Thread by @hexcrawl

@MTBlack2567 There's other stuff you can do, too.

For example, Special Interest XP (which partially tied PCs gaining XP to them spending GP on civic projects) had the incredible result of having 1st level characters founding a meadery, building shrines, etc.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4094…

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@MTBlack2567 Colville did "run realm to get cool abilities you can use during adventures." The results tended to be dissociated, but were an interesting carrot.

I think you might want to go the other way: Add realm-oriented abilities that characters get automatically when leveling up.

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@MTBlack2567 OD&D and 1E did this to some degree, with characters automatically attracting followers, etc. But if you give players cool toys, they WILL go poke at the thing that lets them use them.

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@MTBlack2567 But I still come back to the 'crawl: The dungeon works because it has a clear container called a "room" that a GM can pour almost any sort of interactive content into. Hexcrawl works because it has a container called a "hex" that a GM can pour almost any location into.

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@MTBlack2567 A good realm management structure, IMO, needs a clear container that a GM can pour adventure content into. That tends to be lacking.

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