Genre Police: World Wide Woleplay

Last article, we looked at a model of a shared roleplaying world.

I talked about each of the seven groups I had playing campaigns that affected that shared, or ‘living’ world and examined the way I had chosen to weave the groups into each other. 

I hope it demonstrated how you can run lots of groups and how you can create a story between them. But I didn’t really get into the crunch of issues you might trip over if you have two or three groups running around in the world, and how it really alters things. 

So here are some ideas to really help you shake things up.

Different Visions

The first thing you have to get to grips with is how to create connections between the two groups. The best way is to share NPCs and locations between groups (every group has visited Stevmouth in my world and every group hates it). 

Also varying the relationships with the place and people creates a deeper piece of game lore, especially if some players are in different groups. One NPC in my game has been an recurring villain for one group, a vague mystery ally for another and slept with a party member of a third group, who was, ironically played by someone who hates him in the first game. 

Places and people being affected by all sorts of differing encounters makes players feel like the world is lived in.

Domino Effect

The most important thing to creating a living world is having ‘domino events’. 

When one group, say, liberates a mage ruled city and starts a war, all the other groups need to see the fallout. Maybe refugees suddenly overwhelm the nearby port. Maybe they encounter fleeing and dangerous members of the old regime. Maybe this changes the way magic works and they have to deal with that. 

The trick is to have several of these things set up to go and then let your players run riot. Once one group knocks over one set of dominos, the game larger begins in earnest, with groups just constantly dealing with consequence after consequence, their own and others, usually causing more problems in order to fix whatever crisis is ongoing.

Time

This is a big one. You have to keep a calendar in case something massive happens to your world that affects everyone. 

So far, we’ve had nations fall, and wars break out due to the actions of characters, or worldwide events happen because of player choices. 

Often campaigns move at different speeds, so it’s important to keep track of WHEN something happens to one group so that other groups further back in the timeline of events feel the aftermath. Without some kind of calendar, this gets really complex. 

For example, a couple of sessions back, something happened to one of my groups that is going to cause something to happen in a different campaign – in 4 days of in-game time because the timeline is out between the two groups. I know this because of my calendar. So keep track.

Don’t Pick A Core Group

It’s important you don’t set up groups to achieve specific campaign events, so always have several workarounds for plots you have set up. 

One of my groups hasn’t been able to meet for a long time. I had several things that would create a domino effect in the game world that I wanted them to achieve, and now those things haven’t happened. 

So my campaign world is now in a different state to what I expected, and I have had to think of different story beats. If I had put too much weight on the first group triggering the first events, I would have been in a horrible place with the others, spinning plates with filler adventures or making them go off course to complete the events instead. 

So don’t have a big overarching plot that requires certain story beats; it will only complicate things for you later on. Instead, have a series of ideas that might happen and let the players trigger what they will.

Crossovers

These aren’t necessary and sometimes don’t work because of power levels in the game you are playing, but I suggest them if you can manage it. 

Groups can unite to face a common foe, or get trapped in the same location, or a player character can get displaced for a little while. Or you can bring back characters from a finished game for some fun. 

It’s amazing the effect it can have on a group to have a ‘guest star’ for a couple of sessions. It makes everyone feel the world they play in is more real but also that they are sort of in a TV show or streamed game and a celebrity has come to play.

Have Lots Of Threads

At one point, two groups got fixated on The Dragon Emperor, a huge Red Dragon who ruled a nation to the south and had started a war. Both groups had reason to be harmed by his schemes, and both became bent on taking down the same foe. 

That was difficult because if the schedules wouldn’t line up for a crossover and if one group took out the Emperor, the other group would have felt robbed. Luckily for me, one group also had other foes. 

By sending them off against other villains who had personally harmed them in the past, I allowed that group to sate their need to win. It also created a situation that freed an individual with the power to weaken the Dragon Emperor’s forces. They then got wind of a third foe and went after them, leaving the Dragon Empire conflict to the first group, who eventually will probably be the ones to kill the Dragon Emperor. 

If I had only one foe for my game world, it wouldn’t have worked, but there are lots of options I can bring in to give the players a sense of heroic victory, be it the secretive and Demogorgon worshipping thief-cult The Coin or the oppressive tendrils of the hag ruled Crone Kingdom, I have purposefully made a wide list of options. 

If you have lots of different types of villainy, it also gives players a choice about what they want to face.

Thus concludes our guide to living worlds. Please feel free to share any pitfalls and experiences you have of them with us and what you felt worked. 

Next time, we will be looking at techniques to help your players get more developed character interactions and immersive experiences.

Creative Commons credit: Roman In the Wick’s Light by Dane-of-Celestia, Temple Cave by ExitMothership (who has a Redbubble) and Trolltrader Dragons by arvalis (who has a Patreon).