What Do You Want From A "Living"-Style Campaign?

[Insight]

There's a possibility that I'll be involved in starting a new "Living" campaign, one that would exist outside the framework of the RPGA (hence, it won't have "Living" in the title to avoid confusion and other issues). The campaign would use a homegrown setting and hopefully grow into a small, dedicated fanbase. It would be a fantasy-type game, but we have the creative ability and freedom to pretty much do anything within that framework, so we're currently formulating ideas.

For the purposes of this discussion, a "Living"-style campaign would be something along the lines of Living Greyhawk, Living Arcanis, Living Spycraft, etc.

For those of you who play "Living"-style campaigns, please answer any or all of the following:

1. What attracts you to "Living"-style campaigns?

2. What are some things that you've seen cause problems in "Living"-style campaigns and could be done better or eliminated altogether?

3. What are some things that you'd like to see that don't currently exist in any of the popular "Living"-style campaigns?

 

[GAAAHHH]

All I know is I don't want to have to feed and water it...

 

[Insight]

Does anyone have any useful replies to my questions?

 

[Ace32]

I toyed with the idea of playing a Living campaign before my group fell apart. I do not have any direct experience with the process, but I can give you some general thoughts.

The biggest draw to a Living campaign is clearly the sense of growth inherent in the game. Obviously, all DMs interested in an organic setting attempt to evolve it alongside their players to make it feel less empty. However, knowing that there are other heroes actively doing things and accomplishing great tasks can be quite a draw. Particularly when the repercussions of somebody's game can be felt in your own. If somebody plays up the castle two towns over, you can bet my players will be interested in finding out why.

However, this sort of brings up the biggest problem in Living gaming (from my experience): the restrained nature and duplicity of the adventures. In any scenario where canned adventures are being distributed and expected to be played, one feels relatively small. After all, if everybody's group has the opportunity to save Xtown from Ydragon, what is the incentive to be the one to do so? Particularly, in a large setting - your individual character is still faceless.

I think it'd be worthwhile to toy with a small, tightly knit Living world that focuses on tying together various games without mass-marketing it. It should feel like a cooperative game with many groups instead of an MMORPG. That way, when a player in group A asks about a major hero, he can actually learn a bit of the reputation of a player in group B.

Of course, there are so many problems that could arise here. For starters, DM abuse is always a possibility. Heroes with too many magic items or too much fudging tend to overpower those who play for 'by the book' and 'dice fall where they fall' type DMs. Plus, there are always the troublemaker grief-type players who kill peasants and nobles for outrageous or poorly justified reasons. Some sort of 'quality control' is a must.

Still, I think a cooperative game could work with a tight-knit community like you seem to want. If everybody is playing for the benefit of the world and not just to haul off a pile of loot and 'win' - you may just have a lot of fun.

 

[Insight]

One of the things we're talking about is having a core storyline that exists for one year, and the outcomes of the reported adventures affects what happens in the next year. This of course requires that DMs report the outcomes of their adventures (we'd include a form for that, and have the ability to report an event on the campaign website).

Implicit in part of this idea is that there are multiple factions working to achieve one or more goals. The core adventures advance the storyline for one faction or another. We'd take the compiled event results and then use that information to write the core storyline for the next year.

So in that sense, your actions do have repercussions on what happens in the campaign, which I'm pretty sure isn't happening in too many of these persistent campaign worlds.

EDIT: There would also be "side adventures" that would have no bearing whatsoever on the core storyline.

 

[SiderisAnon]

I don't know what I would want out of a "Living" style game, but I do know what I would not want. There were three things with the RPGA that drove me absolutely nuts and made me stop running adventures for the RPGA. (I hated to stop because I like helping people into the hobby, but it was just not worth my time anymore.)

The first and worst problem was the modules. Many of them were quite awful. I won't go into details because there have been other threads on the internet talking about the multitude of issues.

The second problem I had was that as a DM there was no freedom. I had to run the adventure their way, with their setup and statistics, and there was no latitude to adjust the adventure to the party. I understand that when you're running modules across the country with different groups, you want everyone to get the same experience and not have one DM be "easier" on the party than another. However, I have seen a TPK simply because the group of characters/players at hand were not suited to the chosen module.

(Obviously, this could be less of a problem in a more home-game environment, but unless you allow DMs to read the module before deciding to run it, which I was not able to do with the RPGA, there's no way to ensure that a particular module would be suitable for your group.)

The third problem I had, which was the least of the problems, was that with RPGA you had no choice in your players. There were some players that came to the RPGA that no one wanted to game with. However, as long as they didn't violate too many of the RPGA rules, you couldn't get rid of them. (And you pretty much have to obviously cheat multiple times or punch another player in order to get tossed from the RPGA events.) Obviously, if your "Living" model is about home play, this would not be an issue.



I do think that if you want the "Living" model to work, you will need to be updating the players on the storyline of the world over time. If you want players to feel like their characters are part of a greater living world, they need to hear about things going on in other parts of the realm or of the world. Maybe instead of 1-year story arcs, some adventures are playable for only a few months, and then there are reports posted so that the players can hear rumors of the things that happened over in Glendale in their world. (Assuming they weren't part of that.)

The problem that comes up here is what if that Glendale information doesn't match my home game? What if my party succeeded but most parties failed? (Or the other way around.) The world is changing in a way that doesn't make sense for what happened in our game. Over time, we get further and further apart until it's not the same campaign.


I will admit that I would never run from a "Living" world. My games tend to involve things that make noticeable changes in the world, whether it's setting up new businesses in a town and growing it or building a castle or claiming more land form the "monster" areas, the parties tend to make an impression. In a "Living" world, what they do might not have any effect on the "Living" part of the world, and that would seem disappointing.

 

[kenobi65]

Well, I've played an awful lot of the RPGA's campaigns, as well as a few non-RPGA Living style ones, and have been involved in the campaign staff on a couple, so here goes.

1. What attracts you to "Living"-style campaigns?

- Being able to play the character at conventions and other gatherings, as well as in "home play".
- Being able to play the character with both friends (i.e., folks I've played with before) and people I've just met.
- Being part of a bigger storyline, and having the ability to affect the storyline.
- Being able to talk with fellow players about the campaign (you should the message traffic on some of the campaigns' Yahoo groups)
- Getting to play something (a setting, a type of PC, etc.) that I don't normally get in my home campaigns.

2. What are some things that you've seen cause problems in "Living"-style campaigns and could be done better or eliminated altogether?

- Favortism towards an "in crowd" (the campaign staff and their friends, those who attend premiere cons, etc.)
- Bad module writing & editing
- Lack of modules (or lags in getting them released for play)
- Adoption of home-written rules that aren't balanced
- Storylines that make it hard for someone to enter the campaign partway through
- Forcing players to play modules in a particular order
- Plotlines that seem immune to PC actions

3. What are some things that you'd like to see that don't currently exist in any of the popular "Living"-style campaigns?

Honestly, there's a metric buttload of fantasy campaigns out there (just off the top of my head: Living Greyhawk, Xen'drik Expeditions, Legends of the Shining Jewel, Blackmoor, Living Arcanis, Living Kalamar), and relatively few modern or sci-fi campaigns. I'd like to see more campaigns that're *not* swords-and-sorcery fantasy.