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scott2978
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 02 Jun 2005
Posts: 220
Location: Arizona, USA
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 Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 9:12 pm Post subject: Character impact |
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Hey guys,
Right now I'm running a D&D 3.5 game, but I figured some of the best game masters I know hang out here, and my question is pretty universal, applying to all RPGs, so why not ask you guys?
Ok my question is this:
What ways do you use to make the players feel like their characters have an impact on the world? |
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Esoomian
High Admiral
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
Posts: 6207
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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| Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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I generally try to think about the logical extentions of their effects as they happen.
The only examples I have are not entirely applicable to the Star Wars genre but I have recently dubbed one of my RP groups team eco-disaster as they're largely unforgiving of nature that happens to be inconvenient for them.
In the near future they may find a local village whose food supply they have exterminated could get very angry at them.
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Last edited by Esoomian on Sat Sep 05, 2009 11:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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adamlumina93
Lieutenant
Joined: 07 Nov 2005
Posts: 87
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| Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 11:12 pm Post subject: |
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Well for my Underground RPG I created a newspaper where I would print articles about the players last adventure and the impact. Doesn't work for D&D, so you could always have NPCs talking in a bar about some people (the PCs) actions and how cool or feared they are.
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Akari
Commander
Joined: 09 Feb 2005
Posts: 256
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| Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 12:17 am Post subject: |
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Oh, newspapers work well for D&D really, just depends on where the players are (i.e. Waterdeep) and what campaign world you are running. Eberron for example has quite a few daily or bi-daily newspapers available.
Other then that, our impact usually is pretty low. We might take out an underworld-boss of a smaller city of an unimportant manufacturing planet and hand him over to sector authority, but on the next planet nobody may know. One of our greatest victories was to blow up a single damaged Victory Class Star Destroyer on an outer rim world, but in the end it didn't matter. We saved a whole primitive planet from slavery once but galactic news never caught on.
In StarWars I personally like working behind the scenes, not attracting too much attention, as that can be extremely dangerous. In fantasy campaigns its all the more epic the better! =)
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masque
Captain
Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Posts: 626
Location: Houston, TX
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| Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 7:30 am Post subject: Re: Character impact |
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| scott2978 wrote: | Hey guys,
What ways do you use to make the players feel like their characters have an impact on the world? |
By letting them have an impact on the world. I'm running a HARP Cyradon campaign right now where an old dragon god is returning to the world, uniting the primal lizardmen and twisted elves (Nagah and Schirae for those familiar with the setting), and my player's characters are the ones who are in the process of uniting all the other intelligent species on the continent in order to beat back the hordes of the dragon god.
If they're not successful, Cyradon is in serious trouble. If they are successful, then they get to be the big heroes. I have loose contingencies for those and other options ready, how my players do will determine the outcome.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. |
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