TTRPG: Don't Write Stories, Build Worlds

The first campaign I DMd was... unusual to say the least. Two of the three players had zero experience, and the third had less than a year. Having new players can be challenging, but that's not what made the campaign strange.
It was an evil campaign.

I hadn't intended that originally. But Two of the players asked to be neutral evil, and the third wanted to be chaotic neutral. Thankfully, despite it being my first time DMing, I recognized that this would present challenges. Good characters are motivated by their goodness. They are heroes that want to save the world. If my players were lawful evil and a part of some evil organization that would have likely made things easier. But self interested evil characters with no preexisting loyalty to each other controlled by players who enjoy chaos requires some outside of the box thinking to have a successful campaign.

I knew these people well enough to know that they wouldn't want to follow a path laid before them. So instead of writing a story and building a world around it, I built a world and let the story unfold of it's own accord.

It's natural to think in terms of writing a story and presenting it as a quest. And typically when we take a story first approach, the world around it can be less developed. The world serves the story, and sometimes we only create enough world for the paths of the story. When players stray off that path it can lead to difficulty. At best we improvise, at worst we rail road players.

But something very special happens when we start with a deeply detailed world first. No matter what your players do, the story seems to unfold almost on it's own. It feels natural. We do this with our real world all the time. If I were to ask you "What would happen if your boss unexpectedly quit?" you could probably answer pretty easily. Because you *know* your workplace you would know that Bob from accounting would apply for the position. You would *know* that manager Janet plays favorites and that analyst Jimothy would get the job instead.

Now imagine if it were that easy when our players do drastically unexpected things? By creating a deep world, rather than a narrow story, we can respond in ways that feel natural because we know our fictional world. Our players feel more autonomous, we the DMs feel less stressed to improvise, and the story that emerges feels natural instead of contrived. So how do you create this deep world and know it?

Establish Geographic Boundaries

Probably the biggest negative aspect of the technique, from a player autonomy perspective, is the need to limit the scope of the playable world. Making a world this deep takes serious time, and doing it for a whole continent is likely unrealistic. In that evil campaign I spent around 15 hours just developing one city. BUT, that single city easily provided enough content for an entire years worth of bi-weekly sessions!

I would encourage you to be upfront with your players about this at the beginning of the campaign. Letting them know keeps them from getting frustrated from you preventing them from leaving the area without knowing why. This doesn't have to be a permanent thing, just explain that if really want to leave you'll need time to prepare a new area for them. But in my experience it's not really about the geographic size of the location, but the amount of "stuff to do" so to speak that's most important.

Creating an in world explanation for this is easy enough. Perhaps the City is under siege, maybe the borders of the country are closed due to impending war. Probably the easiest is that they are shipwrecked on an island. Whatever you come up with, I'd still let the players know outside of the game that the game is scoped to a specific area.

Prefer small and dense over wide and sparse

This is a lesson that video game developers have learned in recent years. Many gamers prefer a smaller dense game world over a very large and sparse one. Even if both games have the same amount of content, spreading it out over a large geographic area doesn't really add anything to the game (besides bragging about map size). It certainly doesn't have to be a city, you could create a very detailed wilderness, or island, or mountain. Just remember that if you do go bigger it will be significantly more work the create a dense and deep world.

## Break your world into pieces Whether its districts in a city, sections of an island, or sides of a mountain, break your world into pieces. These don't have to have hard boundaries. In fact, the real world often has ambiguous sections between places. If there is a hard line, understand why that is. Is it natural, due to a river? Is it a governmental boundary? How does it effect the way these two areas interact?

It is critical to give each area distinct qualities that separate it from the others. This can be cultural, economic, political, geographic, or many other things. Having areas that your players can move between that are distinct and unique makes the world feel bigger. You can create a city that feels as big as a country by doing this.

Create Factions

This is one of the most important steps in making the world feel dynamic. It's easy to create a simple static power structure that's concentrated in a single entity (like a government), but it can create for shallower game play. The city guard may be loyal to the king, but they still have their own identity and power structure. Your players may take actions that weaken or dissolve that loyalty. What does crime look like? Is it a loose association of independent thieves, or a street gang ruled by a ruthless kingpin, or maybe a highly organized mafia run by a dapper crime lord? Are there wilderness tribes at odds, or perhaps a cult in the mountains seeking dark power?

I want to note that when I say "faction" I'm not limiting it only to the traditional meaning of the word. A forest full of mindless beasts isn't a traditional faction with a hierarchy, but if they represent significant consequences to the players and the world around them it is useful for us to label them as such.

Add Detail to the factions

This probably seems redundant with the last point, but this is one of the most important ways you can "know" your world. Ask yourself these questions:

Try not to think of factions in terms of good or bad, but rather of motives and methods. If you know these things about your factions, you will easily know how they will react to events and actions of the players.

Know Your Faction Leaders

I recommend creating at least two moderately detailed NPCs for each faction. Generally this will be the first and second in command, but as always there can be exceptions. What most important is that every faction have an NPC that has decision making power and represents that faction to the players. If you create a Royal Guard but not a commander then you are less likely to consider the impact the player actions will have on this faction. You are also more likely to find yourself scrambling when the players need to make big moves with that faction.

How To Run It

I recommend creating at least two moderately detailed NPCs for each faction. Generally this will be the first and second in command, but as always there can be exceptions. What most important is that every faction have an NPC that has decision making power and represents that faction to the players. If you create a Royal Guard but not a commander then you are less likely to consider the impact the player actions will have on this faction. You are also more likely to find yourself scrambling when the players need to make big moves with that faction.

Don't fight the chaos

Above all, this strategy allows you to embrace the unexpected. Lean into whatever direction your players are going, whether you anticipated it or not. This does require you to surrender some of your control, but that sacrifice can be well worth the amazing things your players do when they are given a sandbox and a lot of freedom.


P.S.
In case anyone's wondering, by the time that evil campaign came to a close the players had accidentally triggered a civil war that left the city in burning ruins :)