How To RPG: Your Setting Needs Interesting Interests to Interest Players

When listening to the old-timers talk about their campaigns, I see something that far too many newer players miss: competing interests at work. It's never a simple You vs. Villain scenario; even in a fight against an Evil Empire, there are competing interests at work who must be dealt with- on both sides.

And the players? They're like these guys:

Yes, even the Monks, Rangers and Paladins. They made it work, somehow; being Lawful or Good doesn't mean being nice or doormats.

This isn't hard to implement. It's easy to do, and in large part because you can do so in small portions as you go; you roll up a NPC, make up somethings he wants done and where to do it, and off you go. A few of those and you will end up with contradictory goals; there's your conflict, and in that liminal space you have a place for players to (a) play the damned game and (b) make consequential decisions that have an impact on the setting going forward.

And it happens emergently, organically, without any need for Storygame bullshit (or any other not-gaming mechanics). Maybe that Goblin band wants something that the nearby Ogre doesn't, like not being the Ogre's bitches. That gives the players an opportunity to negotiate. Start throwing a bunch of these interests together into a setting, and let the players do as they will; they will gladly get themselves into all sorts of trouble just figuring out how to navigate this maze of socio-economic interests you've randomly rolled up.

That's the magic at work: just trusting the dice and letting things happen. Screw plot, narrative, drama, and all that stuff. Just let the game be the game, and the people in your setting be people--be they men or not--as they would be in real life, and things will take on a life of their own quickly. You don't need that Evil Empire, that Overarching Omnipresent Threat, by default; you can, and many have, done just fine with more small-scale. Again: Less Tolkien, More Howard. Less Save The World. More Make Your World.

And in those Evil Empires, you better believe that factions competing for power are a thing. Just because the Faceless Hordes mass on the border doesn't mean there isn't a faction fight going on that players can't find a way to make useful to them. When the players decide to engage a setting like that, Black Knight and Evil Wizard aren't likely to be True Friends- and Evil Genius General certainly isn't. Similarly, Resistance Leader, Sympathetic King, and Sketchy Mystic aren't always on the same page either. If you can't find a way to make that fun, you need to level up as a gamer.

Good settings have compelling and competing interests- it's part of that wargame heritage. Roll with it, literally. It's fun.