Tweaking your Setting

As I have discussed before, I run games primarily in one of two home brewed campaign settings: Meaghana and Gorbaldin. I have spent some time before talking about my different approaches to creating and running these settings, and today I would like to continue that topic by looking at how I have allowed for these campaigns to grow and change.

On Meaghana, I have, for the most part, allowed any large change to come as the result of player action. By that I mean that I created the world and the only major changes that I have made in it have been due to the characters accomplishing (or sometimes failing to accomplish) things that they have set out to do. Example: On Meaghana, there was originally a pantheon of 9 gods, one for each of the alignments in 2e D&D. Through the two campaigns, the actions of the player characters elevated a number of them to Godhood, leading to a major change in the pantheon, with some of the original Gods being killed and being replaced by the Characters.

Secondly on Meaghana, I have made all these changes additive. Meaning that when a change is made that it is added on to, or changes what already exists. The benefit of this approach is that it aids in the world seeming real. There is a history of the world that is well known and can be discovered by the characters. It also allows for the players to feel like they are important parts of the world and that their actions have meaning. Both of these I think are important facets of a campaign world, but there is also a downside to them. With this amount of history, it can be difficult for new players to enter into the campaign world.

With Gorbaldin, being a newer campaign world, I am tempted to make some modifications in a different manner. Some of the changes that I want to make, particularly to the pantheon, would not be possible to do in the same manner that changes come to Meaghana. As such, I am contemplating simply altering a few things about the game world, and saying that it has always been like that, a move known in the comic world as a Retcon (Retroactive Continuity). Now, when making this kind of change there are some things that you must be aware of. First of all, you should not attempt to Retcon any part of your world that the players have already engaged. Example: If you were to retcon the existence of the God that the party's cleric follows, you are likely going to annoy that player, who then has to choose a new deity for his character to follow, and try to make it make sense with how they have played their characters thus far.

Secondly, Retcons must be used wisely and sparingly. If you begin to retcon something new every few weeks, you will get to the point where your players stop caring about the world. If they see that anything can be changed simply by your whim, they will eventually stop trying to make any sort of meaningful additions to the game world. This will result in your campaign world becoming stale, something to be avoided.

It is one of the most difficult jobs of a DM to create a world that remains engaging to the players while at the same time creating one that they are happy with. Sometimes to maintain that balance, the DM needs to make changes to the campaign world, both large and small. It is important however to remember that the players are also your audience, and to make whatever changes are needed in a manner that will not disappoint them, or distract from their enjoyment of the campaign world.