What input should Players have in world building? I think this could be broken down into different categories too.
World itself- Is it a published world? Is it completely DM-created? Is it loosely based off something else? If you're in apublcished world, how stuck are you on Canon?
Relationships between PC's and NPC's? Do PC backgrounds have enough holes that the DM must fill in with NPC's? Do your players accept these plot hooks (or whatever you'd like to call them)? Do you want your players to come up with new relationships?
If you're creating your own world, and populating it with new gods, restrictions on races and classes, how much info do you give your players to then fill in other details on their own?
As a DM- I love to use the published setting of Eberron. I stick to the Canon that's established in the core rulebooks, but play it loosely. If players want to create relationships to NPC's, that's fine and I'll roll with it as best I can. I try to incorporate their background into adventures. I have done some shoehorning of creating NPC relationships to the PC's, first as a way for the disparate adventurers to actually work together in the first place. The one time I tried to force an unknown relationship between two characters failed miserably. Aemelia was the 'leader' of the crew, the captain of the group as it were. Allrion was the wizard that was new to the party. I knew from Allrion's background that he was running away from something/someone. I decided that Allrion was looking for Aemelia and her crew, to help him hide, and that Aemelia had something to offer Allrion. I just didn't say what that was and left it up to the players to decide. Without a buy-in from both players, it fell flat and we had no other reason for Allrion to join the party. It basically went- So, I hear there's something I can do for you. Yep, but I don't know what. Okay, nice meeting you.
I'd like it if players came up with hooks and relationships more often, but I don't want them naming every NPC and deciding the population of each town. But I'm fine with it if a player tells me that she recognizes the barkeep as an old friend, or perhaps that the shopkeeper is a former thief or something interesting.
As a Player- I'd like to have sufficient knowledge of the world I'm playing in so that I can create relationships with the NPC's. And I'd like enough freedom for the DM to roll with it if I come up with something that would make sense. I'd like to say that my character has an existing relationship with the NPC we just met. I'd like to be able to say that I recognize some of the corpses in the town that was just slaughtered, or that I'd been there before and I'm worried about my old friends, and have the DM run with it.
So, how much input should players have in world-building?
The way my group does this is a bit different. The world we play in seems to have coelesced as Faerun cosmology (mostly) with Eberron tech, but we never sat down and decided that. What happens is, we rotate DMs, but each DM tends to build on / borrow from what previous ones have done. So it's shared storytelling on a very large scale, and a picture of the world starts to emerge after several campaigns. But the players as players don't tend to influence things at the world level very much -- at least, not during game sessions.
Regarding NPC's...it varies quite. When I introduced a particular recurring villain, one of my players thought it would be interesting if she knew him already, having previously worked as his lab assistant and then quit because he was evil. This worked brilliantly for the development of both the PC and the NPC, and also gave me a nice way to slip in relevant details about the villain's background by saying she remembered them. Most of the time, though, we've been adventuring in locations that are new to all the PC's and not run into old "friends" other than each other. But I think more of this sort of thing would be good for the game.
What input should Players have in world building? I think this could be broken down into different categories too.
World itself- Is it a published world? Is it completely DM-created? Is it loosely based off something else? If you're in apublcished world, how stuck are you on Canon?
Relationships between PC's and NPC's? Do PC backgrounds have enough holes that the DM must fill in with NPC's? Do your players accept these plot hooks (or whatever you'd like to call them)? Do you want your players to come up with new relationships?
If you're creating your own world, and populating it with new gods, restrictions on races and classes, how much info do you give your players to then fill in other details on their own?
For published worlds, I'll use them only if everyone at the table is familiar with them. If they're not, we're better off just making a new world together. That process will include a great deal of player input. The DM gets a say, certainly, but unless the players agree, it's just an idea.
Aemelia was the 'leader' of the crew, the captain of the group as it were. Allrion was the wizard that was new to the party. I knew from Allrion's background that he was running away from something/someone. I decided that Allrion was looking for Aemelia and her crew, to help him hide, and that Aemelia had something to offer Allrion. I just didn't say what that was and left it up to the players to decide. Without a buy-in from both players, it fell flat and we had no other reason for Allrion to join the party. It basically went- So, I hear there's something I can do for you. Yep, but I don't know what. Okay, nice meeting you.
The approach is why this falls flat. It's "Gettin' Ta Know Ya" stuff and it comes with a huge risk of being terrible. I think this is because the players don't know how to properly utilize their metagame knowledge ("Obviously, Bob's character is joining the group tonight because Bob is here to game..."), oftentimes because they've learned somewhere along the way that "metagaming is bad." If this is the case, it's on the DM to frame it under the premise that the PCs already know each other from some time or place or circumstance, then ask direct, open-ended questions to flesh it out.
I'd like it if players came up with hooks and relationships more often, but I don't want them naming every NPC and deciding the population of each town. But I'm fine with it if a player tells me that she recognizes the barkeep as an old friend, or perhaps that the shopkeeper is a former thief or something interesting.
I'm fine with them making up just about anything as long as it's cool, done in good faith to improve the game experience for all, and something we can use in actual play. I really don't care for NPCs for the most part. I find many DMs overuse the heck out of them in my experience. In my view, this movie's about the PCs. NPCs need only come into the foreground as needed and oftentimes that's best determined by the players.
As a Player- I'd like to have sufficient knowledge of the world I'm playing in so that I can create relationships with the NPC's. And I'd like enough freedom for the DM to roll with it if I come up with something that would make sense. I'd like to say that my character has an existing relationship with the NPC we just met. I'd like to be able to say that I recognize some of the corpses in the town that was just slaughtered, or that I'd been there before and I'm worried about my old friends, and have the DM run with it.
I like for the players to do all that and more, if they want. As for "sufficient knowledge of the world," that's why I don't use published worlds if somebody at the table isn't familiar with it. Because if there is a blank slate, they can just make up whatever they need to as they inspired by the quirky NPC or the corpses in the town. "I knew that man from Goldlach." What's Goldlach? It didn't exist a second ago... tell me about it.
So, how much input should players have in world-building?
The more, the better.
No amount of tips, tricks, or gimmicks will ever be better than simply talking directly to your fellow players to resolve your issues. Reduce DM Prep & Increase Player Engagement:Don't Prep the Plot | Structure First, Story Last | Collaborative Roleplay | "Yes, and..." | Prep Tips Games I'm Running on Roll20: Island of the Frog | Vanguard of Dis | Star*Juice | Tesseract | The Crucible | Fimbulvetr | The Delve | Draj, City of the Moon Follow me on Twitter:@is3rith
I'm beginning to believe that worlds should be created almost entirely collaboratively.
I like certain established worlds, and would often like to explore them as written, but what I find this leads to is me shutting down ideas and expectations from the players. They get very excited about what they think I'm leading up to and then wind up disappointed at the eventual reveal. Or, if they know the world themselves, then either the reveal isn't surprising, or the understood it differently from me.
I have yet to do anything long term with this, but my early efforts on basically asking my players what are some key details of a location in the game world worked very well. Everyone participated and added on to others' ideas. Everyone is much more invested in this part of the world than they would have been if I'd just shown them pictures, read boxed text, and told them "No, it's actually this way" when ever they made assumptions.
At presented we're not playing in any established world, so any aspect of it that we haven't already established could go any way we liked. At some point, though, I'd like us to play in Eberron, Athas, or even the Forgotten Realms, and I hope to attempt this up-front on a somewhat larger scale. That said, I see no reason to establish a whole world up-front, and I prefer to establish details as they come into view of the characters.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
At presented we're not playing in any established world, so any aspect of it that we haven't already established could go any way we liked. At some point, though, I'd like us to play in Eberron, Athas, or even the Forgotten Realms, and I hope to attempt this up-front on a somewhat larger scale. That said, I see no reason to establish a whole world up-front, and I prefer to establish details as they come into view of the characters.
It's funny, I have pretty much the opposite experience. We play often in the Forgotten Realms, making sidetrips to interplanar locations sometimes. I've only done a whole new world once. It was pretty cool, so I might do it again. But we're all pretty comfortable playing in a prepublished world.
It's funny, I have pretty much the opposite experience. We play often in the Forgotten Realms, making sidetrips to interplanar locations sometimes. I've only done a whole new world once. It was pretty cool, so I might do it again. But we're all pretty comfortable playing in a prepublished world.
To be clear, I haven't ever made a whole new world, just the bits and pieces the players interacted with.
Only myself and one other player have much interest in reading books or novels about game worlds, but I've found that downloading that knowledge to others doesn't work. That's the main reason I don't bother playing in a published world: all the stuff I bothered learning would go in one ear and out the other for them. In addition, prepublished stuff really tends to get in the way of interesting ideas. So, I think it will be more enjoyable for all of us if those who know the worlds can use what we know when pitching ideas, and those who don't can build off of those in directions that have meaning for them.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
I like certain established worlds, and would often like to explore them as written, but what I find this leads to is me shutting down ideas and expectations from the players. They get very excited about what they think I'm leading up to and then wind up disappointed at the eventual reveal. Or, if they know the world themselves, then either the reveal isn't surprising, or the understood it differently from me.
Yes! This is why I don't like to do published worlds with a group where some might not be familiar with it. It's a helpful creative constraint for those that know it and buy-in to whatever level everyone is comfortable smashing canon to bits. It's an unhelpful creative constraint to those who don't have as solid a knowledge of the game world.
Only myself and one other player have much interest in reading books or novels about game worlds, but I've found that downloading that knowledge to others doesn't work. That's the main reason I don't bother playing in a published world: all the stuff I bothered learning would go in one ear and out the other for them.
This ranks up there as my number one reason to do world-building as a group. Info-dumps are risky. It's a rare player that's going to absorb and appreciate the DM's efforts on even a superficial level and this can lead to dissatisfaction on the DM's part. After all, they created this cool thing - why doesn't anybody seem to remember all these sweet details I came up with? For my part as a player, if someone info-dumps their campaign world or storyline on me, it may as well be a life insurance seminar, no matter how cool it is.
No amount of tips, tricks, or gimmicks will ever be better than simply talking directly to your fellow players to resolve your issues. Reduce DM Prep & Increase Player Engagement:Don't Prep the Plot | Structure First, Story Last | Collaborative Roleplay | "Yes, and..." | Prep Tips Games I'm Running on Roll20: Island of the Frog | Vanguard of Dis | Star*Juice | Tesseract | The Crucible | Fimbulvetr | The Delve | Draj, City of the Moon Follow me on Twitter:@is3rith
As a reformed world-building DM, I firmly believe that players should be at the heart of world-building. Your job is to tie it all together.
Odds are that few of your players have joint degrees in theoretical theology and history, so the epic saga of how the twin gods Yurgos and Vargys initiated the Tyrellian Civil War will probably go right over their heads. Too many DMs get tripped up trying to play Tolkein. Don't punish yourself like that.
Instead, give the players a blank canvas based on some very very very broad and accepted guidelines ("Is everyone cool with a gritty, low-magic world?" "Does everyone want to be pirates?"). Ask them to fill out a question sheet (I have my own, though there are dozens of them out there on creative writing sites) for their character. What god do they worship? What was their homeland like? What fairy tales and myths did their grandparents tell them to make them behave? See the common threads between your players' ideas and weave them together. Let them sketch the portrait and you color in the lines they make.
Players feel more involved, and they are a heck of a lot more likely to remember the Tyrellian Civil War if their grandfather was an imperial knight who died in a famous battle (because they all made up the war and the country and the knightly order in their backstory to begin with).
I've played in both my own custom worlds and the forgotten realms. Both are interesting experiences.
With the established fiction of Faerun, the players had everything they needed to know about an area and they could work with that. I didn't have to do so much, I could focus on mainly just creating adventures, events, etc. As for sticking to it's canon? I do try to use it, but I also throw out stuff that isn't necessary or relevant or just twist it to suit my own purposes. After all, one of the first things it says in the book is "this is your game, your world, you're the DM, use only what you like" (probably paraphrased that).
In my own worlds, everything is made from scratch with no or minimal player input. During character creation, I will let them create NPCs they need to make their character backgrounds work. But for them to know or have history with any NPCs I personally create? It is entirely based on the circumstances of the campaign premise. If I know they are characters who have been in a location for a length of time, I will give the players knowledge of important or notable NPCs in the area who they are likely to have had relationships with. If they are traveling PCs, then odds are good they will not have ever known any NPCs I create and use before the campaign begins. Now, say if they are known to frequent any particular town in their travels, they might know a few here and there.
Also, on NPC relationships, I enjoy letting the players develop relationships with NPCs after they meet them in the campaign and letting them evolve from there. It's far more useful and more interesting, IMO, to let the players get to know a NPC through in-game interactions. It leads to natural developments that can be used later down the line and makes for adjustable story telling in both the short term and long term. I do so very much enjoy using NPCs, if they manage to stick around.
Mine is mostly a style of exploration. So, players get no say on what is in the world or why it's there unless it directly pertains to their characters. I want them thinking about how they choose to interact with the world around them based on what their character would do. Not thinking about trying to help the DM give a suitable motivation for the villain. It detracts from the roleplaying experience and breaks the illusion far too often to do much good at my table. That said, beforehand if I'm creating a new world, I try to give the players as much information as I can about general information and knowledge. I don't let them know all the specifics, only the ones important to their characters backgrounds.
My username should actually read: Lunar Savage (damn you WotC!) *Tips top hat, adjusts monocle, and walks away with cane* and yes, that IS Mr. Peanut laying unconscious on the curb. http://asylumjournals.tumblr.com/
Instead, give the players a blank canvas based on some very very very broad and accepted guidelines ("Is everyone cool with a gritty, low-magic world?" "Does everyone want to be pirates?"). Ask them to fill out a question sheet (I have my own, though there are dozens of them out there on creative writing sites) for their character. What god do they worship? What was their homeland like? What fairy tales and myths did their grandparents tell them to make them behave? See the common threads between your players' ideas and weave them together. Let them sketch the portrait and you color in the lines they make.
Lots of questions can suggest themselves naturally during the course of the creation. It's not hard for two players to suggest somewhat contradictory concepts and this prompts the question of what is really going on. Ask the questions that other answers raise.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
