Player impact on campaigns

Thought this was interesting and decided to share.  I made this with the idea to see how big a module would be when charted out in Masterplan.  Pretty big actually and this doesn’t have a lot of the minor pieces in it as I was creating it off the top of my head and the campaign goes back a few months now.  Hell Biminey could still read at the start of this campaign.

This takes the campaign from the opening capture at the spring festival to the current heading out to play with the Souleaters.

It’s interesting to see how much of a campaign is shaped by player choices.  This is actual play flowcharting and it has only passing similarities to my original campaign outline and episode events. Oh the broad story arcs are still there, the capture by the slavers, the visits to Darkmith, the airship, the the activities of hobgoblins and the creatures of darkness, the Council’s activities, those of Shuk and the thieves guild, the bandits outside of town.   But over the course of the last 14 sessions the details have certainly altered to react with the players.  The order of events has changed and the players’ characters have had a dramatic impact on the town and its future.

Some things they’re aware of as having gone on, some things they aren’t.  Some minor things turned into major things and major events turned into minor ones.

As a discrete example, Noribar and Meri’s absconding with the guild’s treasury had little impact on the group with the way the campaign has evolved.  If Dra’kin had still been alive then it’s a given that Shuk would have asked for the players help with the thieves.  But as that character died, that link to the guild was broken and now it’s a mere periphery event.

How exactly did the characters impact the course of history in this world? The players choosing to rescue people or not changed many things about this chart.  Their choice to try and heal Torn and Soozin, again alter the flow.  How they dealt with Krag and the murders in the city.  How they reacted to Phy’el’s first sally to get them out of the town.   Their decision to not go with the slaver envoy as they watched the airship get towed out to sea.  Their relationships with the Council, the Watch and the Temple all generated alternate time lines of events.

And in looking at this flow chart and trying to figure out how to package it up for others to use, I realized would make it a railroad and a half. It would be forcing other groups to follow in the footsteps of this group.  Because the players choices for their characters caused some events to come into being and others to die stillborn, how exactly would you write that up to give to others?  How could you?

Which is why I’m coming to the conclusion that packaged campaigns, full length ones commonly are left to discrete dungeon crawls.  Which many bemoan.  I read all the time, “This module has no roleplay in it.”  Now in looking at mine, perhaps there’s a reason for that.  Any roleplay embedded into a module isn’t roleplay.  It’s force feeding a script on the players and GM.

Where a module, whether it’s a 3 encounter delve or a 4 session story arc or a full blown campaign shouldn’t fail though is providing the DM with something to hang his RP hooks on.  If there are no descriptions of the town, none of the people in it etc, if the product is simply “Room 1: 3xOrc Headbangers  Terrain Features of X/Y/Z, Dimly Lit.  Phat Lewt includes:  X/Y/Z” then it’s failed a bit, more than a bit perhaps unless it is nothing more than a Delve.  But even delves should have something to build on.

Player – NPC interactions are something best not put on paper I think now but the building blocks certainly need to be.  If I were to package my current campaign up, it would simply be something like pearls on a string.  Each pearl would offer a shiny distraction to the players and dm, if you go here, you’ll be able to interact with this.   How you interact with it would be your responsibility.

For instance I would offer up something like the below and I wouldn’t offer the information until the players and DM needed it -

Arrival In Larkson -

A partially walled city it’s open to the sea.  Most of the inhabitants work in the fishing fleets, support the fishing fleets or provide services for those that do.
Powers in the town include:

• The Council, a trio that rules the mercantile, political and legal side of the city.  Teagon runs the shipping and handling.  Aloof and cold.   Garon runs the fleets and docks.  Friendly but sad as he recently lost his children to slavers.  Larik, hostile and bitter, a humanist runs the merchant guilds.
• The Watch, overseen by a conservative captain who controls the martial side of the city.  The watch is tasked with keeping the city safe from inside and out. He takes that duty seriously and won’t put the city at risk for nothing.
• Thieves Guild, small by most standards with a lovely half orc who assumes everyone assumes that she’s an idiot when in fact she’s quite brilliant.  She’s involved with one member of the party as appropriate who doesn’t know of her position.

The council will want to talk to the party when they arrive assuming that news of their escape is known.  This could from any other slaves they’ve rescued along the way.   Garon will be eager to hear tales of their captivity, news of his family and etc.  If tales of their derring deeds filter through the town the Captain will be impressed by them at least a little.   Garon will endeavor to task them with investigating the bandits on the river.   Lerik will sneer at them with disdain, at least the non-humans, and try to splinter the party by inviting the humans to a feast or celebration in an effort to get them to join his hate. Teagon will attempt to dissuade the party from going after the bandits using whatever innocuous means seems appropriate but won’t push the issue.

The average man on the street ranges like most do from outgoing to gruff.  Most of the citizens are commoners, fisherfolk and craftsmen or their kin.   As word spreads the party will be approached by others that have lost people to the slavers looking for news or just hope.

That should be enough for most DM’s to roleplay out.   Anything more than that and a) it’s unlikely your players are gong to respond in the same way to any canned dialogue and b) it’s forcing your players to fit the role that the writer wanted.

So as you’re ‘building your sandwich’ [Podcast listeners will get it.] remember to allow for the players to change the world, the city, the dungeon.  You can certainly have a direction for them to follow but also give them the latitude to change to a different lane and swing by some of the scenic points and hell, make some of the scenic points.