Collective Consciousness of a Campaign

When we talk about TTRPGs we often talk about the DM acting as the world. They are the AI interacting with the players, creating the NPCs and the world for them to play around in, we forget that the DM isn't the only one building the world. Today I'm going to talk a bit about this idea of a collective consciousness of a campaign. This could be as simple as the people at your table or as multi-faceted and complex as thousands of games all around the same campaign. It is a unique thing to think about, this idea that one person isn't the sole knowledge base of a game. But it makes sense when we really get into it. I don't know about you but I definitely lean on my players to remember not just what came before this session but to build on aspects of the game. One of my favorite tools is to allow a player to take ownership of an aspect of the world that directly effects them and their character. That isn't to say that the DM doesn't have finally say but my players have come up with things that make far more sense in the world then I would have on my own. Its also a really natural way to more closely tie a character into the world. The investment is there if they have some hand in making say the guild that they belong to as a rogue, or the business that their parents run, or even the name of that annoying mayor that they humiliated.

But I'm getting a little off track here - let's break it down into chunks like I normally do so I can get us back on track.

The idea of a Collective Consciousness comes from this idea that there isn't just a million billion separate minds floating through the world it is instead this idea that some where in the background of all of this we are somehow connected on a deeper level to things. To each other. That each person somehow effects the others through their experiences, knowledge, and lives. It is thought that maybe dreams come from this place of connectiveness. So I'm not exactly in that boat BUT I do believe that when we are building a fictional world together that is 1000% the case. How do I know that? Because we are all actively working together to build the world with all of our actions at every point of the game. Add to that the fact that it is then a group of people at a table playing make believe to be a bunch of other people at the table, all who roll dice to determine the outcome of events we aren't sure about. Now doesn't that sound a little meta like and a little like maybe a shared mind is going on when it comes to the world. Yes parts of that mind hold more knowledge then the others, obviously the DM, but that doesn't mean they know everything. They certainly don't know how the players are going to react to things or what the consequences of those actions might be. That is something that is built together as the dice land and it is something that is beautiful to see happen. And I know I sound a little woo-hoo when I say that. But it really is a beautiful thing to see happen no matter if you are the one running the game or the one playing in it.

How does me rambling about this help your games? Well if you think about it that Collective Consciousness is something we should strive for in our games. There are many ways we can go about this to make it happen but let me first get through the why of it. Why should you care? Why should you add something else to your campaigns? Why are you even reading this silly ranting JustKay on the deep void of a web? It is pretty easy actually if you want any of the following in your games you should want to do this for your players and for everyone else at the table, yourself included.

1. You want an immersive living world that exists outside of your players little in game bubble.
2. You want your players to have the biggest and easiest by in to your campaign.
3. You want to not have the stress of having to come up with literally everything in your game all the time.
4. You want to avoid your players feeling like what they do in game doesn't matter.

That all sounds great I hope otherwise I'm really questioning why you are continuing to read this. But honestly who among us trying to run a consistent campaign isn't looking for those things to help us along? If I'm being honest I have seen a way higher ROI then the amount of work it takes to implement some steps to building this sense of Collective Consciousness in my campaigns. And I have never had players say anything bad about having more power in their own hands when it comes to lore and the world building.

Knowing that its a cool kid thing to do is great and all if I'm just going to rant at you to JUST DOET! What you really want is how to add it into your games, which is completely understandable and is in fact the next point I'm getting to.

Adding the Collective Consciousness to your games isn't all that hard. You can take baby steps into it that will help take things in that direction. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation, even just adding in the bits that look easiest to you given how you run your games will make a big difference. Easiest step you can do? Pick one or two things that have a high impact on each of your players that you haven't had alot of time to flesh out and ask them about it. This you can of course do with questions to help guiding it a certain way but I often like to give a prompt or something first to help direct the conversation. For instance I recently created a country that borders the one the campaign is actually set in with a player who decided their backstory had them coming from someplace else and escaping to find a new life. I asked about what their parents did, did they see them as good people, what the justice system looked like, and what religions might be dominate there. I let them add as much or as little as they wanted after each questions. You'll have to feel this part out as some players will dive in head first with no prompting and some will want to stay as light on details as possible. Its all about how much they are comfortable with and if they aren't use to being asked those kinds of questions its likely it won't be very. But the more you ask and provide opportunities you'll see them to start to get more confident about it and providing more input. Now I can already hear people shaking their fists about the players meta-knowledge and the DM should build the world blah blah blah. To them I would like to point out that what the player could be telling could also just be what they know from the character's perspective if you feel like it truly goes against your world. Say a player whose character is a royal who escaped with their life and ran away across the ocean to a life of adventure. They might see their kingdom as a peaceful place meant for all with a corrupted minority trying to usurp the rulers. But the reality might be that the rich crush the poor, living conditions are terrible and its actually the people rising up that drove them out of their home. Having them come back to the kingdom and having to learn about that and process that - INSTA CHARACTER STORY ARC. You are welcome. I tend to let players take ownership of certain pages in my campaign wikis after I initially set them up. Its a really easy way to make them feel comfortable enough to provide some feedback and insight to a good direction to go.

Next baby step into the Collective Consciousness is through the use of NPCs. Yes the TTRPG stereotype is that the parents are dead or tried to kill the kid or missing. I can rant about getting away from that in another blog post. But another easy way to help your players, and your DM, step into releasing that control just a little bit is through NPCs. If a group has been in a place for awhile I might ask them during their downtime who they meet, who they choose to spend time with, and anything interesting that happens. When running this I tend to ask this series off questions, letting each player answer one before starting it over again until I'm satisfied.

• Who is one new person you met?
• What shop or establishment did you frequent?
• What conflict popped up for you?
• One activity you did
• Name one location, what strange character there caught your eye?
• Are you a regular anywhere, who is the owner?
• Have you made an enemy in town?
• Who is one person you have a little crush on?

You could go on all day if you want to but you get the idea. Questions that help spark conversations that end with the creation of a new NPC or filling out an existing one. They could totally answer that they are a regular at the tavern you already made whose owner they've met. But maybe they know a fun fact or story that the owner told them one night when it was slow. Or maybe they witnessed an altercation between the owner and another patron. Don't feel like you are limited to only the direct answer - heck sometimes I roleplay it out a bit with them to help them get rolling. Step into the role of the tavern owner serving them drinks and asking how they are. Let the ownership lead to stories and the stories lead to interactions and to deeper immersion.

If you want to try this right from the start of a new campaign, the go big or go home method, the best way to do that is right from Session 0. I talk about Session 0 alot, as should everyone. It is needed and I think benefits every campaign and game I have ever been in. On top of the safety tools, the discussion of campaign tone, the players getting to know each other, and dozens of other things you can do in a Session 0 let me add one more. You can pass out sticky notes to your players, I'm partial to giving each player a different color, and then lay out a piece of paper or something to stick to that has a title of something in your game. For instance 'Religion' - then each person can add a single sticky note, the group discusses and then the opportunity for another rounds of adds are done before repeating discussions. The talking part is about understanding what is on the sticky notes but also coming to some sort of understanding as a group how things work. Do this for as many or as few things as you want. To be honest I kind of stole this in part from a fantastic system called Questlandia (and my favorite spin off Noirlandia) as its how they handle world building when there is no DM. Honestly this takes alot of the intense pressure to have everything already figured out and solid before a campaign starts off. Not only because your players will help you but also because you can easily tell which things the players most care about by how many sticky notes and how long the discussion was. Gotta be sneaky.

That's all find and dandy but I'm running a pre-written campaign - says you that person on the other side of the screen. First kudos for making it this far if that's true but just because its pre-written doesn't mean it can't have a Collective Consciousness. Think about some of the big named campaigns in D&D - Curse of Strahd, Out of the Abyss, and Wildemount. You might not have personally experienced those but I can guarantee you that you know something about them if you are in the D&D space at all. Right we know Strahd is hot daddy vampire, Out of the Abyss is underdark and do not want to fight that thing, and Wildemount has some civilization that decided to fight the gods and lost and now their war is found in pieces of artifacts all over the place. Even with pre-written campaigns you should be having a Session 0 ESPECIALLY because any triggers, tones, etc should already be known to any DM and should clearly be communicated and given a greenlight by players. Take that opportunity to fill in some of the fuzzy stuff - there are items that the designer didn't have time or word count to fill out the way they wanted to or that got cut from the final project. Like the Hag in Curse of Strahd that lives in the windmill, or the Drow society Machiavellian conflicts, or if the ancient civilization had internal groups against the war. You can leverage your players to expand on what is there and let them feel like this is really their campaign even if it is just a pre-written one.