Player friendly campaign settings

[Yora]

Something that people sometimes complain about campaign settings is that the world as described doesn't really have much room for player characters and seem to be written more to be read than to be played in.

What kinds of examples can you think of that would be cases of setttings that get in the way of the players and settings that are created with the focus on the player characters and their personal adventures?
What kinds of design decisions work well to make a world a good campaign setting and which ones go against that?

[Khedrac]

I'd say it comes down to the types of NPCs the world is populated with.

For instance the Forgotten Realms is populated with a lot of very active NPCs (active in an adventuring/problem solving sense).
With all these high levels wandering around slaying monsters, saving the world/kingdom etc. what is there for a new party to do?
Conversely in Mystara the high-level NPCs are mainly involved in politics and running their own lands - and since they are not out there solving the problems there is plenty of work for the players to do (much of it working for said NPCs).
Greyhawk lies somewhere in between, but the high-level NPCs are rarer and mainly tend to be busy.

Glorantha in many ways is in the first camp with the Hero Wars happening and most of what happens plotted out all the 'big hero' roles are taken.
Middle Earth is this in spades - because everyone knows the history there is even less chance for players to leave a mark.

Aaannd to be honest the above is a load of nonsense. It is equally easy to be a player in these different worlds, but they can lend themselves to different types of campaigns. Much depends on the GM/DM and what they are good at running.
In worlds where there are a lot of people already saving the world it is much easier to run a "saving the town" campaign instead, and if run properly just as satisfying. (Also save the world campaigns often case real problems for anything to be run after them in the same world.)
This is not to say that you cannot run a world-shaking campaign in a 'busy' world, you just need to come up with reasons why it is the party that have to shake the world. It's not that hard to have enough going on that the powerful are busy with other things, especially if, to begin with, the world-shaking potential of the players' course of actions is not obvious - once it is obvious the PCs are already the ones involved who know what is happening, so the top NPCs should support (oppose) them rather than just take over. What it does take is more effort from the GM.

[Yora]

While an active casts of prominent NPCs does not actively get in the way of player characters going on mundane adventures, they still have the effect that those mundane adventures feel less significant. The players are busying themselves with these things while they know that there's a big metaplot going on to which they are not invited. You can ignore all of that and make it all about the players, but then what's the point of having it in the first place. But if you include it the players will always only be pawns unless they have really high level characters.

You can play in Forgotten Realms just as well as in Middle-Earth, but Middle-Earth was not created as a campaign setting for players. (Neither was Forgotten Realms for that matter, which might be part of its problems.)

[Eldan]

Not a setting, but I've heard horror stories about one big campaign in The Dark Eye (the big German roleplaying game.) From what others who played it have told me, pretty much every adventure ends with a big boss battle where the players lose, then are saved by a big named setting NPC who comes in and saves the day at the last moment, then leaves again.

There are also quite a few RPGs that have one defined, set up conflict that the players pretty much have to be a part of. Players in this system are part of organization X and fight organzation Y and Monsters Z. These can work very well as long as everyone is on board with that exact premise (and why wouldn't you be, you know what you're getting into with that campaign), but it doesn't exactly allow for creative character concepts.

Even more than Forgotten Realms, there's Dragonlance. Novels first, setting second. I never liked it all that much, for that reason and others. Too much defined history and defined conflicts.

[Fable Wright]

Eberron: Quite player friendly. It lists out the history of the setting, and focuses on conflicts between organizations instead of conflicts between people. This means that characters can join in these conflicts without feeling second rate; tagging along with Elminster or doing his bidding may make your character feel undervalued, but being dispatched as the King's Sword in Eberron makes you feel special and chosen as the most capable members of your organization. Additionally, there's a lot of the world that's undefined; DMs and PCs are very much able to change the setting according to what fits the story best.

Unknown Armies: Also very player friendly. The world is sparse, meaning you can throw in what plot elements you want, and conflicts are again mostly between groups, or occasionally lone unheroic operators. The PCs are free in a giant sandbox and are encouraged to drive their own stories with their own goals; the world is very much open to change.

[hamlet]

I've always been on the lookout for these types of settings.

Greyhawk is one, though it requires the DM to make it so by picking an area and getting things set up for his/her campaign. The "vast howling emptiness" of Greyhawk is something that a lot of folks have noticed.


Kingdoms of Kalamar is this to me. I LOVE this setting. It's exactly the right mix of room to create and pre-created stuff that I just LOVE it. And it's a world that's baseline is fairly realistic on the fantastic scale, but it's very easy to add more fantasy to it. (I've always believed it's easier to add than strip out) Plus, a lot of things in the campaign setting are noted as getting ready to happen, or something funny's going on, but it's not detailed as to exactly what. So it's got a lot of creative prompts for the DM.


Harnworld is pretty interesting . . . but I've never been into it for some reason. *shrug*



Forgotten Realms could be this, but if they'd only stop with the action audience syndrome. So much interesting stuff is just taken care of rather than waiting for PC's to come and poke at that sometimes it's a lot like you get to watch "real heroes" come and do their thing.

[Yora]

I think metaplots and regular timeline advancements never work in the favor of the players. GMs might think it's great stuff when reading it, but what's the point of running adventures with a great story if the players don't enjoy it?

[hamlet]

I think metaplots and regular timeline advancements never work in the favor of the players. GMs might think it's great stuff when reading it, but what's the point of running adventures with a great story if the players don't enjoy it?

You and I don't always agree, but to this statement, I will simply say AMEN!!!

[Khedrac]

I think metaplots and regular timeline advancements never work in the favor of the players. GMs might think it's great stuff when reading it, but what's the point of running adventures with a great story if the players don't enjoy it?

Probably my biggest complaint about Glorantha which is my favourite campaign world.
Can also be applied to Mystara and Greyhawk, but I personally tend to ignore the calendar until I want to work a timeline event in...

[Honest Tiefling]

I think metaplots and regular timeline advancements never work in the favor of the players. GMs might think it's great stuff when reading it, but what's the point of running adventures with a great story if the players don't enjoy it?

I would be very surprised if even the most grand of metaplots survived contact with the Player Characters without a lot of railroading to be honest. At least in the games I've been a part of, plenty of cities have been a part of the causalities (and sometimes purely by accident!).

I agree with the idea about organizations. You could in theory hijack a person, but it's pretty difficult and requires certain builds. Hijacking an organization? Much easier and much more rewarding. However, don't do what Forgotten Realms did and put in a lot of organizations that are either too powerful or too weird. At times the Harpers feel like they are only there to sneer at players or tell characters that being good is 'too deep' and that 'they wouldn't understand it'. And don't have ones that are too strong to be beaten. Like the Heralds. Yeah, there's apparently some sort of group of weirdos running around beating people up for using the wrong coat of arms. Why do they have so much power and backing? **** if I know. Why aren't they doing something productive? No idea!

Basically, players need to feel like they have a chance of affecting things. Sure, at level 1 they aren't going to run an empire, but there should be hints that they can get ahead with the proper amounts of force and scheming. Feeling like there's always a bigger fish hanging over your head isn't very fun at all.

[Actana]

One campaign setting book that comes to mind is the 4e Neverwinter Campaign Setting book, which focuses around that city and its immediate surroundings, barely straying as far as Waterdeep, if even that. It's a highly focused book, and what makes it interesting to me is that it gives a lot of setup for various adventures but doesn't really spell out all the details, leaving the GM with more power to custom tailor the adventures. There's a lot of options to go in terms of NPCs and such, but how it involves players is something I'm particularly fond of.

In 4e, there's an optional rule for "themes" which have a small (often generic) story to them along with granting a few appropriate powers or special abilities every now and again with levels. However, instead of generic themes, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting book gives a series of themes that are very much focused around what is going on in the city, making the PCs active members of the going-ons in the city (for example, being the lost heir to the city's throne, part of the royal line of a ruined dwarven fortress, exiled member of the Netheril, a Harper agent or a devotee of Oghma who has unique visions about the Spellplague, to name a few of the 13 themes). While they are also quite restrictive in the sense of "these are the plotlines that are happening in the city, pick one to be a part of", it also gives a lot of proactive focus on those plotlines in particular by making the PCs an intrinsic part of them, instead of someone who just stumbles across adventure. It's a style I feel has a lot of potential to involve players right from the start.

To me, the whole idea of "inspiration, not information" is something that works very well with making a campaign setting friendly towards players, as it allows for a lot more and easier customization. It also helps that the setting knows what it's focusing on and doesn't try to do everything at once.

[Yora]

I argree with the idea about organizations. You could in theory hijack a person, but it's pretty difficult and requires certain builds. Hijacking an organization? Much easier and much more rewarding. However, don't do what Forgotten Realms did and put in a lot of organizations that are either too powerful or too weird. At times the Harpers feel like they are only there to sneer at players or tell characters that being good is 'too deep' and that 'they wouldn't understand it'. And don't have ones that are too strong to be beaten. Like the Heralds. Yeah, there's apparently some sort of group of weirdos running around beating people up for using the wrong coat of arms. Why do they have so much power and backing? **** if I know. Why aren't they doing something productive? No idea!

Basically, players need to feel like they have a chance of affecting things. Sure, at level 1 they aren't going to run an empire, but there should be hints that they can get ahead with the proper amounts of force and scheming. Feeling like there's always a bigger fish hanging over your head isn't very fun at all.

I believe the core of the problem is to have a too wide range between low-level and high-level characters supported by the setting, especially if that gaps means that more powerful characters become effectively invincible. The idea of level appropriate enemies is a problem of rules, but a setting makes it even worse when it doesn't restrict itself to a limited range supported by the rules.
It's entirely okay to have a situation in which players don't want to pick a fight because the opponent is unassailable. But I think when the reason is "our party does not have nearly a high enough level", I tink it just doesn't feel right. Being able to take down a seemingly invincible opponent should be a matter of gathering allies and unique magical artifact. Not to go grinding and doing busywork for a few months or years to unlock the ability to defeat the enemy.

[Honest Tiefling]

I believe the core of the problem is to have a too wide range between low-level and high-level characters supported by the setting, especially if that gaps means that more powerful characters become effectively invincible. The idea of level appropriate enemies is a problem of rules, but a setting makes it even worse when it doesn't restrict itself to a limited range supported by the rules.

Yeah, this is probably a part of it. Through having a powerful organization of people running around doing nothing but fighting people wearing someone else's coat of arms also feels like DM rail roading. If you have an unassailable group, make them make sense. Make the players invested in their hatred of this group. Make them gnash their teeth not because this group has DM fiat, but because they got out foxed fair and square.

And plan on them being set on fire at some point. I can't stress that enough. The players will find a way.

[hamlet]

It's not really, to me, the presence of powerful NPC's, or that there are high level characters playing in the sandbox alongside 1st level characters. It's a matter of how . . . involved they are. Forgotten Realms mega-NPC's are, according to the canon books, rather involved, sometimes to the point of parody. It always begs the question of what the PC's are actually going to be doing at any given moment since folks like Elminster can show up and fix any given problem in the blink of an eye and be home in time for breakfast tea while the PC's are still finding out there is a problem.

In other settings, high level NPC's do exist, but they're in the background much more. In Greyhawk, they're there, but for the most part, they're part of the mesh of the world. They're names to be dropped quite literally because they have their names all over the spell lists!

This is reinforced by the original idea of how play was to proceed. PC's would go out adventuring for much of the time from levels 1-9. Right about level 9 or 10, the PC's would shift gear from adventuring to building. They'd probably start accruing followers and gain property and be able to found their own duchies etc. They shifted towards realm management rather than dungeon delving, though they probably still could.

It was at this point that the mega-NPC's started to become a thing that the PC's could interact with on even a hint of a level playing field. They'd made names for themselves in the world as a whole, so now the big names would probably at least have heard of them in some way and would be more likely to get involved in some way. It worked out, really.

[Tiktakkat]

As Khedrac suggested, I think it is often more a case of a player-friendly DM as opposed to a player-friendly DM.
I'd go even further and say that it doesn't much matter if the DM goes Mary Sue on the setting NPCs, the named dungeon monsters, or his own DMPCs, he is still going Mary Sue with them, and making it clear that the players are just there to put some randomness in the supporting cast.

As for timeline advancement in published settings, that has and will always be the biggest Catch-22 of published settings.
If you want someone else to do all the work of building a setting for you, you are going to have deal with the baggage of them actually playing the setting in a different way than you do. That includes not seeing the areas you want to see developed get developed, having stories get resolved in different ways, or seeing "secrets" revealed in totally different ways from what you would have preferred.
In some ways, that makes "inactive" settings more attractive to me. You know you won't get sucker punched by any new development, and once there is enough base material you can campaign for decades without slowing down.

[Honest Tiefling]

In some ways, that makes "inactive" settings more attractive to me. You know you won't get sucker punched by any new development, and once there is enough base material you can campaign for decades without slowing down.

Or optional stories that don't have to be told, and are quite optional. Like Elder Evils for 3.5. Sure, you don't need a world-ending Apocalypse and it's certainly not canon until the DM decides it is, but in case you want it, there it is. Just going to leave this book full of torment and general unpleasantness here for you...

[Yora]

And plan on them being set on fire at some point. I can't stress that enough. The players will find a way.

One of the best pieces of advice on worldbuilding was Wolfgang Baur's image of settings as boxes of dynamites. And you give the players a box of matches.
If you create a world as a campaign setting, everything should be destructable. Not necessarily by the players and not at all levels of power, but the players should be free to set things in motion that could logically lead to the destruction of anything. If you have an idea for a character who is too cool to die, it does not belong into a campaign.

Optional stories for big events are a really good approach. After all, that's what all published adventures are for small and medium events. But the results should best be limited to the product they happen in, and not override the main setting sourcebook.

[trikkydik]

There are also quite a few RPGs that have one defined, set up conflict that the players pretty much have to be a part of. Players in this system are part of organization X and fight organzation Y and Monsters Z. These can work very well as long as everyone is on board with that exact premise (and why wouldn't you be, you know what you're getting into with that campaign), but it doesn't exactly allow for creative character concepts.

I think you should do that for a short period of time (3/4 sessions)
and then kick them out of the organization.

By that time you should have enough of the world built, and plenty more to explore.

See what the PC's want, do a lot of non-combat/NPC-PC interaction

(some more things to consider)

Pick like 3-10 Races that exist. and use those to build countries/cities.

make a map with at least one continent, draw in some lakes (look at google maps to see how rivers flow)
Draw in some mountains, maybe a volcano, there's always a "North" with cold mountains.

Once you have a continent that is suitable for discovery, build a story for one city (Where the PC's start).

Think of some conflicts between bordering countries, Come up with a good antagonist, or more.

send them on a few missions to get the feel for it, then kick them out, and leave them in the open world, beyond the city walls.

They'll make decisions and you can improv the adventures as they come up. that will also buy you some time to think of a long term direction.

try to be fluid about your story telling, if the PC's do something that throws off your whole plot, just mix it in there and make them happy. If you plan short term adventures it will be difficult to let the PC's really make the world different. So try to keep your major plans long term and mid term.

Good luck buddy.

[2D8HP]

I'm quite partial to Leiber's World of Nehwon, but for a nice map of a different world,
how about this one?

[Knaight]

Warbirds is great for this - it's explicitly built to have a pretty unstable situation, and the PCs are by default in a place to have some influence.

[Cluedrew]

I would like to through out setting that are made as the campaign progresses. I guess just custom settings but if you fill them in as you go along they tend to be tailored for the campaign and the players. Or course you can't publish that, so it is more of a strategy than a setting, but I find it can work.

[Amphetryon]

I think metaplots and regular timeline advancements never work in the favor of the players.

If this is true, then I do not know how any campaign setting can fit your criteria of 'Player friendly.' Any NPC motivations, any actions that take place off-screen, can reasonably be described as metaplot and timeline advancements. If they NEVER work in the favor of the Players, then no campaign setting can model NPCs as other than cardboard cutouts.

[Lord Torath]

Dark Sun was originally billed this way. As they hit the higher levels, the PCs were supposed to get huge armies, or special magical powers, and have a major influence on the setting. The Dragon Kings supplement took this up to 11.

But then TSR released the Prism Pentad, and the published adventures had the PCs playing second fiddle to the heroes of that series. Later on, they did have the PCs' ultra-powerful mentor get ganked by the opposition, (and Tyr's city council became a useless bunch of self-centered whiners top permit the PCs to shine) but that may be a case of Too Little, Too Late.

If you ignore the Prism Pentad (or view it as a possible path the PCs could take, rather than things that actually happened in the setting) it's still pretty great. Before the Prism Pentad, all the big movers and shakers are the Bad Guys (sorcerer kings, the Dragon).

[Joe the Rat]

I would like to through out setting that are made as the campaign progresses. I guess just custom settings but if you fill them in as you go along they tend to be tailored for the campaign and the players. Or course you can't publish that, so it is more of a strategy than a setting, but I find it can work.

That's essentially how I'm running mine. Want to do something? I'll stick it in this blank space!

A half-finished setting let's you take player ideas and weave them in. "Wouldn't it be cool if..." Okay, now we add that. Race, backstory, organization, lost world of prehistoric beasts, we'll find a home. Give them enough hooks to tie into the world, and enough room that you can add their hooks to the world.

But in a more general sense:
The world should exist beyond the characters. There are things going on beyond the horizon. Some the players may know, others they hear rumors, others waiting for them to find out. If there are titanic battles between dragons and wizards, that's the backdrop. It's a story, and a big one, but not the story you should care about, because it's not the player's story. D-Day was a big event in WWII, but you're in the Pacific Theater, and right now you have an island invasion to plan. Or you're in New Jersey, rooting out Nazi Saboteurs.

It scales up and down There are things the party can't handle (yet), there are things the party shouldn't bother with, pretty much everywhere. NPCs and monsters alike. Legendary beasts, and famous champions the players may have heard of, or may even look up to. If the ultimate badass isn't handling something, there's a reason. Maybe there's a bigger battle elsewhere they must attend to. Maybe he's king now, with the responsibilities of state. Maybe rival wizards are in a Cold War (each with a counter to the other's magics), and the players are catspaws to resolve the conflict.

A mechanical metaphor... Things will happen without player involvement... like a giant clockwork. You have a broader set of events that should resolve in a certain way without intervention.

...and your players are tools That is, until the players get involved. The impact should be in line with power. Rookies may change a step in a broader scheme. Veterans change the tide of battle. Champions set the course of events. Your setting should change to reflect that impact. Breaking the world is a feature, not a bug.

[Honest Tiefling]

I think you should do that for a short period of time (3/4 sessions)
and then kick them out of the organization.

Please, don't do this! Nothing irritates me more then DM fiat wrecking my plans. What if I had planned on staying, invested resources, schemed and schmoozed my way into the good graces of this organization? Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed if the only reason that it failed was that 'the DM was planning on it'.

Pick like 3-10 Races that exist. and use those to build countries/cities.

Another thing I disagree with. Without good reason, pure race countries can be boring and sometimes feel 'odd' or like the DM is shoving the race into the place. It could work, but it requires a bit of work to explain why these people are so xenophobic yet are quite willing to trade with each other with minimal violence. Mixed race countries can be quite interesting as well, and might explain the racial make up of the party better.

[Knaight]

If this is true, then I do not know how any campaign setting can fit your criteria of 'Player friendly.' Any NPC motivations, any actions that take place off-screen, can reasonably be described as metaplot and timeline advancements. If they NEVER work in the favor of the Players, then no campaign setting can model NPCs as other than cardboard cutouts.

That's not what those are generally used for though - it's more the existence of a hard timeline in a published setting, where the PCs are inserted somewhere in the middle and thus constrained by it. If you're in year 650, and in year 660 there's a notable event where Lord Whatshisface murders Lord Whosthisguy and takes over Somearea, then the PCs can't do anything to deter this. They can't cause Somearea to be taken over by anyone, they can't do anything to Lords Whatshisface or Whosthisguy that would remove them from the site of the murder (getting Whatshisface to be peaceful, driving either away, killing either, whatever), so on and so forth. The same thing applies with metaplots. If the setting is only defined in its starting conditions though, there's no real constraints like that.

Another example would be taking settings from other media. If you're playing a Star Wars game, there are a whole bunch of established characters who you don't get to interact with in certain ways. You can never kill Darth Vader, you can never save Obi Wan, etc. Obviously you could just ignore canon in either way, but the point is that the existence of a canon storyline severely constrains PC action. That is a completely different situation than NPCs having motivations and doing things off-screen.

[Yora]

I feel Star Wars is a bit of a special case in that the setting is still quite interesting beyond the plot of the main story. If you completely ignore the movies, there is still an interesting world to play in. In contrast, Middle-Earth exists only for the plot and there is not really anything else to explore or do beyond it.

The One Ring found a workaround by focusing on a part of the plot that was described only extremely briefly. You know in advance that Aragorn will become king of Gondor and Frodo will make it to Mount Doom and Sauron will be destroyed. You know in advance that the war in the North will be a victory for the free peoples and nothing the players can do will change that. But what the players can change is who will survive and what will be left of the region when the war is over.
It works, and it makes player actions meaningful. But the solution is still to keep the campaign entirely separated from the heroes of the book. And unlike Star Wars, there is really only this one thing you can do. Survive until the war is over. It's not a setting that offers anything else to do in it.

In a Star Wars game you don't have to play the Rebellion. There are many other good concepts for a campaign. But I think this is primarily because of the Expanded Universe that already expanded the world from the movies into other areas. (Somewhat ironically, as the Expanded Universe began with a Rebellion-focused RPG.) But I think the Star Wars movies also did some groundwork that you don't have with Lord of the Rings by putting many hints at a larger world that exists beyond the Rebellion story. There's Jabba's smuggling business, the bounty hunters, Lando's gas mine, and the former Jedi Knights who must have been fighting someone before the Empire, and it probably wasn't smugglers. The movies give only very little about that, but it's still clearly implied that there are many more factions who are concerned with their own interests that don't have anything to do with the Rebellion. You have to make it up yourself, but you can expand on something that is already there.

[Yora]

What is your view on the best way to handle potential adventure sites in campaign settings? I was rather unsatisfied with the way they were often handled in various Forgotten Realms books. For example, one dungeon is described as being guarded by a group of elves from the local communities who only let people in who have been given special permission by their leaders. That's interesting, but as a GM what would I do with that? Another location is described by only mentioning that there have been stories of large frog-creatures dancing around fires in the ruins. Or one of which the description only reveals that there is a room with multiple portals to other worlds somewhere deep down.

This is stuff that makes you curious, but as a GM it also seems useless. These are nice rumors to tell the players to get them interested, but as GM I am given almost nothing. Place descriptions of this type are interesting to read, but they don't really provide anything for the players to do.
In a campaign setting meant to be played in, I would wish for material that has practical use.

[Honest Tiefling]

Fine hooks, but no meat to them. A suggestion is that you lay out your hook and make it plenty vague. Rumors, legends, accounts from unreliable people, things going missing, etc. And then you give 1-3 possibilities of what it could be. If the DM wants to make their own thing, they will, but getting some inspiration from ideas is always good. And if you make it multiple options, the DM can play around with the idea and pick the one they think is most fun.

[Yora]

I think one thing that might work is to give half a page of discription for each adventure location that reads a bit like a concept draft for a location based adventure. Something that gives GMs a good idea how to turn that place into an adventure but leaving open the details such as floorplan and monster placement. Some kind of framework, like a coloring book. The basic idea is already there, but each GM will have to make up the details.
But this means that such a setting book would have to be written really for GMs only. If some of the players have read the description of a place before, it wouldn't be a huge problem as they still have no clue what they will find behind each door and corner. But such a book would be strictly a GM manual, not a general setting guidebook.

I could imagine something like the 3rd edition D&D books for Forgotten Realms and Eberron that describes all the places only in terms of common knowledge that would be easy to get for any PCs that are in that area. And in addition to that another small booklet with half-page blurbs with instructions for GMs how to create a dungeon with interesting descoveries for each place.