Cooperative world creation

[Albert of Feh]

I haven't GMed anything in a while, but am hoping to change that in the near future. I would like to try a more player-protagonized narrativist game than I have done in the past.

So, setting. It was my wont in the past, in more linearly plotted games, to say, "you're in a vaguely generic fantasy world. Here are a couple of overall characteristics. You're in this area. There's more world out there, but it's not particularly important." As the game widened, of course, I'd toss out more details about the world at large, but still only really defining what was relevant to the plot at hand.

In the future, I'd rather be able to place the characters within a larger, more well-defined context; it gives them choices to make, and different things to focus on as they like, rather than relying on me feeding them details to make them go somewhere/do something. However, I feel that making up a vast world and handing it to the players (a) is more writing than I want to do, (b) is more flat reading than they will want to do, and (c) doesn't do anything to get the players to invest themselves in the world.

Well, why not get the group as a whole to work together to define the world? Making the setting a combined creative endeavor will get the players more invested in the world, while simultaneously removing ownership from any one person in particular (usually me).

Some specific thoughts on implementation. This would happen in a preliminary session, pre-chargen:

Everyone gets a certain number of tokens, which can be used to define 'aspects' of the world, a la Universalis.

Turns are taken defining those aspects. Perhaps do this in phases: geography, general world characteristics (magic, gods, etc.), 'kingdoms' (being the overall political character of a region, nation-state, utter wilderness, etc.), individual kingdoms' culture, etc.

An aspect can be overruled by a majority vote of the other players, in which case the vetoed player goes again and gets an extra token in recompense.

A player can play multiple aspects at once, at an increasing marginal cost; if you want something to be just as you envision, you can guarantee it, but it'll cost you.

MOST NOTABLY (and something I might use regardless of whether I use this whole world-building scheme), each player has one "Theme Token". This token defines an aspect of the world and highlights it as something that should quite probably be addressed in the game.

For example:
Using a normal token, you could define "the gods are sleeping" (As in Luke's recent BW play post). Fine, Faith doesn't do anything, this is the status quo, people are used to it.
Using a Theme token, the fact that the gods are sleeping will be an important part of the game. Perhaps the gods just recently went to sleep, and things are still shaken up? Perhaps the time of the god's awakening will soon be at hand? Or maybe people just have to deal with issues of faith to an unresponsive pantheon.

Each character should have an opinion on each Theme, and should be created with them in mind.

Once you have the basic political landscape mapped out, the group can move into more detail on the region or whatnot that they would like to play in, decided by vote or consensus, or whatnot. Perhaps also do group relationship mapping of that area, as in Alyria.

On to the questions:
Has anyone tried something like this before? (excluding Universalis, unless it has particular relevance to the setting-creation facets)
As a goal, do you think player investment in the setting pre-chargen is worthwhile?
Does this sound more cumbersome than worthwhile?

Plus, any other suggestions or feedback you have, of course.

[M. J. Young]

You mentioned Alyria for its relationship maps; it might also be worth a look for its approach to setting.

To badly oversimplify, Alyria is composed of what might be called setting elements. There is the Citadel, the Ark, the Mist Seas, and more. However, there is no map of Alyria. These things are all known to exist, but where they are located is not determined.

In play, you decide where your characters start. At that point, what you know is that you are here--whether it's in the Citadel or off in some village--but no consideration is given to where that is in relation to anywhere else. This isn't at all unrealistic. I, as a person, do know where New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and many other cities are located, and can get to them if I set out to do so; but they aren't generally important to me on a daily basis, because I don't go to any of them all that often. So presumably characters may know where some or all of the major landmarks in Alyria are, but the players haven't given it a thought.

As play progresses, anyone can suddenly say, "My character realizes that he is going to have to make a long and arduous pilgrimage to the Ark to find the answers to these questions, and so packs for his journey, which will take at least three weeks." He's just defined where the Ark is relative to his location: it's at least three weeks journey from here. Someone else might say, "Fortunately, since this is a coastal village and the Ark is also on the coast, I can take a Mist Ship and sail around to the Ark, possibly getting there before him." Now we know more about the locations of everyone. The things themselves are pretty well established, but we can put them where we want. It would be just as easy for someone to have said, "Our mountain village lies in the shadow of the Ark, so tomorrow I will go there and ask if I can use their library to find the answers I need."

The setting isn't about where things are, but how they relate to each other within the story being told. Thus you can play one Legends of Alyria adventure in which the Citadel and the Ark are within sight of each other, and another in which they are hundreds of miles apart, all based on what works for the story you're telling. More on point, it is the players who get to decide where these things are located.

--M. J. Young

[hanschristianandersen]

If your goal is to bootstrap a rich setting that the players are immediately invested in, well, then create characters - and character backstories - PRIOR to creating the setting.  Outline some genre elements in broad strokes, to give people a starting point, but then let the players go hog-wild in defining their characters' past adventures and escapades.  Better yet, have everyone do this all together, out loud, so that players can riff off of each other.  Then, take all the setting elements of everyones' backstories, and make it "canonical".

This can work particularly well with existing points-based character creation methods that permit you to buy things like contacts, foes, and alliegiances - the player's own starting pool of points is what serves as a practical limit on what the player can create.  I've done this succesfully with GURPS and BESM d20, but Riddle of Steel's SA's work the same way; you define groups, causes, friends, lovers, destinies, and archenemies, all at character creation time, simply by enumerating five SA's.  As GM, all you have to do is hold these player-created setting elements in the same esteem - or higher esteem - than you hold your own creations.

[ethan_greer]

I recommend Universalis as a tool for collaborative setting creation. This has been touched on in the past, but never in-depth. A prod in the Uni forum might get you some more info and/or ideas if you decide you want to explore this option.

Here are some fairly brief threads I found on a quick search.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=8526
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7995

[Christopher Weeks]

Has anyone tried something like this before? (excluding Universalis, unless it has particular relevance to the setting-creation facets)

As a goal, do you think player investment in the setting pre-chargen is worthwhile?

Does this sound more cumbersome than worthwhile?

Yes.  Search the Universalis forum to see how people have specifically used Uni as a tool for other games.  Also, in our The Universalis Arena and TUA2 wiki games, we have two different approaches to pre-play world building.  (You may find the shard-based multi-setting play in TUA2 more interesting, even though it's not what you're specifically looking at -- it gives lots of examples of world creation in isolation of actual play.)

I think it is an absolutely, completely, fabulously worthwhile goal.  This kind of player investment is a rare and beautiful jewel.

No.  It isn't really cumbersome at all.

Chris

[GreatWolf]

You mentioned Alyria for its relationship maps; it might also be worth a look for its approach to setting.

The funny thing about this conversation is that Alyria and Universalis were both cited.  What you all may not know is that Universalis arose from a conversation about cooperative world creation in the Alyria forum (see here).  So I'm going to agree with the folks that have said to look at Universalis and Alyria.  (Obviously, I'm biased with Alyria....)  I think that both could be helpful in your pursuit of this goal.

[Doctor Xero]

On to the questions:
Has anyone tried something like this before? (excluding Universalis, unless it has particular relevance to the setting-creation facets)
As a goal, do you think player investment in the setting pre-chargen is worthwhile?
Does this sound more cumbersome than worthwhile?

A number of posters have given you some good feedback for how to implement your idea (although I am beginning to mislike Universalis for no greater reason than repeated overexposure to its mention).

I'd like to give you a bit of practical advice for the implementation itself.

Yes, I've tried this recently, with gamers who had no experience with this level of formal player input before.  (Informal input we've had for as long as I can remember gaming.)

I found that it helped in that they gave me an idea of what they wanted from the game.  For example, they asked that any supernatural monsters (it's a horror game) avoid the now-popular-cliches of the World of Darkness RPGs simply because, for them, familiarity and overquantification have spoilt the horror potential of the WOD interpretations.  They came up with backgrounds for me to integrate and various aspects of the world both crucial and color commentary.

Since my current gaming group prefers mysteries, they didn't set many of the specifics for me, but they spent a lot of time telling me exactly what sorts of mysteries they would like and what they would like to be surprised about (for example, one player told me it'd be great if his character had some sort of forgotten trauma that snuck up on her, but he didn't want the player or character ahead of time to know the details).  Strangely enough, telling me what they didn't want to have direct input on has improved both their level of investment and my game-mastering, because now I know exactly which horror tropes and mysteries most intrigue them right now without spoiling the surprises for them.

Because they were not used to this level of formalized input, I had to give them a number of examples and then ask them repeatedly what else they might like, not only for their own characters but for the world in general.  Several times I had to give them Choice A and Choice B and ask them to choose -- this often evoked their creation of a Choice C for me, but only after I presented them with options to prime the engine, so to speak.  So it is no more nor less cumbersome than anything else new when it is being introduced to a large group of people at once.

However, I would caution you strongly against competitive player input, particularly if they are narrativists or simulationists.  Players tend to feel obligated to play in a game once they begin creating characters and/or the world setting, and this makes for a bad game if one or more of the players really dislike one of the changes authored by another player.  In a cooperative world creation, the player would speak up, and they might negotiate, but a competitive world creation by its nature encourages players to battle it out / bid it out rather than discuss.

Invite their input, maybe even beg for their input, but don't invite them into a contest over who "wins" at shaping the shared imagined space of your campaign!  (Well, unless they're gamists and like this sort of thing.)

Doctor Xero

[Alf_the_Often_Incorrect]

I haven't GMed anything in a while, but am hoping to change that in the near future. I would like to try a more player-protagonized narrativist game than I have done in the past.

So, setting. It was my wont in the past, in more linearly plotted games, to say, "you're in a vaguely generic fantasy world. Here are a couple of overall characteristics. You're in this area. There's more world out there, but it's not particularly important." As the game widened, of course, I'd toss out more details about the world at large, but still only really defining what was relevant to the plot at hand.

In the future, I'd rather be able to place the characters within a larger, more well-defined context; it gives them choices to make, and different things to focus on as they like, rather than relying on me feeding them details to make them go somewhere/do something. However, I feel that making up a vast world and handing it to the players (a) is more writing than I want to do, (b) is more flat reading than they will want to do, and (c) doesn't do anything to get the players to invest themselves in the world.

Well, why not get the group as a whole to work together to define the world? Making the setting a combined creative endeavor will get the players more invested in the world, while simultaneously removing ownership from any one person in particular (usually me).

Some specific thoughts on implementation. This would happen in a preliminary session, pre-chargen:

Everyone gets a certain number of tokens, which can be used to define 'aspects' of the world, a la Universalis.

Turns are taken defining those aspects. Perhaps do this in phases: geography, general world characteristics (magic, gods, etc.), 'kingdoms' (being the overall political character of a region, nation-state, utter wilderness, etc.), individual kingdoms' culture, etc.

An aspect can be overruled by a majority vote of the other players, in which case the vetoed player goes again and gets an extra token in recompense.

A player can play multiple aspects at once, at an increasing marginal cost; if you want something to be just as you envision, you can guarantee it, but it'll cost you.

MOST NOTABLY (and something I might use regardless of whether I use this whole world-building scheme), each player has one "Theme Token". This token defines an aspect of the world and highlights it as something that should quite probably be addressed in the game.

For example:
Using a normal token, you could define "the gods are sleeping" (As in Luke's recent BW play post). Fine, Faith doesn't do anything, this is the status quo, people are used to it.
Using a Theme token, the fact that the gods are sleeping will be an important part of the game. Perhaps the gods just recently went to sleep, and things are still shaken up? Perhaps the time of the god's awakening will soon be at hand? Or maybe people just have to deal with issues of faith to an unresponsive pantheon.

Each character should have an opinion on each Theme, and should be created with them in mind.

Once you have the basic political landscape mapped out, the group can move into more detail on the region or whatnot that they would like to play in, decided by vote or consensus, or whatnot. Perhaps also do group relationship mapping of that area, as in Alyria.

On to the questions:
Has anyone tried something like this before? (excluding Universalis, unless it has particular relevance to the setting-creation facets)
As a goal, do you think player investment in the setting pre-chargen is worthwhile?
Does this sound more cumbersome than worthwhile?

Plus, any other suggestions or feedback you have, of course.

Brilliant. Never would have thought of it. It does have a few obvioud flaws of course, and personally, I like to get to make everything myself (I follow the "if you want it done right..." philosophy). Therefore, this really wouldn't be great for me, but I'm sure lots of other people would think it was cool. Permission to link to it on my site? ^.^

[Albert of Feh]

It does have a few obvioud flaws of course

Care to elaborate? I see a couple of 'obvious flaws' in my conception of it, but they may not be the same 'obvious flaws' that you're seeing.

Permission to link to it on my site?

Sure. :)

And thanks for the feedback from the rest of you, too. I might revise/change/continue to inquire after having a chance to read the pointed-out forum threads and digest a bit.

[Mr. Sluagh]

(Okay, I'm bored, so here's an elaboration on Albert's idea.  It's just a first draft so it probably has a lot of kinks to work out.  I'm not sure if the beginning alotment of Chips is appropriate, and Shifts might prove unnecessary, especially in smaller groups.  That said, here goes.)

—Chips (which is what I'll call Albert's "tokens" because I think it sounds catchier) are divided into four types: Setting, Character, Plot, Veto, Theme, Steal and Shift.

—Each player receives a number of Setting, Character, Plot and Steal Chips equal to twelve, divided by the number of players, rounded up (so if there are four players, each of them gets three Setting Chips, three Character Chips, three Plot Chips and three Steal Chips).  Regardless of the number of players, each receives one Veto Chip, one Theme Chip and one Shift Chip.  The effects of different Chips are described below.

—The players take turns playing Chips.  During each turn, a player plays at least one of their Chips.  The effects of the Chips are as follows:

—Setting Chips: Allow the player to describe an aspect of the setting that the game will take place in.  Setting ideas can include religious practices, political systems, governments, cultures, races, places of interest, environmental factors, geography and metaphysics.

—Character Chips: Allow the player to describe a significant NPC who exists within the setting.  Personae introduced using these Chips can include authority figures, celebrities, gods, monsters, movers and shakers, legendary figures, potential allies, wild cards and examples of the setting's "average Joes".

Plot Chips: Players using these Chips are allowed to explore what's currently happening in the setting.  Conditions detailed using these Chips can include political climates, wars, natural disasters and current events.

Setting, Character and Plot Chips are collectively referred to as "Idea Chips."  Each idea voiced must somehow be related to the one that came before.  A player must play at least one Idea Chip during his turn unless he passes.  Generally speaking, a player has one minute to describe his idea.  He may go longer if allowed, but the Game Master may stop him after this period.

The next broad category of Chips is that of "Action Chips".  Whereas Idea Chips help build the setting, Action Chips modify the course of play in other ways.  The effects of Action Chips are as follows:

Veto Chips: These can be used to cancel a suggestion that another player has made using an Idea Chip.  When this happens, the vetoed player's idea is removed from the Game Master's notes (or otherwise marked as having been vetoed).  The player loses her turn, but retains any Chips she used during that turn.  If a Veto Chip is played in the same turn as any other Action Chip, it does not take effect and is retained by its player.  However, if this happens and a second player is willing to sacrifice their veto to stop the idea, the opposing Action Chips are canceled in the same way.

Steal Chips: Sometimes, a player will be inspired by another player's idea, but it won't be her turn yet and by the time it is the game might be on a completely different tangent.  In this case, a player may spend a Steal Chip at the end of another player's turn to make it her own turn.  In this case, the stealing player takes a turn normally, after which the game continues as normal, going around the table as if the stealing player's turn had arrived normally.

Shift Chips: There may come periods when the course of the story becomes so bound up in a certain tangent that their seems to be no way to escape from it while continuing to build on previous ideas.  More likely are times when a player desperately wants to voice a certain suggestion, but sees no opportunity to do so in sight.  Although players are encouraged to try their best to build on previous ideas, they are nevertheless each given one Shift Chip, which may be spent to detail a dramatically different aspect of the setting from the one that is currently being focused on.  An idea so allowed must still make sense within the context of the setting as it has been defined, but a fair amount of divergence is still allowable and players are encouraged to tie together the divergent threads which can be created in this way.

Theme Chips: Last but not least, Theme Chips insure that a the players' favorite setting elements don't fade into the background during gameplay.  If a player feels that an idea put forth should really be emphasized in-game and be a major part of the story, she may spend a Theme Chip to make sure it is.  During character creation, each player must define their character's relationship to each of the ideas which was thus designated as a Theme.

—And so, that said, the structure of the game is as follows:

First, each player is given their Chips, as described above.
Then, the player to go first is determined.  Roll dice, find out who's oldest, see who can calculate pi to the highest place, whatever.
Go around the table taking turns (obviously).
That said, the turns are set up as follows:

At the beginning of a turn, the player whose turn it is may play a Shift Chip.
During a turn, the player whose turn it is must play an Idea Chip, or pass on her turn.
At the end of a turn, any player may play a Theme Chip, and any player except the one whose turn it is may play a Veto or Steal Chip.

—The Role of the GM: During the course of the game, the Game Master is called upon to fulfill a number of duties.  Most importantly, it is his responsibility to record the ideas which the players put forth.  He must also moderate the session and keep it from getting out of hand.  Lastly, he has the uncomfortable responsibility to cut a player off if she both takes more than a minute describing an idea and (not "or") appears to be boring the other players.

—The game ends when either at least half of players pass on their turns or every player has spent all of their Chips.