Creative Ownership of a Setting

[Catullus64]

I'm in an interesting situation that I've not encountered before when it comes to Player-DM relations.

Around when the pandemic began kicking into high gear, I started an online game with some old friends. I created a setting for it, and ran several months worth of West Marches-style games. The games were good, and people took well to the setting, which (I flatter myself) was both sufficiently original to grab people's interest, but not so original as to make it a clunky fit for D&D. I started running a more heavily story-driven game in the setting, and some of the rotating group members asked if they could start running some of their own games in the setting. We established clear buffers in space and time between the games; they take place in different historical eras of the setting, often in new, previously unseen geographic regions, so that the events of the games don't really have all that much friction. The newer games have been great fun, and I'm currently a player in one of them.

Recently, though, a plot point has come up in the game in which I'm a player that rubs me the wrong way; that is to say, it's contrary to one of the main worldbuilding conceits that I made explicit when I created the setting and shared it with people.

Something that was very important to me in crafting this setting is what the DMG calls the One World cosmology; that is that all things in the universe inhabit the same physical space, and there are no other planes of existence in the same way that most D&D cosmology assumes. The Feywild, the Hells, the Shadowfell, the homes of elemental beings, all of these are places to which you can theoretically walk (or fly, swim, tunnel, etc.) I did this to emphasize journeys and travel, and an interconnected world, rather than abstract metaphysical-babble and magical travel.

In the latest session of this friend's game, we discovered an ominous tome that mentions of stuff like Elemental Planes, planes of existence, uses the phrase "the Prime Material Plane", and refers to methods of planar travel. And the DM exposits this stuff to us like these are accepted concepts in the world with which our characters should be familiar. Some hints about this have come up in passing, but I've mostly dismissed them in-character as the ridiculous theories of the wizardly NPCs who spout them. But now it's here, in a fairly plot-critical source that is central to the things going on in the campaign. I don't know whether the DM forgot that this was a big part of the world, or whether he just doesn't care, but it rather bothered me. How should I talk to him about it?

Maybe I'll mention it, and he'll say "Oh, I just forgot, how silly of me, let me make some changes and retcons." But what if he actually made this a deliberate departure, and I inadvertently tell him that I dislike his worldbuilding? On the one hand, I made the setting, and the One World was an element I communicated pretty expressly at the outset. On the other hand, he and other DMs have also contributed a great deal to the setting through their own games, and surely they have some sort of creative ownership over it as well. Do I have any kind of moral authority over creative decisions made in this setting, in someone else's game?

[Sigreid]

I'd just tell him "this is not the way things work in the world I created. If this is how you want it to work in your campaign, that's cool and all but at that point your game is in a similar but not the same reality as mine."

[JackPhoenix]

Do I have any kind of moral authority over creative decisions made in this setting, in someone else's game?

No, not really, unless you've made some deal over being supreme authority over what gets added to the setting in other people's games. Otherwise, his game, his setting. I would still mention it, if only to make sure your expectations are similar. If you've made a character with some specific assumptions in mind, and those assumptions don't hold true in his game, you should ask about the changes, just so you're on the same board.

[Xervous]

This sounds easy enough to work around if he’s at all reasonable. Other ‘planes’ of existence, this being the ‘prime’? Sounds like mysticism hyping up teleportation. Talk it out early, be polite and honest. Given all the mentioned planes are standard D&D tidbits you’re not critiquing the shirts he made, just the mass produced ones he got at the secondhand store.

[Unoriginal]

I'm in an interesting situation that I've not encountered before when it comes to Player-DM relations.

Around when the pandemic began kicking into high gear, I started an online game with some old friends. I created a setting for it, and ran several months worth of West Marches-style games. The games were good, and people took well to the setting, which (I flatter myself) was both sufficiently original to grab people's interest, but not so original as to make it a clunky fit for D&D. I started running a more heavily story-driven game in the setting, and some of the rotating group members asked if they could start running some of their own games in the setting. We established clear buffers in space and time between the games; they take place in different historical eras of the setting, often in new, previously unseen geographic regions, so that the events of the games don't really have all that much friction. The newer games have been great fun, and I'm currently a player in one of them.

Recently, though, a plot point has come up in the game in which I'm a player that rubs me the wrong way; that is to say, it's contrary to one of the main worldbuilding conceits that I made explicit when I created the setting and shared it with people.

Something that was very important to me in crafting this setting is what the DMG calls the One World cosmology; that is that all things in the universe inhabit the same physical space, and there are no other planes of existence in the same way that most D&D cosmology assumes. The Feywild, the Hells, the Shadowfell, the homes of elemental beings, all of these are places to which you can theoretically walk (or fly, swim, tunnel, etc.) I did this to emphasize journeys and travel, and an interconnected world, rather than abstract metaphysical-babble and magical travel.

In the latest session of this friend's game, we discovered an ominous tome that mentions of stuff like Elemental Planes, planes of existence, uses the phrase "the Prime Material Plane", and refers to methods of planar travel. And the DM exposits this stuff to us like these are accepted concepts in the world with which our characters should be familiar. Some hints about this have come up in passing, but I've mostly dismissed them in-character as the ridiculous theories of the wizardly NPCs who spout them. But now it's here, in a fairly plot-critical source that is central to the things going on in the campaign. I don't know whether the DM forgot that this was a big part of the world, or whether he just doesn't care, but it rather bothered me. How should I talk to him about it?

Maybe I'll mention it, and he'll say "Oh, I just forgot, how silly of me, let me make some changes and retcons." But what if he actually made this a deliberate departure, and I inadvertently tell him that I dislike his worldbuilding? On the one hand, I made the setting, and the One World was an element I communicated pretty expressly at the outset. On the other hand, he and other DMs have also contributed a great deal to the setting through their own games, and surely they have some sort of creative ownership over it as well. Do I have any kind of moral authority over creative decisions made in this setting, in someone else's game?

Well first, this is not a question of moral authority.

Second, they asked you if they could run their own game in your setting, and you agreed. But the thing is, what they write/choose/create for their game isn't your setting, it's their setting which uses yours as a starting point.

Third, I think you should just tell them "the way you're presenting the planes isn't how it works in my setting, obviously you can choose whatever you want in your version, because it is your setting, but we should make clear they're separate works."

[Trask]

Whenever you share your world with others, you give up some authorship. You give up authorship just by having players in your game. How much you want to give up is up to you, but maybe a good question to ask yourself is whether you want to share a setting at all. Laying down some ground rules, like no planes, is a reasonable setting rule IMO, but this is D&D, it's kind of famous for planes. As a setting gets shared by more people it becomes harder to maintain one vision, especially if it wasn't created by committee.

You could always just allow the discrepancies to exist and don't sweat it. I know that Ed Greenwood has his own personal version of the Forgotten Realms that differs significantly from the D&D version, and the map of Gary Gygax's original Greyhawk was completely different from what we know.

As a side note, I feel that oftentimes players don't fall in love with the DM's setting per se, but the history of what they've accomplished in that world. Their characters, the NPCs, villains, and places they've visited. This is also true of much fiction that has a shared universe. I think that's why the idea of the "multiverse" became prevalent in that type of media, so you can have alternate Earth's where things work differently and characters can cross over into other settings without necessarily compromising each one.

[EggKookoo]

As soon as you opened the campaign up to rotating DMs, you exposed yourself to this kind of thing. Unfortunate, especially since you clearly have a lot of passion for the integrity and consistency of the setting. But that's how it is. If you can't repair this with the other DM, you could go the "alternate timeline" route and just say everything that happened after you stopped DMing is in some kind of branch reality. Again, unfortunate, since it means all of those adventures didn't happen in your version of the world, and even if they did in some form, it's unlikely you'll get a chance to experience them directly.

I played in a long-running Call of Cthulhu campaign through the 80s until the mid-2000s (and it's still going). Despite the gameplay spanning decades, the in-fiction time was like 1925-1928. At one point my PC was bitten by a lycanthrope and managed to survive, but eventually went insane and ran off into the woods to live out his shaggy days. About the same time, I started a modern-day Werewolf: the Apocalypse campaign and declared it was the same setting as the CoC campaign. A number of NPCs were brought over, or their descendants, and so forth. The CoC GM was fine with it, and just said it would amount to a possible future timeline. Understandably, he didn't want my inclusion of an element from his game preventing him from changing that element, and I didn't want that either. Worked out fine, and in fact we had some cool serendipitous moments, like when I had one of the CoC PCs in the W:tA game (much older, of course) be inexplicably mute. Then, later (in real time), that PC in CoC suffered a traumatic throat injury that ended his investigator career. Totally random, a result of combat and a homegrown hit chart.

When I spun up my current D&D 5e campaign, I started working on my own custom setting. I had a certain kind of idea in mind and I didn't want to play in FR or whatever. Then Eberron: Rising from the Last War came out and had enough similarities to what I was planning that I could shoehorn my own concept into it, and a lot of the groundwork would be done for me. The party is at tier 2 in this game and I expect to reach a stopping point some time during tier 3 (we don't tend to go all the way to 20). If and when the players decide they want to start a new campaign with new PCs, I'm going to move everything back to my own custom setting and no longer be in Eberron. The events from the first campaign will have happened in the abstract, but the details pertaining especially to the setting and location will change. I've already mentioned this to the players -- they don't care. They just like playing...

[PhoenixPhyre]

I see two levels of "shared setting" games.

1. Shared with oversight. Here, there is the setting creator who retains some explicit authorial control[0], and DMs who have agreed to work within those constraints and to check on things that impinge before playing them. Here a character from one game should be able to seamlessly transition to a different game and things that one group does affects the facts on the ground for other groups.

2. Forked settings. Here, they started off the same base, but have diverged and are now different things. Each DM only retains control over their own games. The games are independent, with no expectation of transferability.

Both can work, but IMO #1 has to be agreed on in advance. The default is that they're now forked. What happens in one does not affect the other and divergence is possible/likely.

[0] Could be total (in which case it's not very shared) or could be "check with me before doing anything to area X".

[Nagog]

I'd just tell him "this is not the way things work in the world I created. If this is how you want it to work in your campaign, that's cool and all but at that point your game is in a similar but not the same reality as mine."

This is the prime solution right here. It's respectful of their ideas and direction, while maintaining the congruency of your setting.

That being said, I wouldn't dismiss the potential to make this a fun worldbuilding opportunity: Perhaps this planet exists on some kind of magical axis or border, and on the area of the planet that you run, all the planes meld together physically rather than magically, while on the other side they separate. That could make for a good hook for building a location in which things stop being physical and become extraplanar, as the borders between these areas could be very very dangerous.

Alternatively, if you wish to contain this anomaly within the bounds of this specific area, perhaps during the early millennia of this world, something with strange cosmic power (magic asteroid or something) hit this area and the properties of it reshaped how this area works.

Another alternative would be that a very long time ago, the Gods cursed that land so that it's people could not walk the planes by mortal means, and the magic they use to traverse the planes is how (a very select few) individuals can circumvent that curse.

[Imbalance]

Awww, you got fanfic'd.