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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 5089594" data-attributes="member: 3586">So, context is important. The world the adventures take place in is important. If a group of adventurers go on an adventure, if parts of the world react to what took place on the adventure, and the players can see those reactions taking place, it reinforces for the players that what they're doing isn't just trivial.Perhaps great DMs do this instinctively. Perhaps there are a lot of DMs out there who pay more attention to advice than I do. (This is quite likely). Formulating these thoughts is allowing me to work through issues with my own campaigns, so they're helpful even if no-one reads them. (If you are reading them, I hope they're useful).The death of an involving campaign is a perpetual return to the status quo. I've seen this in many a TV series. Cartoons for children are often great offenders in this regard. (This is not to say that some cartoons can't tell an ongoing story, they certainly can, but not all do. Last week's episode doesn't reflect on this week's episode. This might work for the Simpsons, but does it work for a D&D campaign?) One way of getting caught in this trap comes from using a published setting. There is a tendency to want to preserve the world as it is written, so you can always go back to the books and use them. Big changes only come from without (that is, the publisher). Why shouldn't the players get a chance to change the world? When you use a published setting, it becomes your world. You can use it as you see fit: bend, spindle and mutilate it for your campaign and your players. Go have fun - it's what it's there for!By now, my version of Greyhawk must have only a passing resemblance to the world Gary created. (Indeed, does any Greyhawk campaign really resemble Gary's Greyhawk?) The work of other writers has changed my world, but it's something that, eventually, the players have touched and made different. My great triumph with twenty years of campaigning is to have this world that it very definitely something unique to my group.Leaving aside the greater picture for the moment, how can we acknowledge the adventures that the PCs have gone on within the world? Certainly, they've gained experience and treasure, but there needs to be something more than that for the greater world to make itself known to them. That something comes through the reaction of NPCs to them. "You're the people who saved us from the orcs!" is the immediate reaction. The next step - which is the one that I can have trouble with - is people in a different town saying "You're the ones who saved the Keep from the orcs!" That's part of the world letting the players know that its paying attention. Then there's the adventures that are thrust upon them: "I'm coming to get you because you killed my brother, the Orc King!" or even, "Only those who killed the Orc King can save us from this threat!"Cheers!</blockquote>

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