I need help building a game, and I want the players to do it.

[Shinizak]

Inspired by the "Everyone is a DM" thread.

I've always wanted to do a game where the players did have a significant affect on the story and world, more so then just being limited by what their character's powers are. Can you think of any way to put some of the creative process in the player's hands?

[Reynard]

Let them make a village/town/district of the city each, where their character is from.

[aivanther]

Sure, you let them create their own bios without much constraint and incorporate whatever they come up with as a new part of your campaign world. Your wizard come up with a massive academy from the town of "Shank You in the Neck", well now Shank You in the Neck is a real town with an academy. Does your kobold hail from the kingdom of lizard people allied with the the kingdom of awakened tree barbarians? Well, now that's a real part of your campaign.

[Popertop]

Have them read up on the orders and organizations that are in the back of each book, most of them have a pretty good amount of story to bring to the table(order of illumination is good for high level play:rumor has it the upper echelons of the order have been infiltrated by evil, so you have an excuse to write up a high level blackguard with tons of resources at his exposal), and you can always write some more into it. A lot of the settings books have great material for world building, you could even combine one or more settings.

[valadil]

You have to have the right players for this type of play. Some people really just want to be told a story. They'd rather be the audience than active participants. Trying to get them to build areas of your game will only frustrate them and disappoint you.

Now that all that negativity is aside, the best people to get will be other GMs. From what I've seen they're more likely to contribute to your game in the way you describe.

Anyway, I try to run games like what you describe. It works sometimes. Usually I'll have one or two players who run with it, but the rest act like normal boring PCs. Basically I ask for a lot of backstory. More than most GMs would recommend asking for. And I make it all canon in the game world. More than that, I make it important to the game. The biggest threat to the party in my current game is the bard/rogue's family. It's 10 times more effective than if I threw the same threat at the PCs, but without the background relation.

[Tyndmyr]

Inspired by the "Everyone is a DM" thread.

I've always wanted to do a game where the players did have a significant affect on the story and world, more so then just being limited by what their character's powers are. Can you think of any way to put some of the creative process in the player's hands?

Sit down with em, and bs with em about what you want the campaign world to be like. You get some good ideas, some bad, but in general, if everyone likes an idea, it can be made to work.

You do have some players that don't really care, and that's fine, but if your players want to have an impact, go nuts. The more involved everyone is in world creation, the more material you get to work with, and the easier it is to add nifty touches that make players feel important.

[Devils_Advocate]

Ask the players for their characters' life goals and reasons for becoming adventurers. With a large enough group, hopefully this will provide you with enough material to structure the campaign around.

- My father is a thief being held by a tyrannical government until such time as they're paid an exorbitant sum in exchange for his release. I'm trying to raise the money I need to free him.

- Huh! My story involves my dad, too. He died before he fulfilled his blood oath to kill the evil mage who slew his master, so it fell to me, as his heir, to complete his quest.

- Hmm, can I tie my backstory in with someone else's? My character sort of needs a more specific goal to work on, since he's mostly just waiting on something right now.

- Perhaps someone here is also a friend of mine, who convinced me that a life of adventure would help me to advance my talents at the arcane arts? I am finding it a bit hard to justify a sudden career shift to the field of dragon slaying, given my sheltered academic background.

- Hee. Sure, you could be my friend. Oh, and I want my thing to be a secret, not something that I share with the rest of the party. Is that cool?

- Pah! My dude became an adventurer because he likes killing people. End of story.

[HunterOfJello]

Check out the 4e Dungeon Master's Guide II. It has information about how to allow players to make up information about the world around them in a limited manner.

I can't remember the specifics of the alternate system, but it was very interesting.

[dariathalon]

I would also recommend Dawn of Worlds as a starting point. I haven't yet used it myself, but I've only heard good things. Seems like it is a good way to get the players involved in the creation of the world they will play in.

Once that is done, have players keep in mind the world they've created as they write a 10-minute background for their character. This should help you create stories that will interest the characters and engage the players.

[Psyx]

In addition to the recommendations above about letting characters develop the details in their background, regularly 'put them on the spot' where they have to reel off made-up-right-now stuff about a place they've been, or someone they met. Then make it canon - at least from the player's perspective.

For example: A powerful NPC is mentioned you tell the player he knows him from the thieves guild back home. Others will press for information, so let the player regale how they met and some background info and a description of the guy et cetera.

It requires mature sensible players who want to tell stories and can think on their feet though. Otherwise you get "Urrr... he was 8th level and had a +4 sword and 3 testicles and a limp, and his name was Crentious McLame"

[FelixG]

You have to have the right players for this type of play. Some people really just want to be told a story. They'd rather be the audience than active participants. Trying to get them to build areas of your game will only frustrate them and disappoint you.

Now that all that negativity is aside, the best people to get will be other GMs. From what I've seen they're more likely to contribute to your game in the way you describe.

This, a thousand times This.

I am most traditionally a Sandbox GM, (one of my mottos is that "its your world, im just the god of it" XD) I try to make sure players have a good understanding of what they want to do, what they want to accomplish and so on before we start.

One of my most recent games (play by post) was centered in Fallout (new mexico/four corners area), after the initial action scene where the group became, well, a group, they all just sort of stood around until prodded by a co GMs PC that they should head for a town to maybe sell off some of the stuff they had salvaged from the scene.

Once there they picked up a single plot hook and after they finished with that subplot they all just, stood around again waiting for the next person to grab their hands and lead them on adventure. They just couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that they could do whatever they liked they just had to express an interest in doing something.

It ended up quite disappointing to say the least. The moral of the story is to make absolutely sure that the people you are going to be doing such a thing with are well aware of what they are getting into and are creative enough to come up with interests without having to be railroaded :P

[Oracle_Hunter]

Try using a system designed for cooperative storytelling.

Bliss Stage is my favorite, because it starts with cooperative world-building and lets each player have a turn as a mini-DM.

You can buy a PDF here.

[valadil]

... stood around again waiting for the next person to grab their hands and lead them on adventure. They just couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that they could do whatever they liked they just had to express an interest in doing something.

It ended up quite disappointing to say the least. The moral of the story is to make absolutely sure that the people you are going to be doing such a thing with are well aware of what they are getting into and are creative enough to come up with interests without having to be railroaded :P

Yup. Years of traditional gaming will condition players to expect plots to jump out and grab them. The best they can do to take the initiative is to wait it out at the tavern - aka camping the plot hook spawn point.

What I've found works best is to start off with a railroad. The way I see it is that even in a sandbox there are NPCs who are also active participants. It wouldn't be realistic if they all sat around waiting for the PCs. So NPCs have agendas too. Put the PCs at the end of one of those agendas and give them a push. Taper off the push as you go. Basically your PCs need to be doing something and moving in some direction before they can take steps on their own.

[jiriku]

Burning Wheel or Burning Empires are both good gaming systems for collaborative world-building.

But, assuming you're throwing out all the stops, why not just have the PCs develop the world with you?

Start at the most basic levels. Is the world flat, or round, or a collection of isolated asteroids connected by teleportation circles? Is the campaign area hot and desertlike, cold and frozen, or entirely underground? What's the weather like? What races occupy it? Who's got the most advanced technology? The most powerful magic? Let your players brainstorm, and then decide everything through majority vote.

[BobVosh]

I saw a thread on here before where they had each player develop a nation. Then they played some system for a session where they were the nation, and made history that way. Then they were the players within this. I never saw a follow up to it, but it sounded like it could be very neat if all the players got into it.

Have interesting common background that doesn't require players to read a campaign setting, which I have found is fairly difficult at times.

[subject42]

I would also recommend Dawn of Worlds as a starting point. I haven't yet used it myself, but I've only heard good things. Seems like it is a good way to get the players involved in the creation of the world they will play in.

Be careful, Dawn of Worlds can take a very long time to complete if you follow the rules to the letter.

It took us the better part of four sessions to finish a full game. The resultant world was pretty interesting, though.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I saw a thread on here before where they had each player develop a nation. Then they played some system for a session where they were the nation, and made history that way. Then they were the players within this. I never saw a follow up to it, but it sounded like it could be very neat if all the players got into it.

I was in that campaign (Age of Unrest) - go Humans!

In the end it flamed out due to narrative differences, mainly because there was no system to appeal to. Still, it was plenty fun while it lasted

[BobVosh]

I was in that campaign (Age of Unrest) - go Humans!

In the end it flamed out due to narrative differences, mainly because there was no system to appeal to. Still, it was plenty fun while it lasted

Ya I'm not too surprised. If it wasn't online I bet it would have been better. Do you still have the link to the thread? I'd like to see what happened in the world :D

[Oracle_Hunter]

Ya I'm not too surprised. If it wasn't online I bet it would have been better. Do you still have the link to the thread? I'd like to see what happened in the world :D

Sadly, I do not.

In short, the Drow - having dwelled underground for hundreds of years - were able to overcome the cavalry-heavy, air supported Human & Devic forces on their own ground with a frontal assault

Admittedly, the collapse of the campaign was largely my own fault. It was bad enough that an unorganized mob of forest-and-underground dwelling Elves were able to make a sneak attack on our capitol after marching through heavily populated plains for over a week; when our patron God allowed his annointed rulers to be brutally smashed by the Elven Dragon God before he decided to come down to Earth to personally lead a counter attack... well, it was too much

Still, I had a lot of fun working with Virgo to hammer out how the Humans & Deva formed their mighty merchant empire. Oh, and I totally got Humanity to invent Mithrilclads