Pailin

After running Pangea with group-b (thanks guys, playing with you for the last 3 years has been an abosolute blast!) I identified some issues with my world:  

1. As the DM, I was the arbiter of all information.

This meant that players could never really share their own imagination into the world. The DM would always be forced to have information on hand, make stuff up, prepare it, etc. Even basic knowledge about the game was excluded and filtered. Players were always lacking in this information could only really gather it through sparse exposition.    

2. All problems in the world were set pieces made for the PCs to interact with

At higher levels (read: 7 and up) this could be anything from province threatening to world ending. Players have a tendency to shift focus, PCs can die and information can stay hidden. While players continue on their adventures, these set pieces would remain active in the background. Without any player's input these set pieces would be terrorizing the world. This also created combinations of red herrings, dead ends, false positive conclusions, etc.  

3. Players are locked into a character

Characters have to be swiss army knives, since the players never know what's around any corner. This can make some characters feel gimpy during situations they could not have prepared for. At the same time, characters acquire more and more power as the game goes on - upping the stakes of future set pieces.  

How would I like to address these issues and more with the world of Pailin?

 

1. Pailin will be a framework for player interaction, not a (somewhat) thought out world.

I want to construct no more than what I feel is the minimum amount that is required to play a game of D&D 5e: a massive central town. The details of this town and its surroundings can be imagined at the discretion of players. Playing in a collective imagination and letting yourself be surprised as a player (DMs are players too) opens the doors to a lot more fun.    

1a.Intelligence checks shape the world

Instead of gating information behind a check players can be free to speculate on what they think the truth is. This truth can then quickly be assessed by the DM (in dialogue with the players) and the DC should be higher for world defining facts. Pass the save: create cannon, fail the save: exclude cannon. This system creates its own problems, mainly the need for meticulous note keeping for all the cannon. Hence the return to the WorldAnvil tool. Players can not be expected to know all cannon lore. A possibility exists that none of the players are aware of an existing piece of information and succeed on a roll to define it anyway. This may not interfere with the campaign itself but the established cannon lore takes precedence.    

3. Player factions

Every player gets a faction. A faction can be anything from: a cult, an organized religion, a luxury bakery, assassin/mercenary/potion guilds, high end tavern chain, an order of knights, a crime syndicate, a paper company, etc. Really whatever, as long as you can imagine an organization of people working together towards a goal, you can probably have it. I don't think you could be "the royal family", but as of writing this I really have no reason to exclude that. This faction doesn't need to be completely fleshed out, but it's goal should be reflected in the culture of the PCs it supplies. Players are permitted exclusivity over their factions but can choose to run them together or forgo them completely. Abandoning factions opens them up to be claimed by other players. Players should not be allowed exclusivity over more than one faction. DMs are not excluded from playing around with these factions. NPCs are still the domain of the DM and can create them as needed. At least some level of care is expected from the DM here. An NPC from a player’s faction should not exist to flesh out a player’s faction for them.    

3a. Campaign structure

If each player has a faction, each player can imagine a problem that faction might be having. The characters inside the faction can have their own motivations independent from the faction’s goals. For example:

• "we're using a lot of poison and that's expensive"
• "my dude wants to go looking for their missing sibling"
• "we need to find someone from our faction who broke off and is causing trouble"
• "my druid needs to strengthen their bond with nature"
• "a person we were in contact with suddenly broke off communication"
• "I want to take revenge on the person who killed my parents"
• "our outpost has been having trouble getting resupplied"
• "I am hiding from the law and will take any excuse to leave the area"
• "we want to investigate rumors of an ancient ruin"

Those problems can be communicated with the DM and be used as adventure hooks. I think it's cringe to have everyone play lone wolf to come by these hooks before meeting up and playing together so this next part is ham fisting. Using the hooks supplied by the players an adventure can be quickly plotted out and a CR for a good time can be communicated. The other players can supply characters from their respective factions and through the power of overlapping interest we now have a functioning party. However, due to every player having their own faction goal in mind conflicts of interest could arise.    

3b. Overarching progression

Factions should accrue a roster of established characters and equipment. This can be put to use on campaigns or to prepare for campaigns. The XGE downtime rules can be used to manage, trade or expand this equipment. Through the downtime activity rules’ tables for negative consequences, this can feed into the goals and motivations a player can bring to the table. We would need some "CR => what can you bring"-conversion-table to prevent 4 level 20 dudes with 30 legendary magical items each from beating up the local goblin lord (CR 7). Downside here could be that you can't bring your "main character" to every adventure.    

2. Failure is not the end

In the event an adventure "fails", the problem for the player's faction remains. Because the players are a consistent force in the world the set piece can remain to be interacted with later. This set piece can escalate on its own or combine with others to remain relevant. With this system of factions and PCs going on adventures it becomes much easier to imagine many other parties being part of the world. In Pangea I somehow made it so that the PCs are the only real adventurers in the world. This meant that any set piece being left alone to escalate could eventually end the world. I hope we can fill this world together and continue to have fun together. These steps will hopefully make it feel like "our" world instead of "my" world.       I hope we can fill this world together and continue to have fun together. These steps will hopefully make it feel like "our" world instead of "my" world. Part of wanting this new world is that I want to bring group-d back into the fold without having to run every one shot. Other DMs can DM in this world as it is not just my lore, it's our lore commieBuggsBunny.png