From my blog

A couple of months ago my friend Dwayne Gillingham designed a game revolving around the idea of a civil war in the City State of the Invincible Overlord. You play one of five factions, Nobles, Followers of the god Set, Follower of the goddess Mitra, the Merchant, or the Mage's Guild. As the faction leader you attempt to use your influence to control building, recruit armies and NPCs. From that you can either engage in combat, or use intrigue or magic. The game ends when one faction achieves a combined influence of 25.

Once of the long standing plotlines of my Majestic Wilderlands is a civil war between Draco-lindus, a warrior who follows Mitra, and Divolic a Myrmidon (anti-paladin) of Set. They are played by two of my oldest friends, Draco-lindus by Tim Shorts and Divolic by Dwayne Gillingham.

The whole thing been going on for nearly 20 years starting in the mid-90s with the actual civil war erupting in the mid 2000s. It has formed the backdrop of several Majestic Wilderlands campaigns including the two most recent campaigns. The three of us were talking and decided it was time to resolve it and that the perfect game was Dwayne City-State civil war game.

And on Saturday January 16th we finally played it out and what a game it was. Tim of course played the Mitra faction, and Dwayne played the Set faction. I played the Noble faction with the idea that they were trying to get out from under the thumb of the two and to reestablish their authority.
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You can read the blow by blow on my blog.

Anyway this closed that phase of my campaign and the one I am currently running has jumped ahead 10 years into the aftermath. There is a bunch of other stuff still yet to be resolved that will take center stage.

This is a link to the above translated into a series of maps.

Starting with this one.

4460 BCCC
[ATTACH=CONFIG]947[/ATTACH]

And end with this one.

4475 BCCC
[ATTACH=CONFIG]948[/ATTACH]

And just to give a sense of how long I been doing this. I ran my first Wilderlands campaign in 1980 and the in-game years was 4433 BCCC. Now it up to 4475 BCCC. Some of the original PCs have grandkids.

I read the turn by turn you linked.  I didn't see the follow on post that was going to explain what it ment in game.

Quote from: Headless;961791So every one has said they have dynamic settings.  Could anyone describe?  

What was the change?
What caused it in setting?
What Mechanic did you use to decide it should happen (may not apply)?
How were the PCs involved?
How did they respond?  
How many sessions did it take? This is is big question mark for me. I think there are some radically different game lenghts on this board.

Or if that sounds like home work just hit me with a 'no shit there I was.'

My most dynamic setting is my Wilderlands 'Barbarian Altanis' sandbox. Obviously far too many changes to list, but the main NPC drivers of change were the Black Sun Network aiming to restore the Empire of Nerath, and the warlord Yusan. The Black Sun successfully established a small Empire of Restored Nerath west of the Castellan mountains in one campaign, defeating the opposing PCs. In later campaigns set east of the mountains in the Ghinarian hills area the Neo-Nerath have been attempting to expand into the area from the west, causing lots of political shenanigans as allegiances shifted. At the same time Yusan was trying to expand from his power base in the Vale to the south, and did conquer a chunk of territory while the PCs were off opposing Neo-Nerath, closing the Black Sun Gate that powered their undead armies. This resulted in Black Sun losing two battles (off-screen) to the Altanian barbarians and the gnomes of Ractuan.
Eventually the PCs raised a coalition, defeated and killed Yusan in an epic battle, led by their own PC warlord Hakeem, who turned out to be Yusan's son.
The defeat of Yusan left a power vacuum, the PCs appointed rulers and/or became rulers themselves. Neo-Nerath has been driven back west of the mountains but is still making probing attacks and plans another offensive. The eastern Nerathi realm of Hara switched allegiance from Black Sun to the PCs' coalition.

The PCs are dynamic and often initiate changes, but they are not the only active entities. Old Vilius of Theber tried to forge a Ghinarian Lords' Alliance against Yusan; he was defeated and killed but Kaldrac of Verius pretty much took it over; currently the Lords' Alliance is a subset of the PCs' coalition which centres around the NPC sorceress Lady Meda of Thusia and includes the Highhaven Amazons, Hara & the Rangers of the Wode, the northern Altanian tribes under Minars Rapak of Seawolf, etc. The continued Black Sun/Neo-Nerath threat holds the coalition together despite internal animosities. The major town of Ahyf had been friendly with Yusan (it benefitted from his slave trade) and remains aloof from this alliance, the dragonborn PC Shieldbiter is planning to conquer Ahyf for his own mini-empire within the coalition.

Last session on Wednesday a group of PCs and Namelin Bronze the NPC lord of Hara overthrew the corrupt rulers of Selatine (the campaign 'starter town'), killed the Wormtongue-esque death priest Macreus of Thracia and replaced Lord Hytirus Vex with his sister Jana, a priestess of Mitra and long term NPC (been around since 2013).

I haven't mentioned the evil wizard Oriax the Lecherous, tower south of Selatine, who at one point took over Selatine before being chased out following the fall of Yusan and fled to an alternate dimension via his magic mirror.

I've run I count 170 sessions in this setting (Barbarian Altanis) - 20 ca 2011 west of the mountains, then Ghinarian hills 10 ca 2013, & the rest 2015-present.

Results of offstage battles etc are generally determined by GM judgement/fiat, possibly rolling a d6 if outcome uncertain, but I generally have a good idea of who has the advantage.

I have not been rolling on a random event table. Generally either stuff happens in game that then snowballs including off-stage events, or off-stage actors' plans come on-stage. There is stuff dating back to earlier games ca 2009 (set further north in the plains west of the City State) when eg the Black Sun acquired the Ilhiedrin Book, repercussions echo down through the years & the campaigns.

I think the main driver is having a lot of NPCs with their own motivations, some of whom are at least as active as the PCs.

Edit: Game has run 4433-4447 BCCC so far, 14 years. Could be significant that it's based on Rob Conley's Wilderlands material!

Quote from: Headless;961791So every one has said they have dynamic settings.  Could anyone describe?  

What was the change?
What caused it in setting?
What Mechanic did you use to decide it should happen (may not apply)?
How were the PCs involved?
How did they respond?  
How many sessions did it take? This is is big question mark for me. I think there are some radically different game lenghts on this board.

It varies, but for my current one:  The change is variation in "magical radiation" that is having long-term effects on creature genetics and even the natural world.  As just one example, there is a large, deep vale that produces much more food than it should be able to for an area that far north, because of the unnatural warming effects of the local radiation--radiation that has also altered the creatures that live in the area, predominately dwarves, dark elves, and halflings.  The overall cause (campaign world, not just the vale) is a series of powerful rituals cast centuries ago that were self-reinforcing but are now breaking down.  No mechanics, just cause and effect from the premise of the world.  Characters poking around in things better left untouched are the cause.  NPCs do it, and PCs probably will too.  My players respond with caution, because they are used to me putting dangerous things into the setting.  Time to effect is indeterminate. I'll use the campaign world for multiple campaigns, and depending upon actions, it may take years or may happen in a few sessions from now.

But like I said, I like the part of waiting for the hammer to fall more than the event itself.

Headless, in a month, ask the same question from the other end and use the phrase "meta-plot" and enjoy a completely different thread...

Quote from: Tod13;961845Headless, in a month, ask the same question from the other end and use the phrase "meta-plot" and enjoy a completely different thread...

Yes, because it will be about an entirely different subject.

Quote from: S'mon;961821

Nice map. Original?

Quote from: Dumarest;961946Nice map. Original?

That's an extract from the 2005 Wilderlands of High Fantasy by Necromancer Games, specifically the Ghinarian Hills region of Barbarian Altanis, with my additions. WoHF is available pdf on rpgnow, I was lucky enough to get the box set back in the day. I think they want more for the pdf than I paid for hardcopy - http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2745/Wilderlands-of-High-Fantasy-new?it=1

There's a bundle that looks better value, the Player's Guide especially is a must & has tons of DM info such as monsters -http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/59811/Complete-Wilderlands-BUNDLE

My game worlds are not static. I have a few background plots and schemes going on that the Players may or may not notice, and there are the actions of the PCs as well.

I have seen players act surprised when I allow them to burn down a village, dethrone a king, kill a dragon, or do some other action that will have a large impact on the campaign world situation. Likewise they have been surprised when I actually wrapped up the campaign when a particularly nasty End-of-the-World scheme actually came to fruition. When I told them that was it, the world was gone it got their attention. After that the looming threat of Elric sounding the Horn of Fate and ending the world was taken a bit more seriously in out Stormbringer campaign. That campaign began during the reign of Elric's father and never reached the end of the world, but the countdown clock was always ticking in the background.

I always read the point of D&D as being to reach name level, establish a stronghold and wage war against other strongholds. Sort of the opposite of a static world.

- Davethelost

I always read the point of D&D as being to reach name level, establish a stronghold and wage war against other strongholds. Sort of the opposite of a static world.

So if thats true its still a static world.  You want a seat at the table, a peice of the action.  But the back ground asumption of action doesn't change.  

Your verb is 'wage war.'  Not Conquer.   Conquer invovles change, war doesn't have to.  You want to play the game nit win it.

Sorry I'm reading a lot into verb choice.

Quote from: Headless;961791So every one has said they have dynamic settings.  Could anyone describe?  

What was the change?
What caused it in setting?
What Mechanic did you use to decide it should happen (may not apply)?
How were the PCs involved?
How did they respond?  
How many sessions did it take? This is is big question mark for me. I think there are some radically different game lenghts on this board.

Or if that sounds like home work just hit me with a 'no shit there I was.'

I've done it a few times.

In order:

• Full-scale bloody civil war, with all the post-war consequences.
• Death of a king + ambitious kin + other powerful factions out for revenge, profit or fun
• I can't recommend the Event Tables from Oriental Adventures enough, no matter what the setting or game. I've been using them for 30 years.
• At first they weren't. They were on friendly terms with a certain noble though, and he was on one side, so they more or less stuck by him. Their "home base" was in his domain.
• They went after their friend's enemies. As those enemies became more ruthless, so did the PCs

*
The civil war lasted about three years in game time, maybe six months (gaming every Friday afternoon) in real time.

* One thing that ended up working better than expected was that like most campaigns, if a player couldn't attend their PC simply stayed home. The same was true for various henchmen, hirelings, friendly NPCs and even a few PCs who were left on the back burner (one was a cleric the player just got tired of playing, dropping him for a new PC). So when the main group was away, the enemy decided to raid their home town and raze the place, killing as many people as possible. The main party was not aware of this. So when all the players attended the following week, I announced that before we picked up with the main party where we left off, it was time to check in on their home base. We got out the sheets and cards for all those retainers and fought it out. Luckily for the town, the retainers had maintained scouts and patrols and they were prepared. The retainers launched two spoiling attacks against the enemy, and fought them off at the outskirts of the town, but not before some of the fields were set ablaze. Now the town faced a food shortage and an almost certain return visit from an even stronger raiding party...

I think that what the OP is addressing is what you see in many campaign products, like pre-wars Greyhawk or frankly most TSR products, where there's the impression that significant change doesn't happen in the campaign. Hell, in some cases there's the implication that even technology and culture hasn't advanced in hundreds or thousands of years.
Worse still settings like the Forgotten Realms, where there's the implication in the core regions of explosive change about to happen, but instead the metaplot product-mill essentially keeps pushing everything back to the status-quo over and over again, plus or minus a city or an over-powered NPC. Worse still, villains like the Zhentarim are set up in the initial campaign product as major threats, only to constantly be thwarted to the point that they look comically inept.

On the other hand, ignoring Official Product and looking at individual campaigns, I think that a big mistake that many GMs make is that change in the setting only ever happens because of, in relation to, or in the presence of the PC party. This gives the impression not of a living world but of a totally static world that is only affected by the PCs' actions or at the very least their presence as witnesses.

Now, not every campaign has to involve periods of massive turbulence or the rise or fall of empires.  In Dark Albion I chose a period that was full of significant civil strife and political and social change, but there are periods of English history where not much of that happens.  But even in those periods, there should be individuals or families rising to power or falling to ruin, small or large rebellions, foreign wars that start or end, plagues or famines, pontiffs or lords or kings dying with some frequency, courtly intrigues, natural disasters and more.

The real key is that a lot of this stuff should happen without the PCs involvement. There should be changes that the PCs can hear about or come to observe that they had fuck all to do with. Some of this change should be predictable to a certain extent, and some of it should happen by surprise.  Lords shouldn't always die in epic battles, sometimes they'll just fall off a horse or have an embolism; sometimes at moments that can be quite inconvenient for all concerned. Towns or villages the PCs visited at some point should have small or large changes when the PCs return there, maybe the blacksmith they dealt with last time was killed in a horse-accident, maybe the daughter of the innkeeper is married now, maybe half the market burned down in a freak fire.

When some of these events happen, the PCs might be in the area coincidentally, in other cases they may be nowhere near the place. In some cases, the PCs might be affected directly by these events, in some cases the PCs might wish to get involved or interfere with events and thus end up affecting the course of how they develop, in others the PCs might not do anything about these things and they should run their course on their own.

That's how you make a setting into a functioning virtual world.

Quote from: RPGPundit;962772On the other hand, ignoring Official Product and looking at individual campaigns, I think that a big mistake that many GMs make is that change in the setting only ever happens because of, in relation to, or in the presence of the PC party. This gives the impression not of a living world but of a totally static world that is only affected by the PCs' actions or at the very least their presence as witnesses.

Ha, this reminds of TV shows set at high schools and colleges where the same group of students are the student council, the football team, the cheerleaders, the debate team, and everything else that goes on at school. Nothing happens without Brenda Walsh's finger in the pie.

Sometimes it's great to have the pcs discover that someone else killed the bbeg - and won't shut up about it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;962772I think that what the OP is addressing is what you see in many campaign products, like pre-wars Greyhawk or frankly most TSR products, where there's the impression that significant change doesn't happen in the campaign. Hell, in some cases there's the implication that even technology and culture hasn't advanced in hundreds or thousands of years.

Worse still settings like the Forgotten Realms, where there's the implication in the core regions of explosive change about to happen, but instead the metaplot product-mill essentially keeps pushing everything back to the status-quo over and over again, plus or minus a city or an over-powered NPC. Worse still, villains like the Zhentarim are set up in the initial campaign product as major threats, only to constantly be thwarted to the point that they look comically inept.

I'm not sure how the designers thought of things, but I always looked at the published worlds as being ruled not by any kind of inertia, but by a rebuilding phase about to explode into extreme change. Most of them have some cataclysmic war or event 50-100 years ago (a generation for a lot of the key players). Most of them have evil, of-course-they-are-going-to-invade-their-neighbors kingdoms sitting right next to weaker, timid kingdoms. Plenty of them have two technologically (or magic equivalent) dissimilar societies somehow right next to each other. That kind of thing only stays stable while people are rebuilding their footings, and either getting ready to go at each other hammer-and-tongs or start equalizing due to trade and such. Other similar things tell me that things aren't a simple status quo. That castle over there, utterly dependent upon its walls, somehow not preparing for the wizard or dragon two hills down that can completely circumvent their defenses or whatever always screamed to me 'they aren't because they don't know it is there, because it wasn't 6 months ago.'

For the published worlds, I always think of what is described in a campaign guidebook or boxed set as a snapshot. 'This is what it looks like on Jun. 1, 1342.' As to the adventures, I guess I'm fine with them not moving forward a specific plotline. If you do that, and each adventure in the product mill moves forward a specific plot point of a larger story, then to keep up, you have to buy and consume each module in the line (in order) to keep up. If you have the cachet (or believe you do) to say that the people whose business you care about will buy each of the your products when they are published (or all in a lump later, but read them in order or something), this might be strategically smart. It might make someone buy #6 of 12 even though they aren't too interested in it specifically because it would help make 1-5 and 7-12 make sense. To the casual buyer, however, it makes the whole line less attractive because you need #6 to make the other 11 as good a product. I'm not sure if TSR thought they had that draw or not, but I do feel that they thought of their adventures like news-stand comic books, with buyer 1 diligently collecting each one in order, buyer 2 picking and choosing which ones they want, buyer 3 pawing through last year's stuff because they came in late in the game, so better to have each adventure be completely self-contained, and not make any far reaching changes to the world. Let that happen between editions, apparently.

TL/DR: The designers are in the same predicament as writers for (let's say) the Simpsons are in. Can't make a large overarching metaplot if you don't think your consumers are going to consume every episode, in-order.

QuoteOn the other hand, ignoring Official Product and looking at individual campaigns, I think that a big mistake that many GMs make is that change in the setting only ever happens because of, in relation to, or in the presence of the PC party. This gives the impression not of a living world but of a totally static world that is only affected by the PCs' actions or at the very least their presence as witnesses.

Agreed.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;961625And, of course, there is the lost "end game" of D&D, where you take a bunch of wargamers, give each one of them a castle, an army, and a treasury and stand back.

So the short answer is this is less an artifact of "D&D" than it is an artifact of TSR shifting their marketing to 14 year old kids who had fuckall notion of history.

So do you mean when they took out/pushed-to-the-background the keep and castle and followers at name level part, or an earlier development?