ReverentBlade wrote: ↑Sun Apr 21, 2019 10:05 pm
My issue is that Cyricists taking over Cordor and turning it into a lawless wasteland doesn't -mean- anything. PCs avoid it for a while because the RP's annoying. Come next election cycle, People filter back and its as though it never happened. Cordor continues on in exactly the same form it was in beforehand.
If you just avoid any dynamic player RP because it's "annoying", yeah, it's not going to mean anything to you. But the world of Arelith is now what the last PC generation made it to be. Even the most ahistorical player who participates in large scale RP is uniquely influenced by their predecessors in some small way even if they don't choose to consciously acknowledge it. Wharftown is no longer a settlement because of the actions of players, but there are smaller and less momentous examples everywhere, everything from department names, to mannerisms and peculiarities, to government sign-offs -- the origins of these are forgot, but at some point, somewhere, some player created them. It's amazing, and there's no other online space I've managed to find quite like it (not with graphics or decent pop, anyhow). If you want big, explosive, rail-roaded DM plots, you've come to what is quite possibly the only place anywhere that doesn't cater to that style of play.
It's funny that you think NPC-driven narratives carry more meaning, because I think the exact opposite. It's jarring to follow the historical record and see the player goings-on interrupted by End of the World Mk 180, only for things to resume their original course a week later. All over the server are scattered debris from this or that event that hasn't meant anything to anyone since the passing of those characters most intimately involved. This isn't to say that I think there shouldn't DM events, rather that I think they're more powerful when amplifying the choices of players rather than creating fiat conflicts. The fall of Benwick, while DM-supported, was highly player-driven in nature, and the story of how it happened continues to be told today. It has taken on a mythological character -- an apocalyptic Fall of Gondolin wrought in the vice and corruption of its people -- in a way that the other End of the Worlds have not, and cannot. It's absolutely surreal to hear characters recount the events you participated and see how time has twisted them! The destruction of Wharftown, for example, remains highly controversial and in a way I don't think it would were it determined by NPCs. We don't have to look to these big examples to prove the wonders of player driven RP; you mention Cordor as unchanging, and yet it is entirely different in structure and culture to the Cordor of three years ago. That's all cause and effect amongst players.
What's important is that if you want things to *matter*, then you need to start letting them matter. If you want the actions of your PC to be acknowledged by your successors, start by acknowledging that of your predecessors. Even if you know old fluff is just old fluff, if you subconsciously value player works as less real than DM works, you ensure nothing you do will matter either. Stop using your meta-knowledge of what is and isn't DM-certified in determining your source of truth, you'll only bore yourself and devalue your own RP. It's a cycle that can end with you.