D&D 5E World-Building DMs

[Greg K]

Sure, I see where you are coming from... it's just that I'm the type that would rather choose a game that Alice, Bob, Cheryl, Dave, Elizabeth, and Fred (and of course myself) are all interested in if that is at all possible.

I know sometimes that isn't the case. For example I have a player in my group that just isn't at all interested in the World of Darkness. So the one day of the week that he is available to join in on a game, I choose to run something besides any of the various World of Darkness games that I and the rest of the players in the group enjoy - like D&D, Shadowrun, or Exalted because we all enjoy those.

No matter how interested I am in a particular story idea I have for a World of Darkness game, I'm just not going to say "I'm running that on Friday nights" when I can instead say "I'm going to run it on some other night that those of us who are interested can join in, even if I have to wait for our schedules to sync up better - so we can spend Friday night playing something with the whole group."

Yeah, there are certain things that I am not going to run despite wanting to. I won't run horror, because one of my regular players does not like it and her boyfriend will sit out and everyone else can take or leave horror. I won't run espionage, because we know three players will quickly get everyone killed. However, there those times that everyone is burned out on fantasy (multi-year campaigns will do that) and everyone with the exception of one player wants supers (my favorite genre). Guess what we are playing?

 

[Whirlingdervish]

I generally allow my players a great deal of latitude and have been known to let stuff in if the player has a good story or reason for it to be allowed. Just because ebberon exists does not mean i as a DM have to allow its use in conjunction with my setting. As for the use of european setting that forbids Psionics, Dragonkin, Warforged or Monks I would do it in a heart beat.... Robin hood,Ivanhoe, Charlemagn, Arthurian myth, the norman invasion of england, the 100 years war, the crussades, Three Musketeers France, The Count of Monte Christo,Beowulf, Sigurd the volsung, Norse and Greek mytholgy where any numnber of our demihuman races and many of our monsters have their origins. Granted i would not stop at Europe i would include Russia, Japan, Mongolia, China,South east asia (These would be your best bet for dragon kin), India and the middle and near east. All of them have donated so much that is far more phantasitical than warforged or psionics...

I got off topic a little this was supposed to be about world builders. My world is heavily influenced by my players we colaberated on the names of Cities , Designing the gods, Governments and even cities While i do the lions share of the cartography when i hit a brick wall story wise i ask my player to write down, rumors, myths and legends the world at large belongs tom all fo us if someone want to introduce soemthing new we have seven continents and an eigth shattered continent to which to work with we all agree toi amend house rules as nessacary and i only have a few hard fast rules. when multi classing there are no No Ca, no multiclasses are allowed with Warlock Period. Sorcerer is to be chosen at start only and may not multi class with wizard or bard. beyond that I ask my players to write up good background stories and considiering the campaign is started with the rules cyclopedia and migrated through 1st,2nd Pathfinder and now into 5th ed over the last 5 years i think i must be something right (no i am not popular and my players ne of which is my wife sometimes down right hate me).

As to time spent working on my game i have to agree i spend a 100 times more time on it than my players do even with the stuff they supply mapping takes a quite a bit of time. Followed by NPC, encounter design, integrating character backstory and goals. World Building takes time, energy and patience.

 

[Shasarak]

All of them have donated so much that is far more phantasitical than warforged or psionics...

Exactly, Bert. Well said!

 

[Phantarch]

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are no Gary Gygax so I would not go through an "interview" to play in your game. I have enough experience to know that the very fact that you would want to do an interview is a red flag to warn me off.

Thus proving the absolute benefit of interviewing potential players.

 

[Whirlingdervish]

I offer a new player a seat at the table and see how they interact with the others at the table it may come to pass that the new player does not integrate with the group and moves on with no hard feelings it may also lead to butting of heads over some percieved deifference between players or even with me but actually interveiwing potential player is not something i can get behind. It seems a bit Elitist

 

[Phantarch]

I'd say don't knock it until you've tried it - when I first started telling my group that I hadn't pre-planned, prepped, or even really thought about the campaign we were playing outside of session time, they didn't believe me because it was just as, if not more, engaging, interesting, and detailed than the campaigns I'd run for them prior.

Not to go off topic from the OP, but I am curious how you go about this. I had one DM go ad lib with a campaign once, but it really was just that he lost interest in running the game and started just having us fight random monsters. The game very shortly thereafter ended.

What's your technique for running unplanned adventures? Is this for short-term games or do you manage to turn this into long-running campaigns? I'm always looking for ways to improve DMing on the fly (because no matter how much planning you do, players will always find a way to go in a direction you haven't prepared).

I am, however, implying that when there is a choice between A) play a game that everyone available to play in can enjoy, or B) play a game that some of the available players will enjoy more than game A, but others that are available will not play in at all, choosing B is selfish.

Back on topic, I do think that the conversation is a bit narrow to try and break it down to strict or free campaigns. There are a number of scenarios involved that change the dynamic considerably.

Is the DM preparing a campaign for a regular group of friends, starting a new group by inviting a bunch of friends that might be interested, or recruiting strangers?

For example, let's say I want to put together an evil, or at least amoral, pirate campaign. I plan on having adventures that will often require the group to commit acts of theft and murder. I then ask that the players make characters that could work within those confines. Just for giggles, lets say that I ban non-vengeance paladins and clerics of good deities.

If I'm presenting this to a regular group of friends that always gets together and it's about that group of friends getting together, I should be willing to change the campaign (either in part or in its entirety) if not everyone is on board for this dark of a campaign. Alternatively, I should let somebody else DM if I'm not feeling creative or inspired enough to do something differently. The important thing is that everybody keeps playing and having fun together.

If I'm starting a new group by asking a variety of friends, it becomes a middle of the road scenario. I'm far less obligated to be flexible because I don't have to include all friends, just those that are interested in the campaign. However, having existing relationships outside of the game means that you might need to be flexible to get the right combination of your friends or make allowances for somebody who REALLY wants to play (and others want to play with), but can't quite get on board. It becomes a dialogue to find the best scenario.

Finally, if I'm just really excited about the concept and want to run the game, I can try to recruit strangers to form a group. In this case, I feel like I'm the least obligated to be flexible. I can put out there via message board or whatever exactly what I intend to run, and find the players that actually want to play what is presented. I have no obligation to accommodate someone who isn't interested in playing under the parameters I have set forth. What I do have to accept is that the campaign might not happen if there isn't enough interest, or that I might not mesh will with the group of strangers that I selected.

The point is, the dynamic changes considerably depending on the players involved.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Not to go off topic from the OP, but I am curious how you go about this. I had one DM go ad lib with a campaign once, but it really was just that he lost interest in running the game and started just having us fight random monsters. The game very shortly thereafter ended.

It's the not actually caring about continuing the campaign, rather than the improvisational approach that causes such results.

What's your technique for running unplanned adventures? Is this for short-term games or do you manage to turn this into long-running campaigns? I'm always looking for ways to improve DMing on the fly (because no matter how much planning you do, players will always find a way to go in a direction you haven't prepared).

I use the technique for all of my campaigns these days (the last 10 years or so), even the ones that I do prep work or pre-planning for, choosing to prep and plan no more than a skeletal outline and list of scenarios that "could be cool if this came up."

The technique itself is simple: do the thing that any DM is likely to do in the event of their players going "off book" as the game plays naturally - fill in what seems like it would be cool at that time, because you are probably right anyways (so long as you and your players don't have incompatible views of what kind of things are cool). Also, I use what the players say to inform my choices of what to add to the play, like when they say "I bet it is a bunch of kobolds that are causing the trouble in the mines that we heard about," and their tone of voice is hopeful or excited, I go with them ending up being right, while if they sound agitated at the idea I go with something else.

The real trick is to make notes of what happens in the course of the improvised game so that whatever gets established remains consistent when revisited later in the campaign.

The entire reason I started using this approach is because, as you said, no matter how much planning you do, the players will find their way to something you haven't planned, and I thought "Well... what if I just skip the planning and see what happens?" and it resulted in my players' favorite campaign of all campaigns that I had run for them up to that point (they liked it so much they've requested multiple sequels since).

 

[Greg K]

but actually interveiwing potential player is not something i can get behind. It seems a bit Elitist

Whereas I don't want to waste people's time (including my own). I don't want the butt-kickers who have to be kicking down doors and fighting all the time. My group is not into that. We can go two or three sessions with no combat at all. The butt-kicker will be bored. If people are looking for megadungeons or lots of multi-level dungeons to explore, they won't find them. There are maybe one or two small dungeons per year (with a dozen room at most). If they want gonzo or beer-in-pretzel, again, wrong group. If they are into powergaming/WOTC charops and/or pre-planned builds they must follow, we are, definitely, the wrong group.

There is, technically, nothing wrong with the above playstyles. However, they are just not valid or a good fit for our table. Given that, why waste a player's time having them make up a character and sit through a session where they are a poor fit for the group and vice versa (assuming character creation wasn't painful enough for both sides)? It is better to just talk with the person ahead of time, discover we are a bad fit for another and part ways.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I am, however, implying that when there is a choice between A) play a game that everyone available to play in can enjoy, or B) play a game that some of the available players will enjoy more than game A, but others that are available will not play in at all, choosing B is selfish.

Aha! This is another statement that I'm glad came up. (I think I'm seeing some real progress in getting past some of the misconceptions through this thread.)

Your statement makes a lot of sense. So I thought about it and figured out what I think is missing from the equation.

Compare running a game to opening a restaurant. You can open a restaurant (say, a pizza place) that almost everyone will enjoy to some degree. Or you can open a French restaurant, or a barbeque place where everything on the menu is spicy, or some other restaurant that will simply delight some people, but others will have no interest in.

So that's what my estimation is of what is actually going on in these scenarios. It's not a binary enjoy/don't enjoy thing. You've got six players (including DM). You could make a game where each of you is going to get about 3 units of enjoyment out of it. Or you could make a game where three of you (including the DM) are going to get 6 units of enjoyment out of it, one of you is going to get 3 units of enjoyment out of it, and the other two are either going to get only 1 or 2 units, or are going to abstain from playing it (allowing someone else who will get 3-6 units of enjoyment to take their place).

I'm not sure why making a targeted game that some people (generally including the DM, although not necessarily so--sometimes one or two of the players can be really into an idea (6 units) where the DM has no strong feelings (3 units) and just runs it because "why not") will get a lot of enjoyment out of, while others might prefer to sit out is selfish in an objective sense. After all, the total units of enjoyment being created by that gaming experience are higher than the example experience that everyone enjoyed. It might seem unfortunate to the people who, at that particular time, didn't want to play in it. But the next game might be one that they are 6 units in on. Seems to me like having a lot of fun from a certain source (those gaming friends) half the time, while being able to pursue whatever other fun you want the rest of the time, is at least as good as having a moderate amount of fun with that gaming group all the time.

If I knew that a player was going to do nothing but sit around being miserable if they weren't in my current game, I might think differently about it. But assuming that they have other options, I'm probably going to make a targeted game that I as the DM as really excited about, and then invite others who are really going to enjoy it, so we can have our unfathomably cool geek out experience that others won't even understand...rather than having a status quo fun experience that works for all of the people all of the time.

Now, I'm a passionate and intense person, so that definitely is a matter of preference. But I don't see it as fundamentally selfish to cater to a smaller group that will derive great value from something rather than a larger group that will derive good value from it. I mean, we are talking about role-playing games, which are pretty much as a whole an example of that very phenomenon.

 

[S'mon]

Well, sure. The GM is also a player; I need to make sure I'm sufficiently indulging my own obsessions and favorite themes when I run. But I do feel pretty strongly that these need to flow around the space created by the PCs - it's that old idea that the players' choices in character creation tell you the kind of stories they want to be part of.

And there are limits to how much it's reasonable to pre-cast the party. My first reaction to your sword & sorcery game is to feel like if you're not going to have fun in that setting if you're not running it for a party of Kulls and Grey Mousers and Mirt the Moneylenders, and that's not who the players are most interested in playing, it's a mismatch between DM and players; your protocols are going to be clashing too much. I've learned over the years to be a lot more lax about the kinds of stories I expect to happen even when I'm strongly invested in the elements of the setup, and that I like having players surprise me with unexpected directions. But if that's not your style, that's okay too - but as you say, it requires very clear, very specific conversations well in advance of chargen.

And, look, we all carry unspoken expectations to the table, some of which are hard to articulate until we encounter something that violates them. One player in my current game is running a dwarven cleric; this player is fairly new to the game and innocent of Realmslore and half a century of fantasy stereotypes, and he picked Mielikki as his deity. When another player remarked what an unusual choice that would be for a dwarf, he IMed me after the game to ask if he should change it. Teenage me, much more wedded to the archetypes of D&D-style fantasy, would have been a lot more bothered by the disconnect and more likely to concur. Middle-aged me said, "If you really want to. But consider that adventurers SHOULD be unusual, remarkable people. What's the more interesting choice to you?" He wound up keeping it, and it's prompted some really awesome things in his backstory and character arc, and I think the game is stronger for it.

1. Agree re potential mismatch, but often players just need stronger guidance. I don't
have a set player group. I'll come up with a campaign I want to run, pitch it to the Meetup, and recruit those who want to play. I may occasionally invite specific players who I think might be a good fit, but that is rare. I'm not catering to any specific people - if player X does not want to play, that frees up a space for player Y who does.

2. A dwarf Cleric of Mielikki?! What?! You'll be allowing CG Drow Rangers of Mielikki next!!