mission to locate and take control of the castle by moving the gems. they succeeded.
The leader of the group (almost all 1e bards) decided to go to the king and hand over the castle since it was within his lands. The other players were kind of opposed to that but went along since they figured anything else would lead to a war and they didn't like that scenario. The king turned around and gave a grant of land, and a title, baron, to the leader of the group. Everyone else got a grant of land and knighted. they could swear fealty to the baron or the king, which ever they liked. Most chose the baron and they went back and started to work to get a community going. They got their own families from the original hometown and moved them all across country to this place. It developed into a nice little place and all other groups I had started out there since it was so adventurer friendly.
Then the Baron got a lil greedy and a lil (?) stupid. He wanted magical towers to be around his land. He got a wizard and paid for research of a spell to find out exactly how something was created. he didn't want to mess with legend lore and all that so the spell had a possible side effect, the item had to save or be destroyed in the casting. Well, soon enough the castle had no magical keep. the wizard was also comatous but he had the info. The baron was generally pleased.
The Baron took it well enough, even if it was embarrassing to have a hole surrounded by ramparts. They were big and powerful and ended up killing LeukO and getting his Mighty Servant ( Baron was Magnus Alumni 1e bard and the rest were not far behind so it was appropriate power level) they researched a way (legend lore etc since none of the PCs wanted to use that stupid spell) to change the artifact.
They used the teleport ability of the Servant to go to what they thought was a star. It was actually a magical space station in geosynchronous orbit over the ruined capital of the ancient evil empire. One player actually noticed that there were 5 dungeons spaced around the ruined city and this thing above it. They figured there was likely another dungeon below the city and that explained why the Emperor (uber-liche) always summoned folks TO him; he couldn't leave the city. There was a massive mystic star imprisioning him.
Anyway, on the station they found two creatures (yag-zi zig-ya?) one positive and one negative. when they touched there was an explosion. If it happened in the right room the place got powered up. They were able to perform a ritual that allowed them to change the powers of the Servant making it the Mighty Servant of the Druids. It still had nasty, evil things tainting it but at least its overriding mission was to protect and restore the woods. They messed up a couple of times doing the change and a few folks lost levels when that happened.
Leuk-O had originally used his Servant to destroy a huge druidic forest; the Baron decided to restore it, even though it would take years. Around that time we had to move so I've just had the forest gradually being expanded as time went on.
Another player had a monk who on one of those level fights (1e) and ended up in charge of a town! He wasn't thrilled with that so he promptly got himself killed by something. Another player's cleric from the same church claimed the town in the name of the church, which most of the inhabitants were worshippers at and started building a shrine. It ended up being a pilgramage site and he rose to be worldwide head of that particular church. He announced crusades, set up church schools, instituted an inquisition, and in general tried to make the world a better place whether it liked it or not.
It can be fun.
The leader of the group (almost all 1e bards) decided to go to the king and hand over the castle since it was within his lands. The other players were kind of opposed to that but went along since they figured anything else would lead to a war and they didn't like that scenario. The king turned around and gave a grant of land, and a title, baron, to the leader of the group. Everyone else got a grant of land and knighted. they could swear fealty to the baron or the king, which ever they liked. Most chose the baron and they went back and started to work to get a community going. They got their own families from the original hometown and moved them all across country to this place. It developed into a nice little place and all other groups I had started out there since it was so adventurer friendly.
Then the Baron got a lil greedy and a lil (?) stupid. He wanted magical towers to be around his land. He got a wizard and paid for research of a spell to find out exactly how something was created. he didn't want to mess with legend lore and all that so the spell had a possible side effect, the item had to save or be destroyed in the casting. Well, soon enough the castle had no magical keep. the wizard was also comatous but he had the info. The baron was generally pleased.
The Baron took it well enough, even if it was embarrassing to have a hole surrounded by ramparts. They were big and powerful and ended up killing LeukO and getting his Mighty Servant ( Baron was Magnus Alumni 1e bard and the rest were not far behind so it was appropriate power level) they researched a way (legend lore etc since none of the PCs wanted to use that stupid spell) to change the artifact.
They used the teleport ability of the Servant to go to what they thought was a star. It was actually a magical space station in geosynchronous orbit over the ruined capital of the ancient evil empire. One player actually noticed that there were 5 dungeons spaced around the ruined city and this thing above it. They figured there was likely another dungeon below the city and that explained why the Emperor (uber-liche) always summoned folks TO him; he couldn't leave the city. There was a massive mystic star imprisioning him.
Anyway, on the station they found two creatures (yag-zi zig-ya?) one positive and one negative. when they touched there was an explosion. If it happened in the right room the place got powered up. They were able to perform a ritual that allowed them to change the powers of the Servant making it the Mighty Servant of the Druids. It still had nasty, evil things tainting it but at least its overriding mission was to protect and restore the woods. They messed up a couple of times doing the change and a few folks lost levels when that happened.
Leuk-O had originally used his Servant to destroy a huge druidic forest; the Baron decided to restore it, even though it would take years. Around that time we had to move so I've just had the forest gradually being expanded as time went on.
Another player had a monk who on one of those level fights (1e) and ended up in charge of a town! He wasn't thrilled with that so he promptly got himself killed by something. Another player's cleric from the same church claimed the town in the name of the church, which most of the inhabitants were worshippers at and started building a shrine. It ended up being a pilgramage site and he rose to be worldwide head of that particular church. He announced crusades, set up church schools, instituted an inquisition, and in general tried to make the world a better place whether it liked it or not.
It can be fun.
Mystery Man
First Post
For the big stuff, just be clear at the outset that they need to tell you ahead of time what their goals are. Like if they want to go kill Manshoon or take out Larloch or some other insanely stupid hair brained idea like thatdreaded_beast said:
. Both of which will be really, really..really really really hard. You'll need to plan accordingly, be able to check your resources, look for advice on message boards etc.And if by some chance they manage to succeed and survive, let it happen.
dreaded_beast said:
True enough. I've heard stories of games that went "First we killed Driz'zt, then we popped over to Shadowdale and took out Elminister, and I finally got enough XP to make level 12." Which is clearly something you don't want to happen.
I think you shouldn't really allow canon to change accidentally. If the players unintentionally do something that could change canon, allow the canon to "regenerate". Perhaps, they recruit someone new, or hire a priest to cast ressurrection.
However, if they intentionally set out to alter the canon, make an adventure out of it. Make them earn the change. Make sure that you treat the canon with respect and and invest them with all the cunning they deserve. If in doubt, make the attempt harder. But players should be able to have an effect on the world.
Brother Ezra
First Post
I think the most important point people have made here is that it is your world. Slavish adherence to canon defeats the purpose of an interactive, fluid campaign setting, and tends to make players feel like they are nothing more than cogs in a machine, powerless to change anything.
In order to address this, I've rolled back the date of my setting from DR 1373 (the present 'canon' year) to 1360, and have detailed everything that will happen in those thirteen years, according to canon. However, I want players to be able to interact with the developments of the campaign world, and eventually change it in meaningful ways. As the players advance in prestige and power, the repurcussions of their actions begin to change the 'canon' history in subtle ways. I adjust the way things go to account for their actions, and eventually they may reach a level of power where their activities have a direct and immediate effect on the course of things to come. Organizations have their plans, the BBEG has his schemes, but all is up in the air once the characters begin to stir their fingers in the soup.
In order to address this, I've rolled back the date of my setting from DR 1373 (the present 'canon' year) to 1360, and have detailed everything that will happen in those thirteen years, according to canon. However, I want players to be able to interact with the developments of the campaign world, and eventually change it in meaningful ways. As the players advance in prestige and power, the repurcussions of their actions begin to change the 'canon' history in subtle ways. I adjust the way things go to account for their actions, and eventually they may reach a level of power where their activities have a direct and immediate effect on the course of things to come. Organizations have their plans, the BBEG has his schemes, but all is up in the air once the characters begin to stir their fingers in the soup.
ThirdWizard
First Post
Since the consensus seems to be its a Good Thing to allow change to a campaign, here's a question. What is everyone's oppinion about the changes made in one campaign spilling over into future campaigns? If the PCs change the face of Faerun in some small or large way, then you decide to start up another game in Faerun, will all of those changes still be in place?
Long answer- Yup!
