What Is a Living World? A Shared D&D World on a Real Clock

What Is a Living World? A Shared D&D World on a Real Clock

This is the feature we get the most questions about and the one nobody else seems to explain, mostly because the phrase "living world" has been used to mean about nine different things in games, several of which are marketing for a screensaver.

So here is the precise version, including the part where we tell you what it deliberately does not do.

What is a Living World?

A Living World is your own D&D campaign, set in a shared version of an authored adventure that other players are also playing. Their finished deeds become your world's history. The clock runs at real-time speed: a three-day journey takes three real days, and an eight-hour long rest takes eight real hours.

It is an ordinary campaign with two differences. Other people are playing in the same world. And you cannot skip time.

What is shared, and what is mine?

Everyone playing the same adventure walks the same roads and reads the same calendar. What they do not do is reach into your pockets.

Shared with everyone on that adventure:

• One world, one map, one calendar.
• Places other players changed.
• People other players killed.
• World objectives, which complete exactly once.
• The reputation of anyone who did something worth talking about.

Yours alone:

• Your hit points, inventory and gold.
• Your own quests and your own story.
• Your companions.
• Your campaign's pace, and where you go next.

The consequence of "world objectives complete exactly once" is worth sitting with, because it is the sharpest edge in the mode. If another hero gets to the villain before you do, they got there first. You will find the changed location, hear the tale, and take the world that follows from it. That is not a bug and it is not a consolation prize. It is what it means for a world to be shared with people who are not you.

Does the world keep playing while I am logged off?

No. And this is the claim we are most careful about, because it is the one everybody assumes.

There is no simulation ticking overnight. No factions quietly advancing their plans in the dark. No NPCs living little lives while your tab is closed. Nothing about a Living World runs itself.

What changes the world is other people taking their turns in it. That is the entire mechanism. A bridge is passable because a player repaired it. A warlord is dead because a player killed him. A road is dangerous because of what somebody did on it last Tuesday.

We think that is the better version anyway. A change made by a person with something at stake is worth more than a change made by a timer. Anyone who tells you their world evolves on its own overnight is describing an animation, and you will notice within a week that none of it was ever about you.

Then what actually happens while I am away?

Time. Time happens.

Your character's clock keeps pace with the real one, so when you come back, hours or days have passed for them. Close the tab for the night while your party is somewhere safe and they sleep, and you return with hit points and spell slots restored rather than yesterday's leftovers. Leave in the middle of a fight and the fight freezes exactly where it stood, because nobody should lose a battle they were not in.

Time acts on places too, in the plain way that time acts on places. A fire you left burning will have burnt out. Wreckage gets cleared over days. Inhabited places rebuild over weeks, and wilderness you cleared quietly re-wilds. That is elapsed time doing what elapsed time does, and it is not the same thing as a story continuing without you.

Before you go, you can leave standing orders: tell the Dungeon Master what your hero intends to do while you are away. On your return it recaps what happened, including any completed activity and whatever news has reached you.

Whatever happened while you were gone is always recoverable. You will never come back to find your character dead or something permanently gone. That is not politeness on the storyteller's part; it is a thing it has no way to do.

How exactly does the clock work?

One to one with the real world, with no fast-forward.

• A three-day journey takes three real days.
• A standard long rest takes eight real hours, with the character-rule exceptions that apply.
• The Dungeon Master cannot skip it on your behalf. If it tries, it is refused and told the real completion time instead.
• Paid plans do not speed it up. The clock is the same for everyone.

You can play scenes during a timed activity, or abandon the activity. What you cannot do is arrive early. The world clock and the activity countdown show you where you are.

This is a genuine commitment and it is the whole point of the mode. It is also exactly why the mode is optional: if you want a private adventure where the story's time bends around your evening, play a solo campaign or a table with friends instead, and nothing waits for anything.

Can I pay to skip the wait?

No. Coin buys healing, never hours.

There is exactly one place where money touches the clock, and it does not actually touch the clock. In Farthreshold, a house called the Patch will do for your hit points what a rest would, without the hours. You walk out repaired. The date on the wall is the same date it was when you walked in, your journey still has two days to run, and the Patch has no opinion about any of that.

We like this trade because it keeps the honest thing honest. The wait is the mode. What you can buy your way out of is being at 4 hit points in a city full of people who want you at 0.

Can I have more than one character in the same Living World?

Yes. You can keep several characters in the same Living World, and people do.

Each one is its own campaign and takes one of your plan's campaign slots. Free has 1, Adventurer 5, Legend 20, and a slot is a slot whether it holds a solo campaign, a Living World, a table you host, or a seat at a friend's table. So on Free that means one character in the world at a time; on Adventurer you could run three lives in the same city and see it from three sides.

Your own characters hear about each other exactly the way they hear about any other adventurer: as rumours, changed places and names in taverns. They can even end up challenging each other in the arena, which is a strange evening but a legal one.

Do I ever actually meet another player?

Not in a live scene. Ever. You see what other players did, hear about them, and become the rumour the next person hears. There is no shared conversation, no party, no trading.

There is one exception, and it is Farthreshold. In the arena you can publish your hero as a standing opponent. Other players can then challenge a snapshot of them while you are away, and you can challenge theirs. When you next open the game, the Dungeon Master tells you what happened and your record is updated. It is hero against hero, fought from real sheets, and it is the only place a Living World lets that happen. At a multiplayer table two heroes can simply fight, directly and at any time, because everyone is in the same scene. The arena exists because in a Living World nobody ever is.

If you want to be in the same party as your friends, in the same conversation, taking turns in one story, that is multiplayer, and it is a different mode.

Does the catch-up cost me a turn?

Yes, and we would rather say so plainly than let you find out.

A turn is one message you send to the Dungeon Master, plus two others that also count: the opening scene when a campaign starts, and the catch-up after an hour or more away in a Living World, which the game sends for you. Everything else stays free, including dice results, listening to the narration, party chat and skipped turns.

In practice that means a Living World spends a turn to bring you back up to date when you return, on top of whatever you then do. On Free's 20 turns a day it is not a number you will feel, but it is your number and you should know where it goes. The pricing page has the rest.

How does news reach me?

Not as a feed, a map, or a leaderboard. There is no scoreboard of other adventurers to scroll and no notification telling you that Kestrel_88 has slain a thing.

The world's news reaches you the way news reaches anyone: through the people you talk to. A bridge that is suddenly passable. An innkeeper mentioning who paid the carpenters. A quest that turns out to have been finished by somebody else last week, and the strange feeling of arriving at a door that has already been kicked in.

Which adventures can be Living Worlds?

Authored ones. Pick an available adventure and choose Living World while creating a new campaign, and you are in.

Each adventure has its own shared world, and separate level tiers are separate worlds. There is not one enormous map that everybody in the game shares. You can browse what is available at worlds.

Custom settings and imported campaigns cannot be Living Worlds, for the boring and unarguable reason that a world you invented last night has nothing to share with anyone. Those still make perfectly good solo campaigns and perfectly good tables.

Is it free?

Yes. Living Worlds are on the free plan, like every other mode. Paid plans give you more daily turns and more simultaneous campaigns. They do not give you a faster clock, a bigger share of the world, or a better place in the queue for a world objective, because there is no queue.

Is this a good idea for me?

Honestly, it depends on one thing: whether the waiting sounds like an obstacle or like the point.

If the idea of setting out on a three-day journey, closing the tab, living your Tuesday and coming back to a hero who arrived somewhere while you were at work sounds excellent, this mode was built for you. If it sounds like a chore, play a solo campaign, where nothing waits for anything and the story's time is yours to move.

Either way it is one slot and it is free to find out. Start at Living Worlds, or read the reference version at how it works. If what you actually want is your friends in your party rather than strangers in your world, read playing D&D with friends online instead.