A shared world· VII
Time in a Living World
One world, one calendar, one clock that runs at the same speed yours does.
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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 objectives become your world's history. The clock runs at real-time speed: a three-day journey takes three real days.
It is an ordinary campaign with two differences. Other people are playing in the same world, and you cannot skip time. The one thing coin can buy your way past is a rest's healing, at one house in Farthreshold, and even then the clock itself does not move.
What is shared, and what is yours
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
You never meet another player directly. You see what they did, hear about them, and become the rumour the next person hears in a tavern.
Can you have more than one character in the same world?
Yes. Nothing stops you keeping several heroes alive in one Living World. Each is a separate campaign and takes one of your campaign slots, so on Free that means one at a time. Your own characters hear about each other exactly the way they hear about any other adventurer.
Which produces the odd and rather good situation of arriving in a town that remembers your last hero, and having to decide whether this one admits to knowing them.
Can your hero fight another player's hero?
In Farthreshold, yes. Publish your hero as a standing opponent and other players can challenge a snapshot of them while you are offline, and you can challenge theirs. The Dungeon Master tells you how it went when you next sit down, with your record brought up to date.
It is the one place in the mode where two players' dice meet. You are never in a live scene together, and there is no trading; what crosses between you is a snapshot, a result, and a reputation.
How does the clock work?
Time runs one to one with the real world. A three-day journey takes three real days. An eight-hour rest takes eight real hours. The Dungeon Master cannot skip it for you, and if it tries, it is refused and told the real completion time instead. Coin buys healing, never hours.
In Farthreshold a house called the Patch will do for your hit points what a rest would, without the hours. It is the only shortcut in the mode, it is bought with in-world coin rather than money, and the clock stays exactly where it was. No plan speeds it up either. That is a genuine commitment, it is the whole point of the mode, and it is also why the mode is optional.
- 1:1
- in-world time to real time, with no way to fast-forward
- 8h
- of real hours for a long rest, as written
- Once
- a world objective can be completed, by whoever gets there first
- 0
- background jobs. The world does not run itself
What happens while you are away?
Close the tab for the night. If your party was somewhere safe, they sleep, and you come back with your 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.
Time also acts on places rather than only on people. Fires burn out over hours. Wreckage gets cleared over days. Inhabited places rebuild over weeks, and wilderness you cleared quietly re-wilds.
Whatever happened while you were gone is always recoverable. You will never return to find your character dead or something permanently lost. That is not a promise the storyteller keeps out of politeness; it is a thing it has no way to do.
Does the world keep playing without me?
No, and anyone who tells you their world does is describing a screensaver. There is no simulation ticking overnight, no factions quietly advancing, no NPCs living their own lives in the dark. What changes your world is other people taking their turns in it.
How does news reach you?
Not as a feed, a map or a leaderboard. There is no scoreboard of other adventurers to scroll. 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 be finished.
- The world clock.
- One calendar for everyone on that adventure, running at the speed of the real one. It cannot be skipped, bought past, or sped up by a paid plan.
- The Patch.
- A house in Farthreshold that will do for your hit points what a rest would, for coin, without the hours. The clock does not move while it works.
- A standing opponent.
- A snapshot of your hero, published in Farthreshold, that other players can challenge while you are away. You hear the result when you return.
- A world objective.
- Something the whole adventure can only have done once. Whoever gets there first completes it, and everyone else inherits the aftermath.
The catch worth knowing first
Living Worlds and multiplayer tables are separate modes and cannot be combined. A Living World is your own campaign in a shared world. A table is several players in one campaign. If you want your friends in your party, you want a table.
Custom and imported worlds cannot be Living Worlds either, because a world you invented has nothing to share.
