Collaborative Worldbuilding Part 2: Managing Setting Tone in Wide Open Faction Creation

After my last post on collaborative worldbuilding and faction making with your players, Seed of Worlds asked me to share more about how I managed the tone of the setting and enforced the guard-rails on wide open faction creation and to speak a bit about the process and how the players reacted.

Recap: My Steps for Collaborative World Building

1. Create a basic tone, rating for the campaign 
2. Identify roles that each players wants to play (Spelljammer has ship roles but I feel like you could do this in a non-ship based game like "Face", "Tank" "Silent Warrior" "DPS" whatever language works for you). 
3. Each player came up with a character based on that concept and the type of group/faction they might belong to. This could be as small as a clan or as big as a religion or royal dynasty. This is where the GM sets guard rails most. If you have strong feelings about factions you should be clear about what level of faction they can make re: size/influence. 
   1. Main info to figure out: name, philosophy/goals in a sentence, style, how influential they are. You can always build more later. I don't believe in lengthy campaign bibles. I think if it happens at the table its canon otherwise its...less so. 
4. Determine relationships between the factions and that can inform relationships between the PCs. Example from my game: one PC is spying on another PC upon the order of the Space Pope. 

Define the Tone of Your Game

For this game, I wanted to explore factions grounded in equally and opposing goals, with no faction being "pure evil". With all the fascism in the world and simplistic "evil empire" storytelling around, I did not want to make any one faction that a player was tied to the villains of the game. 

I wanted factions with strengths and flaws, law and order, selfishness and selflessness because that felt more interesting to me. It helped to create a world where the player party isn't the only story in the universe.

Identify Fiction that Embodies the Tone You Want for the Game

Establish what the game will be like citing things people might know. For this game, I cited Mass Effect 2, Dune, Star Wars, and Master and Commander (but less brutal). I made it clear that I had no interest in intraparty violence and murderhoboing. I wanted characters and factions that had the potential for depth that could be explored later in play, who would have the impulse to work together for adventure. 

Establishing Guard Rails for the Sandbox of Faction Creation

1. Select a group of players who are creatively generous and like world building. Make it clear (kindly) that you will have final say but will work hard to incorporate as much as possible that can hang nicely together. I think this kinda thing works better with people you have played with before but could work with a new group. 
1. How I established this from the beginning: I said "I want this to be a very open process where we are all doing idea generation as much as folks want to engage with that. Folks should not feel obligated and engage to the level you want to. I will work with you to make sure that we can incorporate as much as possible without being precious about our particular creations. Not everything will work and that’s okay.”
2. Create a space for open collaboration (I used Discord) where players actively share their ideas for their characters and the factions they come from. 
3. Create a calibration document before worldbuilding where players can anonymously submit their Lines, Veils, and things they want lots of in the game. I called this "Go Hard on this Stuff" "Lines" and "Veils. I do this because I want to define the Yes things people want in the game, the Hard Nos, and the things the camera should cut away from, so to speak. 
4. Model what you would like the players to do by sharing about factions/ideas you have been thinking about and invite them to iterate on the idea.
1. When folks proposed ideas I felt aligned well, I told them that and helped them build out the idea further by proposing ideas and not being precious about my ideas if they were not into them.
2. When folks proposed ideas I did not resonate with, I would address it directly by saying things like "I like the idea of this faction being committed to an overarching war against evil and having had tensions and conflict with the Warforged clockmoon. I like the idea of exploring personhood and sentience. However: I do not want to explore pretend fantasy racism so if there are tensions I don't want it to be about that."
5. Ask the players what ideas they are having for their characters early. Participate actively in those conversations grounded in a mentality that you are not the arbiter of the story of the characters, you are creating the environment and forces that oppose or assist them alternately. You are not writing a story, you are embodying the world around them.

If you have questions about any of the above let me know, this is just what worked for my particular players.