How to do a Free-Roaming DnD Game

[Conners]

One thing I've really wanted to do for some time is DM a game where the players decide what the adventure is. Where they go, what they do, what they can do.
Rather than: "You all start in a tavern, meet each other, then all decide to go on this quest that happens by," it's more like: "You start in area X, she starts in Y, and the dwarf is in Q--here's the map, decide where you want to go."

My notes so far on the project:

Spoiler

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1. Make a detailed or semi-detailed layout of the lands, countries, islands, continents, whatever you you want the players to be able to travel to.
2. You must also have a clear history of the world to avoid confusions as to the story.
3. Get several reliable co-DMs.
4. Pre-set-up several adventures, NPCs, towns, and NPC cohorts.
5. Randomly choose the positioning of each player (it's possible for two to be in the same place, though not so likely)--make sure not to place them in TOO risky an area.
6. Pray like heck it doesn't all scr*w up.

The PCs will travel a lot from place to place, none of them knowing the location of their fellows without special circumstance. The main way to find another PC is listen to rumours and gossip, collecting information about said PC till you eventually work out how to locate them. Another method is simply to go to a place everyone gathers/is-gathering--famous temples, ruins, war-campaigns, gold-rushes, that sort of thing.

Land itself will be vague to the players--they'll know town X is ten miles south because the people of their village Y told them that. However, they won't know that a horde of barbarians patrol around the 200 miles east one must travel to reach the empire of Z.

Due to the realistic set-up of the world, there will be a lot of quests the PCs hear of that they just can't accomplish. They start off at first level, but they still may hear about the demon lurking in the city sewers, which you intend to become a major villain at a higher level. Should they embark on too hard a mission, they'll have to swallow their pride and run like hell.

NPCs play a larger role in this "living" world. Players aren't the only ones who are special--heroic, adventurer NPCs will be doing quests, sometimes competing with PCs over them. Should PCs keep an ear to gossip, they may frequently hear about specific adventurer NPCs, or their deathes...

"Good" races, however, are not the only ones with gifted individuals. Goblin clans will have their fair-share of swift-bladed warriors and noiseless-assassins. Wiping out communities of most anything will become more tricky. Should a incredibly gifted person raise from any race, more spectacular events shall happen. Wars will be waged, artefacts will be sought, kingdoms will be ruled from the shadows...

The PCs are expected to team up with NPCs and NPC-cohorts frequently--since they are not in contact with other PCs to begin with, and soloing a mission can, sometimes, very well be classified as suicide.

I don't plan on doing this any time soon, but I thought I might as well start learning tips and tricks now. It'd be great if you more experienced players and DMs would give me advice on the matter.

My main worry is: Can I do this stuff with 4th edition...? I'm guessing "no", unless I borrow a lot from 3.5ed. Which comes to the problem of what goes, what stays, and what's changed/added homebrew-wise.

Other than that, I'm wondering how to randomly generate NPC-heroes for both "good" and "evil" races. There was a method for randomly generating a town/city/whatever -- as well as the different classes (and levels) of the NPCs in said place -- in 3.5ed that is a good basis.

Then I just need to work out a table for the success and failure (in a nutshell) for NPC adventurers, armies, Kings, etcetera, with all the events of the "living" world.

Please post advice you have about the project.

[Chronicled]

Read all of this man's notes on the subject: Ars Ludi.

Also, make sure your players are up for it/in the proper mindset. I tried to run a very free roaming game, and my players started looking around for a quest giver. I ended up having to write a plot of sorts, but made sure that there was still plenty of freedom in how to go about it.

[batsofchaos]

Why wouldn't you be able to run a 4ed game like this? Mechanically, it's no different from any other game; there's just a unique take on running quests.

Personally, I'd forgo the "players are on their own and don't really know eachother" hook, and just stick them together somewhere and let them do what they wish. The reason being, there'd be an awful lot of solo adventuring before the PCs work together (if they ever work together), which means that DM is on triple-duty for game-running, and the socialization aspect of gaming gets cut down significantly. I think it would be a planning, energy, and logistical nightmare to run a game like that for anything beyond a solo campaign.

The next consideration is the sheer amount of planning that would need to go into this. Since there are no guidelines for the PCs on what sort of things they want to do, you need to be prepared for any option. Being prepared doesn't necessarily mean you need detailed maps, planned encounters, statted NPCs, etc. for every single conceivable location, though. The best thing to do would be to build several files of "improvisation" materials. These materials are basically pre-fabricated information that can be quickly and easily inserted into multiple situations. Having about twenty or thirty "rooms" mapped can be used to build a quick-and-dirty dungeon. Pre-statted groups of encounters can be easily inserted anywhere you need an encounter. Some generic stats for NPCs of different types, plus a random list of names can lead to on-the-spot NPC generation. Having these tools in hand takes a lot of the time-consuming statting that goes into adventure planning out of the way.

Last thing I'd suggest is probably critically thinking about the scale. I'm actually planning a campaign very similar to this sort of idea, but I'm restricting the scope to a single city. Having a big, or even boundless scope can lead to so much pre-planning that the game stalls before getting off the ground. Games of this sort can be really rewarding, but they are very top-heavy. All that prep in the beginning can lead to DM burn-out far before dice hit the table.

[Tistur]

Hi,

I'm playing in a game sort of like this right now, with a homebrew ruleset based on 3e. We're playing it as a "character driven" story: one of us is under a curse and trying to find a cure, one is on the run and looking for revenge, etc. It's a lot of fun.

I would suggest that you decide clearly what your goal is: do you want a story driven by RP, or a story driven by chance ("I happened to be in a town that needed help with a little kobold problem..."), or a series of loosely connected adventures?

Are you planning on playing IRL? If so, are you planning on getting together as a group? (It doesn't sound like it...) If your players are friends, I'd suggest giving them the option of crafting a backstory together, so some of them at least begin knowing each other, if not together. (In the game I mentioned above, we tried very hard to avoid "You look trustworthy!" moments, and that took a lot of time.) Or have an organization whose members trust each other, and give them a chance to join. The Adventurers Guild, maybe, and to get in you have to prove yourself to X members, or save a member's life under dire circfumstances, or the like. This fits in with your many NPC adventurers.

To get at least tangentalyl back on topic, I would suggest giving the players maps showing at least the borders and capitial cities of some countries. For fun, I would probably skew the proportions of each map slightly differently, as they all got the maps from different mapmakers.

I'm not clear why you'd need co-DMs - for the many NPCs?

And I think it's very important to be able to accurately describe the level of threat each quest entails, if you're leaving it up to the players to decide which monsters they can take on. I'd have several in-character ways of doing this written up before hand.

[Keld Denar]

What you are proposing is a large sandbox style game similar in nature to the computer game like Morrowind or Oblivion. The PCs are free to come and go as they wish, take or leave adventure hooks, and generally explore EVERYTHING.

Unfortuantely, this has a couple problems.

A) Player motivation: Sometime the players will be daunted by how massive and open the world is, and have no clue how to get around to getting into trouble. People don't walk around with yellow ! over their heads in D&D.

B) Material: Sandbox games typically have whole teams of designers working to provide the amount of material they contain. To design every single NPC and every single tavern in every single town, not to mention major cities! is a daunting task for 1 person. Anything short of that can feel randomly generated or similarly hollow.

[Tsadrin]

One thing I've really wanted to do for some time is DM a game where the players decide what the adventure is. Where they go, what they do, what they can do.
Rather than: "You all start in a tavern, meet each other, then all decide to go on this quest that happens by," it's more like: "You start in area X, she starts in Y, and the dwarf is in Q--here's the map, decide where you want to go."

This is the very core essence of 'old-school' D&D as a lot of people played it. Read through any of the many articles about how Arneson and Gygax ran their games.

Make a detailed or semi-detailed layout of the lands, countries, islands, continents, whatever you you want the players to be able to travel to.

You don't need a huge area to start with. The first level or two of the nearest mega-dungeon. Some local maps and some notes about the local villages and perhaps one large city in the vicinity. The players will be unable to really travel far at low levels for the most part, and as they level they'll usually provide ample warning for doing anything outside the primary play area.

[*]You must also have a clear history of the world to avoid confusions as to the story.

Again, no need to go overboard. You'll burn yourself out. A local history is good enough to get started. When players find need for more information you can work on it.

[*]Get several reliable co-DMs.

A 1:20 ratio is good. If you're running a sandbox game you shouldn't have much trouble with two or three groups of 4-6 each along with the random individual. Just keep good notes.

[*]Pre-set-up several adventures, NPCs, towns, and NPC cohorts.

Stick with a few pre-rolled henchmen and major NPCs (local guard captains and the like. People the players will interact with on a regular basis. There's no real need to stat out the King or his mistress if the players aren't going to meet them.

[*]Randomly choose the positioning of each player (it's possible for two to be in the same place, though not so likely)--make sure not to place them in TOO risky an area.

Players will hire henchmen and advertise in guildhalls and taverns for fellow adventurers to help explore. Let them use these tools to organize. A large town or small city is the perfect place to base the PCs out of in the beginning.

[*]Pray like heck it doesn't all scr*w up.

Keep good notes and maintain an accurate calendar. Those two things will keep everything in line.

The PCs will travel a lot from place to place, none of them knowing the location of their fellows without special circumstance. The main way to find another PC is listen to rumours and gossip, collecting information about said PC till you eventually work out how to locate them. Another method is simply to go to a place everyone gathers/is-gathering--famous temples, ruins, war-campaigns, gold-rushes, that sort of thing.

Land itself will be vague to the players--they'll know town X is ten miles south because the people of their village Y told them that. However, they won't know that a horde of barbarians patrol around the 200 miles east one must travel to reach the empire of Z.

At lower levels there shouldn't be a lot of wilderness travel unless you, as a GM, don't populate your world with random encounters. Most wilderness encounters are large, aggressive, and usually deadly to lone adventurers and small parties. (This is why caravans exist. To move goods and people in safety through large numbers.)

Due to the realistic set-up of the world, there will be a lot of quests the PCs hear of that they just can't accomplish. They start off at first level, but they still may hear about the demon lurking in the city sewers, which you intend to become a major villain at a higher level. Should they embark on too hard a mission, they'll have to swallow their pride and run like hell.

Very true. This will be the biggest 'shock' to players used to AD&D 2nd and D&D 3.x. Sometimes a character just stumbles into the wrong level of a dungeon or bites off more than he can chew.

NPCs play a larger role in this "living" world. Players aren't the only ones who are special--heroic, adventurer NPCs will be doing quests, sometimes competing with PCs over them. Should PCs keep an ear to gossip, they may frequently hear about specific adventurer NPCs, or their deathes...

"Good" races, however, are not the only ones with gifted individuals. Goblin clans will have their fair-share of swift-bladed warriors and noiseless-assassins. Wiping out communities of most anything will become more tricky. Should a incredibly gifted person raise from any race, more spectacular events shall happen. Wars will be waged, artefacts will be sought, kingdoms will be ruled from the shadows...

I tend to keep this restricted though. The players are the heroes. The world is not completely static, but it usually isn't until players start making waves that the world really grows.

The PCs are expected to team up with NPCs and NPC-cohorts frequently--since they are not in contact with other PCs to begin with, and soloing a mission can, sometimes, very well be classified as suicide.

The use of henchmen and men-at-arms is vital to this type of play. But as I mentioned earlier using advertising and word of mouth as tools players shouldn't find it hard to discover one another in a town or small city.

I don't plan on doing this any time soon, but I thought I might as well start learning tips and tricks now. It'd be great if you more experienced players and DMs would give me advice on the matter.

I run all of my fantasy games in this way. I hope I've given some insight. If you have any further questions I'd be happy to answer what I can.

My main worry is: Can I do this stuff with 4th edition...? I'm guessing "no", unless I borrow a lot from 3.5ed. Which comes to the problem of what goes, what stays, and what's changed/added homebrew-wise.

I found this style of play VERY difficult to run using 3.x. The combats took too long and simple encounters were anything but. Most of your game time using this style of play usually involves a lot of planning and exploring. If a random encounter takes two hours to play through you've wasted a lot of time that could have been used for something else, especially if the group of PCs are not together. In D&D 4th I see combat running faster and as long as you ignore set encounter restrictions and just let the players encounter what you've put in the area it should work well enough.

Other than that, I'm wondering how to randomly generate NPC-heroes for both "good" and "evil" races. There was a method for randomly generating a town/city/whatever -- as well as the different classes (and levels) of the NPCs in said place -- in 3.5ed that is a good basis.

Then I just need to work out a table for the success and failure (in a nutshell) for NPC adventurers, armies, Kings, etcetera, with all the events of the "living" world.

Random generation works well for random NPCs, but anyone the PCs are going to interact with should be built with purpose in mind. As for random events, if you're truly desperate for something on that scale I'd recommend finding an old copy of Mechwarrior (the 1st edition). There is a great random events table in that book. (Once per game month there is an event from the minor to world shattering.)

Please post advice you have about the project.

Enjoy!

[ColonelFuster]

Goal. Goal, goal, goal, goal, goal, goal. Make it so that your players all have a similar goal, like "defeat Demon Lord X" and you should be able to nudge them into one another.

Example: Dwarfie the fighter starts out in the kingdom of Placezhul. He starts out as just a soldier- his first (solo) adventure is traveling with a small company to clear out a dungeon. For one reason or another, an avatar of Orcus shows up at the end and kills the rest of his teammates, sparing him so that he can spread fear to the rest of the kingdom. His kingdom kicks him out after that for one reason or another (they think he's been tainted, they think he's crazy, they think he killed his commander for political gain, or all of the above). After that, you can give Dwarfie the world-map and start dropping rumors about the Chalice Knights with anyone he asks about evil outsiders.

Example 2: Elfie the magic-user is an apprentice under his father/father figure. After a good deal of roleplaying (solo adventuring with a wizard is scary scary OMG I ONLY HAVE 0 HP LEFT AAAAAAAHHHHH A HOUSECAT!), the elder wizard reveals what his grand spell is- and it turns out destroying his body and soul, leaving only a symbol in the ground. Elfie is then given free range of the world to discover what happened. It just so happens that that symbol represents a combination of Undead and Demon....

Example 3: Bob the Druid is raised on tales of Orcus, the Demon prince. When his elders ask Nature about his movements, Nature reports that he will rise to godhood unless defeated within ten years. The rest of his clan sighs and shakes their heads at the hopeless cause, but Bob is prodded into warning the world about it or something. Given the map, ready to charge and rip faces off.

Example 4: Doc the rogue is a small-time theif who steals from the wrong guy- a palace official. now that they have him, they're forcing him to travel with a group of paladins as their scout. They can't stop talking about how much they look forward to going to the Chalice Academy, a building where every hall has a statue made of pure gold, and every wall is decorated with platinum artwork, and blah blah blah you should steal that stuff blah blah blah. When he invariably gives them the slip, he gets the world map and is free to go wherever he wants.

It works alot better if your players are freinds, because they will naturally want to meet up and work together towards their goal. But that goal will be the driving force in the campaign, and should be the central point to every adventure. With luck, they might even acheive it :)

The Colonel

[Dan_Hemmens]

I'm a bit confused about what you're trying to achieve here.

Why are you planning on having the PCs starting off in random locations? Are they supposed to know each other? Or are you writing that off as unrealistic as well?

If you go ahead with this, you'll have to be very, very careful to avoid getting totally bogged down in world admin.

[Vortling]

There's no reason why this should be any harder in 3.x, 4e, or any other system that supports the style of fantasy gaming you want.

My only suggestion is to have the players not only start together but have them build characters that are going to work together. Otherwise you'll be tearing your hair out on a regular basis and better off having each of them play their own little session until they meet up.

[Tsadrin]

Goal. Goal, goal, goal, goal, goal, goal. Make it so that your players all have a similar goal, like "defeat Demon Lord X" and you should be able to nudge them into one another.

I strongly disagree with this as a starting point. At later levels, after players have explored the area on their own and perhaps worked together there should be some common goals the characters may share.

At level 1 though the best the players should look for is safety in companionship. Exploring the local ruins or investigating a strange event are good hooks to get players together, but common 'goals' and BBEGs are the stuff of railroads. In a sandbox game the GM is NOT a storyteller. As a DM your goal is to be a referee and rules arbitrator that judges PC actions and NPC actions in a neutral manner.

A DM may drop all the rumors and plot hooks they want, but if the players want to ignore them and do something completely different then that's their right. This is however a different style of play than most players are used to, especially if they started role-playing in the late 80's or early 90's.

[erikun]

Hmm, sounds like a really interesting idea. Thank you Chronicled for the link, although I don't think that's quite what Conners was going for. A couple of things I'd like to point out.

First, either 4e or 3.5e should work just fine. For what you're planning, I don't see anything that one system does poorly that the other might do any better, really.

One of the biggest problems is that classes aren't meant to go solo. Wizards need a meatshield, fighters need a healer, rogues need someone to get enemies off their back... this means that, at the beginning of the game, your PC are either working my themselves with 3-4 NPCs or are just not going on adventures.

The first problem is that it kills the social aspect - it's just the player and the DM, with most of the fighting going on between allied and enemy NPCs. Either the player gets to run the allied NPCs (thus reducing them to basically minions) or the player sits back in most fights while the NPCs wail on each other.

The second is that, after 8 levels in the same group, what reason would the PCs have for ditching their current groups and working together? It make no sense in character, and very little sense OOC.

Well, those are the biggest stumbling blocks I can see at the moment. Good luck with the planning, though!

[Tough_Tonka]

well heres a few suggestions to help keep things in this type of campaign interesting.

1. Avoid making the campaign completely reactionary. Often the Heroes will be looking for trouble, but sometimes trouble goes looking for the PCs. If you keep a calender you might schedule some invasion and natural disasters from time to time and you might want to generate some interesting crises that occur while the heroes are in town (for exmaple the PC might stuble upon a corpse in the middle of a dark street).

These events don't have to level appropriate (lv 2 PC might have to deal with an invasion of ogres for example), but there should be something the heroes can do in these situations (in the previous example the PC could try to help the community flee from the area).

As the PCs gain fame and fortune they might also be pulled into the politics of the setting if they have managed to avoid them thus far. Relative might be kidnapped, ambitious thieves might try there luck with the PC's fortunes. Paranoid men of power might try to have the PCs put out before they pose to much of a threat. Opposing organization or kingdoms might bid for the PCs favor.

2. Make sure to have a good number of Shiny Red Balloons (I came up with the name myself). Shiny Red Balloons are usually low to mid level NPCs that like just begging to get into conflict with the PCs. Examples include anti-vigilantly guards, boastful tavern brawlers, pompous nobles and the like.

As there name suggest they break as easily as balloons, but the real adventure consist of the sudden explosion following the rip. For example said tavern brawler might be a favored mook for the city's most ruthless and vengeful crime lords or the guard might use his connections to falsely accuse the heroes of various misdeeds.

[sikyon]

Honestly I suggest using a premade campaign setting for this, and allowing the players to free roam. Random encounter tables outside of cities are good, as are random event generators. Ie. (name1) (verb) (name2) with (noun) and randomly generate it. Like Bob pilfers Johanas with custard. It can make for hillarious ad lib campaigns.

[Yahzi]

Read all of this man's notes on the subject: Ars Ludi.

as the great MUD Nexus teaches us, danger unites. PCs have to work together or they are going to get creamed. They also have to think and pick their battles — since they can go anywhere, there is nothing stopping them from strolling into areas that will wipe them out.

Totally. Awesome.

This is my philosophy exactly!

No such thing in West Marches: I rolled all dice in the open, not behind the screen. If the dice said you sucked a critical, a critical you did suck.

Did this lead to looming specter of sudden death? Yes, but having strong and fairly unyielding consequences combined with a consistent, logical environment meant the players really could make intelligent decisions that determined their fate — they really did hold their own lives in their hands.

I love this guy!

[Tsotha-lanti]

It's feasible, but note that splitting the party is always the last thing you want to do; everyone else will get bored while one person is acting. It's inevitable. "Don't split" is the big rule of GMing.

I don't think there's any system where this would work better or worse; in any game, this kind of campaign requires a lot of preparation. You have to map-n-stat all the areas available to the PCs, and keep map-n-statting any area they plan to head into in more detail. This is why you want to end every session with "What and where do you want to do next time?"

[Swordguy]

I run pretty much ALL my games like this. There's 2 ways to do it. One is what people are talking about: premake everything. I've done that - I got to sit in a bed at the MACH hospital at Fort Jackson for 6 months, with no TV, and so had the time to do that. If you don't have that sort of time, there's the second way to do so.

Improvise pretty much everything. All you need to start is the name and general idea of the town you're starting in, and literally improvise from there, picking up on your players cues ("You said this city had an extensive and ancient sewer system. I wonder if there's anything down there?" GM: "Why yes, actually, there's been a serious issue lately with huge plague-ridden rats boiling up from the sewer every few months. They seem to get nastier with each infestation.").

The second method is probably the most permissive...but you've gotta be REALLY fast on your feet or the sessions bog down. Plus it can be pretty stressful. And somebody who's just there to kill stuff will kill your game real quick. But it's a hellacious amount of fun when you and your players are snapping ideas and stuff back and forth to each other. If RPing is cooperative storytelling, then this is that art form at its zenith.

[Conners]

If I quote-reply all of you I'll probably get banned for breaking the server, so I'll just give more general replies.

@Chronicled: I'll start reading it as soon as I reply to everyone, thanks.
I'll make sure to tell the party all the things they aren't used to they should know: It isn't a train-track quest they have to find their own things to do, all players start in separate positions, if they take on too tough a quest they'll get fried or will HAVE to run, and that they need to hire NPCs a lot.


@batsofchaos: Meh, just not use to the system yet and it seems to have less rules on randomly generating towns, etcetera.

That's why I have co-DMs (one for each group of PCs, preferably) and pre-set-up adventures and NPCs. So that one thing doesn't go wrong and then everything else falls apart while I'm fixing that .

I didn't mean "work out what every area of the map will be like". I meant that if I need an adventure for the PCs who are bored, but I'm too sick to think up anything, I'll have a pre-set adventure I can give them while I recover. So, yeah, I meant basically what you're suggesting I do--sorry for not explaining properly.

Which is why I need the things I listed all set up. I won't have time to make up the history of the town of X, and I may very well forget it when a different PC comes to it.


@Tistur: Yo.

Why wasn't I invited to it ...

Mostly RP, a bit of luck (the player comes to a town but fnds another band of adventurers have seized the quest--they could try and take the quest from them, or try to join them, or leave, etcetera), and an amount of realism. The world lives, sort of like Fable, it keeps on going and changing.

Nope, on this message board.

If I draw a map, I'm only drawing one--but more likely I'll just describe what the map entails, so I can probably do that. They all get maps of the country, continent, whichever. Medieval maps, however, are pretty vague, especially when showing a whole continent, so they'll need to find more detailed maps of the local areas to have much ease traveling.

Since I plan to split up the PCs, I'd prefer to have at least one CO-DM per PC.

Good idea. The only problem is how to describe the threat level without outright statistics or knowledge that the farmer/whatever wouldn't have.


@lussmanj: Yeah, I guess it is pretty similar. That seems to sum it up rather well.

A) That has been worrying me also. Hmm... perhaps I can have an Adventurers' Guild in all towns and cities. It would basically keep track of quests than give it out to adventurers of a suitable skill. In small communities, the adventurers' guild will merely be the local tavern where a guild representative lodges until his services are needed.

B) I didn't mean I was going to design every NPC, not even every town or city. I mean I will have a lot of pre-made towns and NPCs I can use wherever I need them (in one game they might appear in farmland X, while in another they might appear in city Z).


@Tsadrin: They did that in the first editions? Neat, I never knew about that.

Well, the point of the game is to be a massive area the PCs can change and explore, as in a whole country or continent.

This is actually quite necessary. That way, my CO-DM won't tell his PC that forest X is good, when I originally intended it to be the breeding-ground of evil druids' experiments.

Hmm... well, I was planning on all PCs starting out as individuals besides the rare group in the same place. On the other hand, perhaps I could start them out more group-ish with individuals being a bit less common.

Yeah, that's basically what I meant . Along with quest-NPCs I can just place wherever I want at whichever time.

That's exactly what I was planning .

Heh, even that isn't a definite guarantee of organization, but it'll certainly help. Thanks.

When I was practicing the set-up with my sister, that's exactly how I did it. Her first task was to find a caravan so she could travel safely out of the town.

Which is why I'll have to put that tidbit in capital letters and bolding, on size 5 font, to get it through to them before the game starts .

Yep, I'll make sure there are a very select few who reach level 12 and beyond (I would normally make it a smaller level, but 4th edition has drow soldiers as 12th....). So one they get into 10 and above, they'll be among the most renown adventurers of the land.

Spot on.

Thanks Tsadrin . There is actually something I was wanting to ask someone... You see, my game will take place in the earlier DnD world, one of the great empires of the "past" is still around, and there are less ruins about (though still plenty enough). The reason for this is I want the PCs to really change the world later on.
Build their castles. Form orders of knights, wizards, thieves, whichever. Create fabulous items of great power which they can use to conquer, or that they will fear and seal away. Support the real heir to a throne and help him to regain his kingdom. Become a King or Queen themselves and try to rank up to Emperor or Empress.
So, what I was wondering, is how should I work out how to do things like this? There was a source book for 3.x about building strongholds, but I don't think 4e has any rules on that.

I didn't mean the combat -- it is superbly better in some ways in 4e -- I meant things like skills, rules for NPC building, etcetera.

Thanks, I'll look it up.

I will !


@ColonelFuster: Goals will have to be their own, due to the set-up I want. Sure, they all might hear there's a goldrush, or a war, at this one place, and it'll be a good chance to gather, but they can all-out ignore it if they so choose.

[Have nothing to reply about the good examples since they unfortunately don't suit the type of game I had in mind.]

Players can decide to RP siblings, cousins, friends, lovers, whichever, and I will in turn make it easier for them to find each other or even have them automatically start in the same place.

I will take your advice and give them a driving goal every so often. Thanks Colonel!


@Dan_Hemmens: This is why I'm asking for more experienced DMs' help and advice, so that it doesn't all go horribly wrong then explode .


@Vortling: I was thinking about things like castle building rules which are only in 3.x and that sort of thing .

I might have some of them start in small groups... I'll certainly have to think a lot on this if I have them start on their own.


@Tsadrin: My sentiments exactly. You seem pretty good at this type of game .


@erikun: I didn't get to read the link since I had to rush off to work, so I wouldn't know.

4e combat is simpler and generally better, but I don't think it has rules for castle building and such which 3.x supplements did have.

I know this, which is why PCs will HAVE to recruit NPCs to stand any chance on their own, generally.

If the PC just watches while their hired-blades take all the blows and almost die, s/he'll find his/herself deserted before long (if not murdered). NPCs are properly "living", so the players will have to treat them as such. The PCs should reach another one of their kind (if they didn't start out with one) reasonably soon, anyway.

Their NPCs may ditch them, remember . You do have a point with this, but players should find each other well before then--if not, they probably weren't trying very hard and would be happier with their NPC minions.

Thanks, I hope I can avoid them XD!


@Tough_Tonka: 1. I was actually wondering how to roll for that kind of thing. "Roll an X sided dice to see if the countries of Y and Z go to war" sort of thing. I'll make sure to have plenty of events, though .

Brilliant advice, I was thinking about something similar at points (the caravan the 1st level PC is travelling in is waylaid by gnoll raiders--they have little chance of victory and have to run.

Having their growing fame make a large effect on the world around them is a VERY important part of making the world feel real. The townspeople of X might ignore the player compl;etely, but when they come back two IC years later, everyone will say, "Look, it's Y who killed the Z of L!" Crowds will gather around the PC(s), people will offer them free stuff or places to sleep, some will ask to be taken on as apprentices. It will be fun at first, but will start to get annoying after several towns XD. Since the players themselves are external from the actual events, however, they'll likely find it very entertaining.

2. Yep, that's what I meant by pre-made NPCs, everything from goblin chieftains to corrupt captains of the guard.

Hmm... you just gave me an interesting idea. Thanks muchly for everything .


@sikyon: Pre-made settings are tempting, but the real thing I like about DnD is using my creativity to make great games. Thanks for the advice, though .


@:


@Yahzi: That's from the article? I better read it, it sounds good.


@Tsotha-lanti: That's why I need co-DMs, so that everyone can do stuff at once.

I was mostly thinking about castle-building rules and such... but it'll probably work out fine with 4e. I'm doing it on the forums, mind you, so I won't be having "sessions" as such .


@Swordguy: 6 months? Yikes ! Glad to see you're OK now.
This system would be good if I had a lot of spare time, but I unfortunately don't .

Note: I'm doing this on the forums, so I got plenty of time to think. This is what I was planning . I good idea of the history of the world in general, but details left for the moment itself.

Heh, I'll have to try out this DnDI thing and see what playing DnD online is like .


You guys have all given me some great advice. Thanks ! You've also brought several questions to my attention:


Rules for events of the world
The army of X is fighting the army of Y, who wins?

For this I'm thinking a d100 with the following modifiers: +2 if the event is slightly favourable, +5 if the event is favourable, +10 if the event has a decent chance of succeeding, +15 if the even has a good chance of succeeding, +20 if the event is very likely to succeed, +30 if the event has little chance of not succeeding.
Negative modifiers are go in the same order: -2, -5, -10, -15, -20, -30. The modifiers are given under the opposite circumstances.

A natural 100 means UTTER success: The army takes practically no losses and becomes famous for its victory--instilling DEEP fear into the other armies of that nation, and great respect from other military forces.
The diplomat not only secures peace with the savage empire but gains favour from them, granting his country with an almost unstoppable guardian, who is glad to share some of their bountiful treasure.
Not only do the NPC adventuring party defeat the orc tribe, but the orcs have mistaken the party's skill in battle to be godly and all orcs pay great respect and tribute to the party (who will likely gain command of the orc tribe they conquered).

A natural 1 is basically the same thing as saying, "Rocks fall and everyone involved dies" since rolling a 1 and not dying barely ever go together on these d100 rolls: Your army is utterly crushed by the clever general, barely anyone survives--your foolish defeat inspires several of your nation's enemies to declare open war, and several allies to relinquish some or all of their support to your war-cause and you are likely executed for the treasonous blunder.
Saying completely the wrong things, you offend the emperor more than he has even been in his whole life and so he captures you and sends you to be tortured as long as you live--seeking your family and friends he destroys your nation utterly with great atrocities and acts of barbarism.
The orcs expected you, and they're stupid orcs--they capture some or all of you alive, and decide to make your lives into a semi-hell by turning you into their most badly-treated of slaves.

Now... the numbers for success and failure:

100 and above: Magnificently superb success.
80 - 99: Brilliant success.
70 - 79: Success.
60 - 69: Mild success
50 - 59: No better, no worse.
40 - 49: Mild Failure.
30 - 39: Failure.
2 - 29: Great failure.
1 or less: Devastating failure...

This sound about right?


Castle Building: How should I do it....?


Fame and Infamy

As PCs get more famous or infamous, people will react different to them. If they're a stealthy assassin who is never caught, then they will have mostly unchanged renown, except when their identity is known. [More later]


So, anything to comment on these new additions?

[Dan_Hemmens]

Sorry to reiterate this, but I still don't understand this whole "PCs don't start off in the same location" thing. What do you hope to gain by it? Why is it helpful? What is the advantage of this policy?

[Conners]

Sorry to reiterate this, but I still don't understand this whole "PCs don't start off in the same location" thing. What do you hope to gain by it? Why is it helpful? What is the advantage of this policy?

Well, 1) for realism, and 2) To be interesting. I like the idea of the PCs having to stand on their own two feet for a while and have to find others if they wish to advance well in the world.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Well, 1) for realism, and 2) To be interesting. I like the idea of the PCs having to stand on their own two feet for a while and have to find others if they wish to advance well in the world.

Okay, but how is it realistic? You're going to wind up with a situation in which a bunch of complete strangers living on different sides of a continent mysteriously decide to seek each other out and team up to fight evil.

It gets even worse if there's NPC adventurers out there. If you're assuming that "adventuring parties" exist, and that people meet each other and form them, then what's going to wind up happening if people are being realistic instead of metagaming their asses off to get the party together, is that everybody is going to team up with a bunch of NPCs.

The odds of five complete strangers meeting and forming an adventuring party are so astronomically small that it's never going to happen if you try and run things "realistically".

Of course "realistically" 99% of PCs should be farmers and commoners anyway...

[Dhavaer]

One good piece of advice I've heard for games like this is to have a list of power groups in the area and their goals, and have the adventure's events come from the pursuit of these goals reforming around the arrival of the PCs (e.g. the city watch, who want to wipe out a particuarly troublesome street gang, keep a close eye on the PCs to see if they could be allies or are enemies; the merchant's guild want the PCs to drive away the bandits who are setting ambushes along the road to the north, as much to keep them from causing trouble in the town as to be rid of the bandits; the demon behind the scenes at the creepy orphanage gets more and more nervous the longer the PCs are around, thinking they are hunting it down, and sends out assassins).

[Tsotha-lanti]

Okay, but how is it realistic? You're going to wind up with a situation in which a bunch of complete strangers living on different sides of a continent mysteriously decide to seek each other out and team up to fight evil.

It gets even worse if there's NPC adventurers out there. If you're assuming that "adventuring parties" exist, and that people meet each other and form them, then what's going to wind up happening if people are being realistic instead of metagaming their asses off to get the party together, is that everybody is going to team up with a bunch of NPCs.

The odds of five complete strangers meeting and forming an adventuring party are so astronomically small that it's never going to happen if you try and run things "realistically".

Of course "realistically" 99% of PCs should be farmers and commoners anyway...

This. You can only bring complete strangers together by clever plotting (see all the books in William Gibson's Sprawl and Bridge trilogies for great examples of how storylines that start nowhere near each other come together), and that's obviously the very opposite of the point of this campaign.

[Dan_Hemmens]

I was mostly thinking about castle-building rules and such... but it'll probably work out fine with 4e. I'm doing it on the forums, mind you, so I won't be having "sessions" as such .

Ah, this makes a lot more sense.

What you're basically trying to do, then, is to create an MMO? A world that a bunch of individuals can wander around on their own and have adventures?

I'm not sure *any* version of D&D is the best way to do this (I don't think tabletop mechanics make sense for something in the online format).

[nagora]

It's all about NPCs and "dungeons". Make a list of important NPCs: leaders or wizards or other adventurers, and what they're doing. Some will be pottering about doing adventuring things, some will be trying to gain power at any level from villages up to kingdoms or the entire world.

These guys are the "movers and shakers" and any of them can be monsters.

Then place a few old towers, ruined castles, abandoned graveyards. These can form powerbases/beachheads for some of the more "outsider" groups like orcs, bandits, necromancers etc.

Then some particularly secure areas where normal life continues and which can provide some solid social base for the PC's actions. These will probably form a core area and the further from that the PCs go the more likely it is that they'll run into the threats that society faces as well as almost purely random monsters like trolls or owlbears which would be hunted down quickly in places where law and order are strong.

In addition to providing a base of operations, the towns and citys will be the seats of many of the more powerful non-monster NPCs, good and evil.

Throw in at least one major story arc which threatens the status quo. Decide what the major NPCs are doing about it.

That's it all wound up: now start it off with the intro scenario. You will want some reason why the PCs are together eventually. Perhaps they're all related. Perhaps they're all attending the same university. Perhaps they live in the same city and something local brings them together (a murder, a fire, a siege, a car boot sale!). Perhaps they're all slaves on the same estate. Having them playing separately and then brought together by an event is logistically difficult but I've seen it done.

The background you've developed will give them a source of rumours if they're looking for trouble, and the major arc(s) will give you a logical reason to push stuff at them from time to time if they're too passive.

The main idea is that all these NPCs and monsters have goals and are looking to achieve them. The PCs are there in the middle of all that and can choose sides, not choose sides, play them off against each other, ignore them all and do something else, or whatever. The world is dynamic and changing whether the PCs like it or not. If they don't like it, then what are they going to do about it? If they do like it, are they going to help? Once they get some levels under their belts they will draw attention from people who want to use them as allies or pawns in the games you set up earlier. Change implies reactions implies new actions implies change etc.

Make a framework, then detail things that you think are likely to be used soon. But, if the PCs wander off somewhere else the framework should let you wing it for a while until you detail where they have gone.

Just run the NPCs as if they were your own characters and you can keep this up for years (in 1e anyway, in later editions you might have problems with the players advancing in level too quickly).

1e was designed with this style of play in mind, so ignore those who say it can't be done - many people have done it, including myself and two others in my current group and I know of two people up the road in Belfast who are currently running such games.

[Talya]

It's easier to do a game like this in a setting that's already very developed. The more detail, the better. If every little town over 100 people is already mapped, there's a hundred already well developed iconic NPCs, etc. (Read, Faerun.)

With homebrews or less developed settings, not only does the DM have to do more work in creating an entire world in great detail, but the players don't know where they want to go because they don't know anything about the world.

[playswithfire]

I've been trying to think of a way to do this programmatically.
Given a region and a list of nation states with their origins and relative power, generate a map of influence which would determine the position of various cities.
The makeup of the cities would be determined by the 'personality' of the nation state and its geographic position e.g. a city on the ocean would have a port and a larger market place than a city near a mountain which would have more items made from whatever they're mining

Etc, etc. It gets sticky when you try to define the politics of the situation and have that probabilistically determine what quests and other opportunities would be available where, particularly if you want the PCs actions to influence their reception in the various town.

With less computing and more people, I'd probably want one co-DM per major power in the game world, to simulate high level diplomatic negotiations the PCs would have no direct knowledge of etc.

[DeathQuaker]

Also, make sure your players are up for it/in the proper mindset. I tried to run a very free roaming game, and my players started looking around for a quest giver. I ended up having to write a plot of sorts, but made sure that there was still plenty of freedom in how to go about it.

Word. If you have players that tend to break the plot anyway and run with what they want to do, perfect. But not all players are like that.

My luck tends to be is if I expect the players to be adventurous and just go seek out stuff on their own, they'll sit around and stare at me going, "So, um, where's the dungeon with the goblins and the traps already?" If I have an elaborate plot that I'm really excited about playing through, the players will ignore it completely and decide to go to the city next door and fight trolls for fun, and I find myself frantically looking up troll stats.

That said, all the advice about being detailed w/ your world is dead on and it looks like you have a good start to your project. What I'd do (and I'm probably repeating people) is make sure you have a few loosely developed "plots" going on in the background--political power A is fighting with political power B, Wizard Steve has created a horrible monster in his lab, etc. The players don't have to seek these out but they'll exist so they may hear rumors of them and find stuff to do that way, and still feel empowered because they found the thread THEY liked and went with it, rather than be forcibly railroaded down a particular line.

[Conners]

@Dan_Hemmens: 1) I'll make sure that if two PCs come to the same place there is an actual reason for them to talk. 2) Preferably, however, I'd like the PCs to work out a plausible reason. They're related, old friends, or he's a flirty bard and sees the charismatic elf sorceress. That sort of thing.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The PCs are meant to join up with NPC adventurers a lot in order to do anything with a chance of success. Therefore, it isn't unusual to go up to the tough-looking PC half-orc and say, "Hey, I need help with saving Y whose kidnapped. I'll split the reward 50-50 with you if you can be helpful," because you already say that a lot to NPCs. I hope my players can be a bit more creative, though.

That seem OK?


@Dhavaer: That's a good idea, thanks.


@Tsotha-lanti: I can always lure PCs to each other, even if they aren't forced to by a rail-road-plot (they hear that a tournament will take place and all warriors are invited, sort of thing).


@Dan_Hemmens: Not exactly an MMO, since there will be 12 players tops. It's a DnD game that allows players to do what they like in a world that changes by their actions.


@nagora: It'll take me a while to digest all this in my mind .


@Talya: .... You do have a very valid point. The problem is, I'm a writer, and part of the reason I like to play DnD is to improve my writing skill. I've already been developing the setting for quite a while, though, so it might be OK... I hope.


@playswithfire: Oh yes, I have to keep track of the environment to define nearby towns, thanks for the reminder!
Well, I was already planning to have one co-DM per player group, so it should be fine.


@DeathQuaker: *Nods* there have been a lot of awkward pauses in DnD games I've played in that ruined everything...

.... Are the players in question the same guys O_O?

Thanks very much . I'll make sure to have some background plots the players will deal with, the most obvious one being the ever-expanding Empire.

[Dan_Hemmens]

@Dan_Hemmens: 1) I'll make sure that if two PCs come to the same place there is an actual reason for them to talk. 2) Preferably, however, I'd like the PCs to work out a plausible reason. They're related, old friends, or he's a flirty bard and sees the charismatic elf sorceress. That sort of thing.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The PCs are meant to join up with NPC adventurers a lot in order to do anything with a chance of success. Therefore, it isn't unusual to go up to the tough-looking PC half-orc and say, "Hey, I need help with saving Y whose kidnapped. I'll split the reward 50-50 with you if you can be helpful," because you already say that a lot to NPCs. I hope my players can be a bit more creative, though.

That seem OK?

Seems fine. I think it's be insane for a tabletop, because everybody is sitting around together, but for a forum game it should work fine.

@Dan_Hemmens: Not exactly an MMO, since there will be 12 players tops. It's a DnD game that allows players to do what they like in a world that changes by their actions.

That makes sense. Given that, I actually think your initial assessment was right, 4E would suck for the project (you can't run 4E combat over a forum). I'd seriously consider coming up with a homebrew, diceless system if you can be bothered.

[nagora]

@nagora: It'll take me a while to digest all this in my mind .

When starting out imagine you're zooming in on the world using GoogleOerth: you start with the big view and just the most broadly important stuff (continents, large countries, ancient history of migration patterns), then you zoom in onto a particular continent and fill out all the countries, large and small but only in terms of their shape and capital cities and major wars, which races are dominant in each.

Pick a country and zoom in a bit more: fill in the other large towns and cities; put in major roads and rivers, outline the important historical leaders, civil wars etc. for a century or two, set up a few legends.

Pick a town a bit further out than most and zoom in on it: who's in charge of the town; what's the racial mix; why is it where it is; what's nearby; where does it fit into the history. Who there can the PCs turn to for help or aid if they seek it?

Pick a village near the town: map it out with the surrounding area. Are there any leveled characters here? If the PCs are from here then how did they get started on their adventuring? List every adult who has a trade; list other possibly interesting characters. Is there anything nearby which might draw unwanted attention to the area - an overgrown temple of elemental evil or perhaps a tomb full of horrors? Maybe a hill giant chief has a steading nearby and someone or something is stirring up trouble? Maybe the local kobold tribe just fancy a raid - or maybe they're in trouble with the orcs and are desparate for food and other resources, perhaps they would accept aid themselves. The world is literally yours to fill.

If you have developed NPCs then the PC's actions will inform your decisions as to what those NPCs will do in response to the PCs and then the campaign almost writes itself.

The more detail you add, the smaller an area you'll need to cover, normally. Bite-sized pieces eat the whole cake in the end