How do you write your campaigns/settings, Veeky Forums?

No, it doesn't assume that they care. Worlds should make sense for their own sake, whether or not your players notice or care. When I'm on the other end of the screen, it certainly drives me up the fucking wall when you have a loose hodgepodge of nonsense that solely serves to wank the players. If the PCs all died or retired, the world should continue to be able to function on its own terms, even if that functioning is some big villain taking over/killing everyone.

If your PCs refuse to bite hooks for the sake of just window shopping quest hooks/not caring, you have a different problem that needs to be addressed above game.

Ideally, you and your players are already sold on the world and tone of a game before you really need to think of a main quest line of sorts, or any derivatives of the sort.

Im not saying you should build the world solely to serve them, but having the world go to shit because they didnt play ball with what you thought was interesting helps nobody. It may be correct from a certain perspective to punish players for ignoring things you deem important, but it doesnt enhance the game. If you're willing to destroy the world just to prove a point, you're not really there for the players.

People have different opinions on the place of their characters in world affairs. Some things that are important may seem too big, and some things that are too big may seem too important. Even if they're sold on the tone, you cant always know they'll understand the potential influence they can have on the world. As the GM, you always know because that space is bounded by what you will allow and have planned, but for them its all tea-leaves unless you're railroading.

>Im not saying you should build the world solely to serve them, but having the world go to shit because they didnt play ball with what you thought was interesting helps nobody
What? Games shouldn't have losing conditions? If the players screw up enough, they should lose, and ultimately, there's no difference if it's

>You made some very poor decisions in this fight and the monster eats you all
And
>You made some very poor decisions and now whatever your goal is is now unattainable.

>It may be correct from a certain perspective to punish players for ignoring things you deem important, but it doesnt enhance the game.
Without a mechanism for rewarding good decisions and punishing poor ones, you're not really playing a game at all.

>If you're willing to destroy the world just to prove a point, you're not really there for the players.
That is not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying that the world should pre-exist, be larger than, and ultimately function without the characters. That the players should have to make decisions in light of what other people, (NPCs) will do, instead of just bending everything to their will a la some kind of tabletop Skyrim.

Perhaps. But i have to agree with what the other user you replied to said. Time sensitive events should be just that, and PCs not being intrested (wether by IC or OoC motivations) should have those events move along and have repercussions. The trick is to keep pushing that plot line along until the side effects pile up and the PCs get pressured into responding, while not just turning it into rocks fall.

Throwing ideas on the wall and seeing what sticks. Basically make a semi-detailed description of one area, set a scenario in that area with all the relevant information for just that scenario, and then expands based on what the players liked. Repeat until you have a world.

A fail state exists when players try something hard and the dice dont let them do it. This can compound to a complete failstate, usually death. I make no assumptions about my characters metagaming their way into fully understanding the real stakes of something.

Im a big fan of quantum ogre. A problem becomes world threatning when the players give a shit about it. Otherwise ignoring a problem may have negative repercussions but never a failstate. You cant punish people for not liking what you want them to.

To an extent, but pressuring players into taking action on something they otherwise find uninteresting isnt very productive from a "games as fun" perspective. Sure you can get them to care eventually due to consequences, but at that point it may have just become work.

First I have a central thematic and genre-based idea, or something that the whole world is based on (i.e., running through the tunnels of a giant machine a la Autochthon from Exalted, or being superheroes in a setting that just had contact with aliens, or living in an expanding biological city)

Then I build plot hooks and important, major NPCs anyone living in the setting would know. Stuff that players can concept around. Stuff like "who's the Pope" or "very important monarchs everyone would know" or "the people in the starting town the players are expected to be embarking from, even if they aren't personally from it." Major cities, too, and a general feeling of their culture without sperging out and going into population density and hard numbers. Just "this is what their government is, this is the main dish they like to eat, this is a major event in their recent history that will be Important to them" - a dusting of detail to give a sense of flavor.

Finally, I extrapolate how they can work together for a coherent setting, so that if the PCs aren't interested in a thing, it's not wasted, it just might not come up in the game in the way it would if it had spotlight.

After all that, I incorporate anything the players give me that I can make work, and talk with them about anything that can't to see if I can convince them to come up with something more fitting.

>A fail state exists when players try something hard and the dice dont let them do it.
Or when they make a really dumb move, or a dumb series of moves. If fail states exist only because of bad dice rolls, ultimately the decisions your players are making don't matter, and you're essentially railroading them, or reducing whatever game you're playing to Chutes and Ladders.

> I make no assumptions about my characters metagaming their way into fully understanding the real stakes of something.
I'm not even sure what the hell you're trying to say with this.

>A problem becomes world threatning when the players give a shit about it.
And I dislike this approach intensely. It means that ultimately, the game world only exists to gratify the players. None of their decisions have true meaning, because ANYTHING they deigned to focus upon becomes the world's focus. It's that kind of logic that that idiot john wick quote (pic related), operates on. Since the players are ruthless cutthroat types, the world is ruthless and cutthroat, therefore it's fair game to drag them into an alley and murder them in a way that would not have been the case if they were more honorable uptight sorts.

>You cant punish people for not liking what you want them to.
If they don't care, it's not really a punishment, is it? It's simply an extension of consequence.

The point of the game is to have fun. If the players find something fun, then the game should tilt to feature it. Obviously you have to curate your players to prevent the world from turning into murderhoboland or anime garbage, but what do you gain by enforcing consequences for things they dont care about? Its not like they know the difference anyway, and its easier to have players enjoy what you make.

I still make things hard, and punish ideas which overlook established factors, but Im not a fan of Tomb of Horrors type shit where characters can only survive if they are cognizant of things they'd have no reason to know or care about.

Also that John Wick shit is more in line with what you're describing: otherwise anonymous consequences without clear cause as punishment for players doing something you dont like.

Doesnt mean players shouldnt get feedback from the world, but the world shouldnt fall apart just because they failed to understand the gravity of something.

Pressure probably wasnt the best word i could use there. What i was meaning to communicate with few words was the idea that the quest itself changes at each 'stage' the PCs ignore it at, and thus can take different forms while also scaling up in intesity/ablilty to affect party plans if further ignored.

Refusing/failing to deliver a letter leads to a shipment not getting delivered, which leads to a shortage of vital materials, which leads to the collapse of a town, which leads to a refugee problem and all the fun of wilderness/predators reclaiming what land they had, which leads tp increase in disease, which leads to trade/commerce suffing in a given area etc.

Eventually some of this will affect the PCs. No it might not be world ending or even a main plot point, but can add pressute to a plot point they already care about and it does help give depth to the world and establish consequences of not caring. I'm not arguing how you build worlds and campaign structure as wrong, im just making a case for how i default when doing so.

We're talking about things on different levels then. I agree that not following through on things they agreed to do should have consequences, mainly because they've already expressed an interest in completing the task.

I take issue with punishing players for not taking threats they've expressed no interest in seriously. If they hear there's a lich in a mountain and they never give him any attention, he shouldnt destroy the world in six months once they've forgotten about him. That sort of thing adds nothing to the game-as-narrative.

>Obviously you have to curate your players to prevent the world from turning into murderhoboland or anime garbage, but what do you gain by enforcing consequences for things they dont care about?
I'm still not sure how the hell you got that from waht I've been saying. I'm not saying

>BE A JACKASS! RAILROAD! PUNISH THE PLAYERS FOR THINGS THAT YOU DISLIKE
I'm saying that the world should exist on its own logic. Stuff happens, and quite frequently, stuff happens that is not a result of PC action or inaction, but as a result of other forces and people doing their stuff.

>Its not like they know the difference anyway,
I don't know who you play with, but the groups I do can definitely tell the difference.

>I still make things hard, and punish ideas which overlook established factors, but Im not a fan of Tomb of Horrors type shit where characters can only survive if they are cognizant of things they'd have no reason to know or care about.
Again, I'm not sure what the hell you're bringing this up for.

>Also that John Wick shit is more in line with what you're describing: otherwise anonymous consequences without clear cause as punishment for players doing something you dont like.
No, it isn't, because that's not what I'm fucking saying. I'm saying that the world should exist independently of what the PCs decide to do, or not do. It should operate on its own principles, and NPCs who are going to be performing Action X, will continue to do so in the absence of PCs influencing them, they don't just come to a halt because the PCs lost interest and fucked off somewhere else.

By saying that the entire social mileu of the game, absent some kind of PCs are literal deities or super-beings who can affect the minds of millions of people by unintentional actions, you are in essence saying that the entire setting exists as an extension of the PCs. That's what Wick is doing, and it's dumb.

>but the world shouldnt fall apart just because they failed to understand the gravity of something.
Holy shit. I have no idea how you came to the literal opposite conclusion of what I'm saying. I nowhere stated that. I nowhere implied that. And I certainly don't endorse that. Please, show me what I wrote that lead you to that conclusion, because I apparently am not being clear about something central to what I'm trying to say.

Complete aside from the conversation you guys are having but man, that image is really triggering me.

Like what the fuck? Who thinks, aside from John Wick apparently, that this is a good way to showing consequence. A actual way to show consequence would be having someone find the body and have a LG paladin hunt down the rogue to bring them to justice. Or wanted posters go up and bounty hunters start asking around. Or the party is asked by the local lord to turn the rogue over or be exiled. Or the rogue's house is repossessed / sold and the money given to the guard's family.

Like, actual consequences.

Agreed. The 'assassinate the evil king, or else he keeps being a dick' plot lines arnt good unless your group agreed before hand that was something they were intrested in.

>GM doesn't understand that player enthusiasm always trumps predetermined "tone"

Just let them play whatever, everyone will actually enjoy the game by being allowed to indulge in their personal interests instead of catering to the DM.

You said the world should generate consequences based on player action, always.

You said the world should turn and develop independent of player action.

The result of that is that the world should generate consequences based on things players DONT do.

Im not putting words in your mouth, Im taking what you say to its logical conclusion.

Im not even saying you should change. You're clearly a smart dude, we're having a fairly coherent conversation here, and I have no doubt that you get by running things the way you do. However, I dont think that what you've said makes good advice for novice GMs principally because the logical conclusion of it is, as Ive said repeatedly, punishing players for not giving attention to things you think are important that they may not.

I pretty much do, but every once in a while you get a bit of a rounding error where everybody has a different mental image of the details of a thing because the tone has been so consistently undermined.

Its not the end of the world to be sure, but tone lubricates things immensely by putting everybody on the same page.

Because you're thinking in terms of internal world-logic: We have a world, it exists according to a set of principles more or less in accord of our own. Someone's behavior can only be influenced by factors that they, as self-actualized characters, are aware of. It doesn't matter if the king is an evil, mass-murdering psychopath, he can still be loved by the peasantry if he manages to keep his blood drinking orgies under the proverbial radar. But ultimately, that world exists in and of itself, and can only be affected by other factors within that world coming to work changes upon it.

To get into the mind of Wick, which at least in my opinion, a lot of people agree with without really thinking through the consequences of such a line of reasoning; we need to go the other route. There is no internal world-logic. There is no WORLD, beyond whatever is in the zone of perception of the PCs that they happen to focus upon. Sure, you might talk about it somewhat, try to give the illusion that it exists, but you're lying, it really doesn't. The only things that matter are what the PCs see, do, act upon, and think. NPCs only exist to be foils to these PCs, and as such, are essentially reflections of the aforementioned PC perception/action/thought. Cause and effect only apply insofar as the PC does something, and the GM does something in response to it, but it's not filtered through "real" experiences within the setting of the game, which is just a mirage.

You probably notice it because this one had disastrous consequences for a PC, but it's not really that different than some of the other advice you see bandied around at times, like

>Murder mystery, several suspects. PCs latch on to one of them. Therefore, he is the murderer, not because of internal world-logic (in the past, he did the murder), but the PC focus on that guy makes him the murderer retroactively.

>It means that ultimately, the game world only exists to gratify the players.

Someone typed this unironically as an example of a bad thing.

You're really ignoring Occam's Razor. The Wick example is just a guy taking realistic worlds to their logical extreme, in which anonymous, unexplained, semi-random death is something that can happen to the players.

But it only got that way because the PCs killed some random dudes. I'll freely admit I don't know much of the context of said game, but most of them do not have 4-6 murderhobos creating the morality of their world. Pic included with a more expansive section.

This will forever make me salty about the way that Wick handled that situation. Being pulled into an alley full of enemies for prior actions I'm ok with, but just removing the player's agency like that I really despise. Even if there was a 0% chance of the PC being able to escape, they should at least be able to see the results unfold.

So let me ask you this: other than being a narrative cop-out, why wouldnt the same thing happen to one of your characters?

For a particularly egregious offense why would they not receive a single, lethal stab in the back?

>There is no WORLD, beyond whatever is in the zone of perception of the PCs that they happen to focus upon. Sure, you might talk about it somewhat, try to give the illusion that it exists, but you're lying, it really doesn't. The only things that matter are what the PCs see, do, act upon, and think.

This is actually how real RPGs work. In every actual RPG that anyone has ever run in the last few decades, the PCs are the important heroes that the players care about, and the story is about whatever adventures they go on, and the rest of the fantasy/scifi/vampire cliches around them exist because the players/GM imagine them interacting. There's nothing bad or inferior about this for you to even "dislike" or complain about, that is quite simply what RPGs are and always have been.
You are comparing this real-world actual depiction of how real games actually operate, with a nonexistant and impossible version of how a theoretical fully simulated "real" fantasy world would work, as translated unto the players by way of the GM.
That's why your complaint doesn't make sense

>However, I dont think that what you've said makes good advice for novice GMs principally because the logical conclusion of it is, as Ive said repeatedly, punishing players for not giving attention to things you think are important that they may not.
But again, if the players do not care about the political climate of [whatever country], or whether the murderer gets away, or whatever else the consequences to NPCs are, it's hardly a punishment. It's just a thing that happens, the same way that there's an ogre rampaging if they're hired to kill the ogre, or a coup going on in a far-away land that they hear about but isn't really on the menu for stuff they're doing.

And in no case is it the world falling apart because they the PCs weren't paying attention. Again, the world is supposed to exist independently of what the PCs are doing. Are they *really* the only people who are capable of saving the world if it comes to that? Maybe an alternate party of heroes rises to the occasion, or maybe they won't, but either case, if the heroes care about something completely different, say playing pirate in a given sea, you will have the consequences of that course of action. The world, as it usually will, moves on. And maybe I wasn't clear on saying this, but I do generally prefer to run games with local or regional scope rather than worldwide scope.

It is entirely possible to have such a thing happen to a character. However:
1) I definitely would not say "you don't know". Or even imply that I don't know. You got dragged away and murdered by your enemies.
2) Such an attempt would be based on internal logic of the world. Are these enemies powerful enough to do that sort of thing to the PC? Do they really have no better use of what is probably considerable force, given that PCs tend to be alert and dangerous people? Why are they focusing on the party, or this PC in particular? Someone capable of doing such probably doesn't just randomly decide that they hate someone and bump them off.
3) The actions taken to prevent such an assassination attempt are things to be done in the game. Not piss off super-powerful people. Have buddies watching your back. Get the right abilities and items for the setting to protect yourself. The murder of an unrelated nobody much earlier in the game is not a thing that factors into this kind of setting.

But if we were to say, have the PC seriously offend a master of assassins who has access to killers who are way outside of the power of the PCs to detect, let alone handle, then yes, I would consider it an appropriate response to just hand him a note saying "You got stabbed in your sleep and are now dead". But then again, I would also try to arrange things such that they don't get access or even attract the notice of someone that much outside of their ability to deal with.

That you'd be willing to do something so unproductive, albeit for reasons different than Wick's, speaks for itself.

Do you see what kind of mental hurdles and justifications you are willing to go to to support your contention that it is ok to instantly murder a player's character?

I build my settings in really strange ways, normally I'll build up a town in a locale I'd like, and populate the area with a few NPCs that can give the players hooks here and there.
Then I go through old modules, one page dungeons, and the like that I'd want to run and tweak those adventures and the setting to include those locales.

Normally that'll be enough for the first few sessions, but as things progress you can usually figure out what the big overarching narrative of the setting looks like just from trying to fill in the history of these locations; what tragic events led to the Citadel that used to protect this area being lost in a great casm? Why was said citadel there in the first place?

It works for what I enjoy as a GM, and what my players enjoy in their adventures.

Majora's Mask comes to mind as a fully operating world actually. Events will still unfold without Player interaction and the world constantly moves. Time loops allow you to change events, but it's not like the Moon will just wait around until you decide to stop it. Inaction and action create different results, rather than there being no event due to inaction.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. In my settings (fantasy, sci-fi, or otherwise) time and events progress with or without the player characters. They are doubtlessly powerful agents of change and can make their mark on history or even change its course entirely. But if they decide to go manage a small town instead of combating the threat of the lich's armies coming down from the north, then civilization will get overrun and eventually the chaos and war reaches their doorstep.

Just because they decide to not investigate the troubling rumours from the north doesn't make those events cease to exist. The lich continues to execute on his plan as best he can, with help and interference from various aligned NPCs.

Critical difference, that's a singleplayer videogame. One person is spending only their own time trusting in the creative vision of the developers, playing within the strict confines of the programming to "solve" the game.
Pan and paper RPGs are enjoyed for fundamentally different reasons, they are collaborative and personally creative and player-focused.

I start with a ~~very~~ rough sketch of the setting, its scope, its basic geography, its themes, and unless I want to run a sandbox, maybe a good central plot hook.

Then I advertise my game with that rough sketch, and see who bites. I ask prospective players what kind of story they want to be a part of, and if they have similar desires (which also interest me), I then begin fleshing out the setting to enable the kind of story they asked for.

I try to keep the players updated about the setting I'm building, so they can build characters who fit into the world, and have goals that will lead organically into the kind of story they wanted. By the end, I will have spent my allotted worldbuilding time as efficiently as possible, fleshing out only those details which will be relevant to the campaign, and ignoring everything else.

I'll contend that you are attempting to accomplish the core function of an RPG but with extra busywork on your end.

>events progress with or without the player characters
Presumably this means that if no one can make it to the game session, do you sit around and daydream what the badguys must be up to? No, clearly not. Therefore there must be some fundamental principle that is the real reason any of activity is taking place: because you can communicate it to some players for their enjoyment.

>But if they decide to go manage a small town instead of combating the threat of the lich's armies coming down from the north, then civilization will get overrun and eventually the chaos and war reaches their doorstep.
Suppose there is some horrendous apocalyptic ritual taking place in another dimension, with absolutely no way for the PCs to know about it. Eventually it is unleashed and all of reality is destroyed. According to you, it's totally reasonable for everyone to accept this and enjoy this plot development, because it's the natural consequence of this living breathing world happening (in the DM's imagination) regardless of the players involvement.

No Clearly no one would enjoy this or think it's reasonable, because it violates the underlying principle of D&D, the game fiction only exists so far as it satisfies the enjoyment of the players.

Your argument is based on some incorrect assumptions, notably:

> Presumably this means that if no one can make it to the game session, do you sit around and daydream what the badguys must be up to? No, clearly not.
Events proceed without the players.

> Therefore there must be some fundamental principle that is the real reason any of activity is taking place
Because it's the logical in-setting thing for those NPCs to do.

>This is actually how real RPGs work
No it isn't.

> In every actual RPG that anyone has ever run in the last few decades, the PCs are the important heroes that the players care about, and the story is about whatever adventures they go on, and the rest of the fantasy/scifi/vampire cliches around them exist because the players/GM imagine them interacting.
Counterexamples: Any given hexcrawl. Any game that's run in a pre-generated world, especially for worlds that are not inventions of RPGs (So like Star Wars or Middle-Earth, not Faerun or Golarion).

Furthermore, the focus of the game and the logical scope of the world are at best tangentially related.

Pray tell, what exactly is the difference between the following two scenarios:

>Players offend high level assassin.
>Assassin is way more powerful than they are, has stealth skills that are so far beyond their perception abilities as to be essentially invisible, and has an opportunity to strike.
>He strikes, killing the PCs before they have time to notice what's going on.

>Players offend high level fighter
>Fighter is way more powerful than they are, has speed, strength, equipment, etc. so far beyond their own abilities as to be invincible, and has an opportunity to strike.
>He strikes, killing the PCs before they have a chance to react.

The choice is the essential part, not the rolling of the dice. Dice are just a way of navigating probability.

Why isn't it ok to "instantly murder" a player character? RPGs are a subset of games, and games at least games with skill involved, pretty much by definition, have an interaction of choice and consequence. Those choices will not all be equal, and in fact should not be, otherwise the act of making the choice does not lead to differing outcomes.

It should not be done arbitrarily, but yes, if the logical consequence of PC actions is "you die", they should die. It's no different if they stand in an erupting volcano, punch the king in the face in full view of the royal guard, or pick a fight with something colossally stronger than they are. If an enemy has motives, means, and opportunity to destroy the PCs, and no better use of the resources to do so, why aren't they employing them?

The difference is an initiative roll in the second instance. They at least have a chance.

What makes an initiative roll any different from a perception roll? And why is the roll the critical part? Rolling is just saying

>Well, this action has X% chance of succeeding and 100-X% chance of failing. Since I don't know the outcome, I roll for it.

You shouldn't make rolls for outcomes that are completely predetermined, automatic successes or automatic fails, unless there's either degree of success to check for (which itself is a form of randomness), or you think it's important to hide that an outcome was in fact predetermined for some reason.

But if say, a player decides to stand next to a nuclear bomb that's about to go off in a modern sort of campaign, they die. No rolls, because you don't survive 5 feet away from a megaton nuke.

This is something of a side point, but one I feel compelled to rant about, but I do not understand this sacredness attached to the act of rolling. What makes a game a game is the choices that are made in pursuance of some goal, not the outcome of random probabilities along the way. Which is more of a game, chess, or just rolling a 6 sided die and the higher roll wins?

I improve.

My favorite way to start is to have the party start in a small village, usually as locals, with a problem or task. Goblins raiding outskirt farms was my last start. The rest of the world is filled with unfriendly monsters and ancient ruins, and no one really knows anything outside of the local area. They may run into farmers or hunters out in the wild, and a lonely mage if they're lucky, but they will NEVER run into another humanoid settlement.

Fuck my players

The roll arbitrates whether a thing succeeds or not. Even if the modifiers make it impossible, allowing players to roll still makes them feel like they're in control.