Shaping the world to the players

[Lord Mhoram]

This spins off from some commentary from the "G vs RP" thread, but I didn't want to clutter that up with another tangent.

A question for GMs. How much do you shape your world to your players and their characters?

Do you have all the countries, politics, and structure between set up, and just let the characters go, like people in real life exploring and interacting with the world?

Do you have loose definitions, that solidify based on player actions?

Do you have things sorta set in stone, but allow it to change based on character/player interest.

How much of the tone is set beforehand.


I have my tone set, and it is usually very much a Good vs Evil tone - Paladins are very much a major social group in worlds I run. I do this because it is what I am comfortable wtih - If I tried to run a shades of grey game, it would be a really bad game, for everyone; just because I'm no good at it.

My world however is very very loose. I have the basic political structure set up, and what kind of things I plan to have where, but if the players in an adventure say something in passing like "Hey wouldn't it be cool if the city state we are heading to has slavery so we can topple the government and fix things".... you know, that will happen even if I never had anything like that planned.
The world, when I run a game, is there for no other reason than for the PCs to act in, and on. And I don't feel any attachment to any of the work I did in setting it up, if they completely change what I have done - of if in the course of play, they keep wanting things different than I had set up, and so I change it.

Because you know, when there characters are done, that world is too (unless they want to play generational).

I might use the same map, and have the same ground rules for the next campaign (then again I might not), but it starts fresh, and the new PCs will end up being the reason the world was invented.

That is my approach.

What is yours?

 

[Greg K]

I set up the countries, cultures, race/class variants, major organizations, and the campaign "hook", ahead of time. During character generation, I will help players create characters that fit into the world including giving them ties to people and places.

Once play starts, the characters do not need to follow the hook and are free to go in a completely different direction and shape the world in other ways. However, they are only free to shape the world within the confines of the world's existing dynamics. I am not going to change a democratic city to an oppressive government just because they think it would be cool to topple such a government However, the players are free to have their characters start a revolution and attempt to topple an existing ruler or government, because they don't like the ruler or ruling body (or start a civil war as they inadvertently did when they cleared an ancient dwarven mine of a dragon which resulted in the human government and the dwarves whose clan abandoned the mine both laying claim to its treasures) even if such a thing has nothing to do with the campaign's hook or theme

Of course, I am not above stealing (oops I mean incorporating) something that the players come up with in their paranoid minds provided I think it would fit the campaign and be more interesting that what I had planned.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I am not going to change a democratic city to an oppressive government just because they think it would be cool to topple such a government

I was of course, assuming that the said government was one that the players knew absolutely nothing about.

Of course, I am not above stealing (oops I mean incorporating) something that the players come up with in their paranoid minds provided I think it would fit the campaign and be more interesting that what I had planned.

Yeah. I've had some players think me prescient because of selective borrowing from things they said in passing and then forgot they said.

 

[mirivor]

I have a campaign world that represents years of thought and tweaking of the rules. I change it as time goes on in-game, but overall I think that the characters adapt and explore. Their actions can have a definite impact on things, but I do not change stuff to suit them. This probably stems from some strange internal need that I have for a world to make as much logical sense as possible, even with the presence of magic.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I have a campaign world that represents years of thought and tweaking of the rules. I change it as time goes on in-game, but overall I think that the characters adapt and explore. Their actions can have a definite impact on things, but I do not change stuff to suit them. This probably stems from some strange internal need that I have for a world to make as much logical sense as possible, even with the presence of magic.

Makes sense to me.

I have built a new world for each new campaign I run... now given that my games run in the 6-8 year range that is only about 5 or so worlds I've created, so that isn't much (and half of those are for superhero roleplaying, which take much less work than a fantasy world from scratch).