RPG Worldbuilding: Finally Get Your Players to Care!
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- Опубліковано 20 лют 2023
- Apocalisse: John’s Guide to the Armageddon - A post-apocalyptic setting for D&D 5e with MONSTERS OF THE ARMAGEDDON! www.kickstarter.com/projects/...
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Are you a game master struggling to get your RPG players invested in your game world? In this video, we'll show you how to use player choice and character actions to bring your game world to life and make it feel like a living, breathing place. By incorporating player agency and making it clear that their actions have consequences, you can create a more engaging and immersive experience for your players. Whether you're running a D&D campaign or another tabletop role-playing game, these tips and techniques will help you take your game world to the next level. Learn how to make your players care about your game world and keep coming back for more!
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Apocalisse: John’s Guide to the Armageddon - A post-apocalyptic setting for D&D 5e with MONSTERS OF THE ARMAGEDDON! www.kickstarter.com/projects/acherongames/apocalisse-johns-guide-to-armageddon-for-5e?ref=ibwy28
IDEALISM & INFAMY | evolving the world, the Scourge of the Klarengeist adventure arc, disease-based traps, 15 new chaotic aberrant creatures, and more!
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I love evolving my world around my players! It not only gets them invested, but I feel like it gets me more invested as well.
In session 1, some wild magic randomly turned an oak sapling permanently blue. It is now a magical oak tree that has become a landmark place of refuge.
A few sessions later, the rogue stole a baron’s monogrammed pillow and replaced it with another thief’s calling card. Within days, the Baron helped organize a sting operation to capture the leader of the thieve’s guild, and the guild ended up with a new leader, who wanted to make into more of a mafia.
Stuff like that.
Yes. The PC's are the movers and the shakers of campaign!
@@Cyberfender1 Yes, but equally so a world that overly revolves around the players feels like bad storytelling for children.
I like the idea of playing multiple games set in the same world and having the actions chosen by players in the previous games become historical events and legends in the next game
In my Theros game - the PCs came against some goblins that were hiding out in a cave where they tracked the cyclops that destroyed a farm.
They rescued the lady of the farm and after informing her nearly all of her workers were dead - they brokered a deal where the goblins would work the farm as hands and security for food and board.
In game weeks later they returned to the farm and found that it had been transformed into a pit stop on the road from Akros to Oreskos with the goblins acting as shopkeepers or tinkering with and improving weapons and farm implements.
That one sticks with me.
In a different game my players met a sentient alien party that were chasing an enemy, but crashed on a probation planet. And as one of the oarty sent back information regarding first contact their species would have gained more power in their galaxy...but the game ended due to time constraints.
Heeeey that church you took a picture in the video(1:53) is my choir parish! It's called San Lorenzo in Damaso!!
Great video btw, your advices are helping me a lot to let me and my players enjoy playing!
I am just getting into DMing and I find this kind of video very inspirational and helpful.
This is so helpful! I try really hard as a DM to make my players an active part of the world. I tailored the story and BBEG to fit the backstories they gave me.
My group's become very partial Phandalin from the Essentials kit Dragon of Icespire Peak. We're even running one of their one-off adventures in Phandalin in between the main campaign. I'm going to kick it up a notch when they get to mould Leilon in Storm Lord's Wrath and Sleeping Dragon's Wake.
Heres a suggestion. The Stormwreck Isle starter set campaign can be a side-quest OR the first of three back to back starter campaigns = Stormwreck->Phandelver->Icespire+++
My group has been slowly plugging away at the starter campaign too. They are prepping to rebuild Tresandor Keep next.
Luke, ever the source of useful and detailed information. Player progression is a great reminder for game masters. I also am using this as a reminder to get back to writing my novel set in the fantasy universe.
Thanks for this one, Luke. It's well timed, and reassuring. I just watched a video on the difference between "High-Concept" world-building vs. "Kitchen Sink" world-building. It got my brain-blender spinning. I realized I had built a "High-Concept" setting for a bunch of ADHD&D players that'll leap off the setting as soon as they think they see a squirrel ("You guys are going to CANDLEKEEP?!"). I guess that; as long as I can keep paving the road ahead of them, and they keep showing up on Wednesday nights, I'm OK.
The “Wiley Coyote” style. If you pave the way fast enough, the game won’t fall into the abyss. My favorite!
I’d love to get guidance from you on epic level consequences, I’ve found that one of the most effective ways to get a long term party invested in your world is to run a campaign into epic level at the beginning, and then shape a world around the decisions of those characters afterwards.
It is also an infinite story prompt generator to help with world building.
Great video.
My own way to get my players more involved in my worlds is to make them part of the creation. I intentionally leave out some lore and locations and do things to make them paranoid. I listen to them chatter and build lore based on what they talk about. It's great fun bc they feel like they unraveled the mystery, but really I just let them follow their fish.
Collaborative world building during session 0 is also a very effective way to invest your players in the setting.
Players almost always know and care more about a setting, when they had a hand in making it.
Great idea!!
One of the great advantages to "rotating the GM duties" among the Players at the Table. At my Table, when you get the screen and map, you GET the screen and map... That includes ALL the privileges that go with them, so you're adding notes, putting places on the map, building whatever you need for your adventure... and it stays... at least through the Campaign.
The worlds we've Gamed in are very organic and strangely unique in their almost natural duplicity with reality. I don't know if that's an inherent part of human nature, to organize as things make sense, even with shifts in culture and language or political structure, OR if it's some weird phenomenon like "wisdom of a crowd"... BUT as dysfunctional as it would seem to guarantee the world, it only seems to do that to our adventures IN that world. The world fleshes out on its own and just works...
AND everyone seems to stay on board with adding and refining from the things we started with, to continue a rudimentary form of "progress" over time. In 30 years of RP and GM'ing, I've seen worlds come and go, and some ideas were worth sticking around over the years, but largely, with a new group or when we just get tired of the world we have, a new map is put together from cardboard and butcher paper, and we start again... OR we enter a new "genre" or Game System for it, and that precludes us from using the "Old World" in its as-is form.
Session-0 allows us to fit the placeholders in for organizations that might be hunting one PC or guilds that might be helpful to another, and a known monster or some entity that probably needs "dealt with" as the Campaign goes on.
It's interesting how Play Styles settle together when one knows that sooner or later, they WILL be GM'ing a game, even a shoddy 90% improv' one-shot... a side-quest misadventure... whatever... They tend to be a little less demanding of the "Acting GM" and still accomplish most of their inner intentions without too much hell to play. AND when they invest time to create, you damn right they take a certain pride in keeping the world around them supported. Even the most tenuous link is a connection via which I've seen some pretty hard-core types slowly fall in Love with the place, building hope and investing in its future. ;o)
I've tried to do a session 0 and am struggling to figure out how to make it more than a "build you characters" session. What tips do you have for making it a collaborative world building session as well?
@@marandabreinholt458 there are a ton of different approaches depending on what sort of campaign you’re trying to provide. Broadly speaking though, I think there are two decision to make.
1. You have to decide what slice of the world you want them to build that is shared by their characters. You can make it something small like a family, town, or organization. Or you can make it something larger like a nation or country.
2. You then have to decide what elements of the slice you want them to help create and have them brainstorm two of each. These can be anything that helps you run a fun campaign.
For example, if you wanted your players to help make a campaign starting town, you could work together to brainstorm
. 2 important town NPCs
. 2 cool places
. 2 problems, conflicts, or threats
and or
. 2 unsolved mysteries
Or if you wanted your players to build something like a merchant family, you could collectively brainstorm
. 2 organizational goals
. 2 major rivals
. 2 business partners
and or
. 2 potential money making ventures
What sort of campaign are you running?
@@hodgepodgesyntaxia2112 I am working on a frontier exploration campaign. The frontier that they would be exploring is a land scarred by wild magic due to a battle between gods giants and dragons. They would operate out of a town that is in a safe zone. Does that answer your question?
I saw the golarion map on the thumbnail and came to see the video, nice video!
Geezer here.... After 40 some years the best advice is the same. Let the kittens do it. Listen and take the characters actions and their impacts decide. The player characters are the main characters. Gaming on.
My party was aligned against a company of arms and armor manufacturers. The Lords of Iron. A fight broke out in one of the factories (super duper early industrialization blended with magic) and eventually the whole place went up. They were able to keep the collateral damage to a minimum, but the Lords of Iron were no longer the major employers of that region. First couple of days after the factory was destroyed, the players saw this first hand, and they helped distribute food and water to the city, and tried nudging people into different jobs. It wasn't great, but they were helping, and their presence prevented looting and riots and such. And there were long term ramifications, like preventing the buildup of arms that was to precede a major war.
But after a few days of the factory no longer billowing out smoke and soot? The first clear sunrise the party had seen since they arrived in the region.
It was a symbol, but it was powerful. If players have an impact in an area, always try to show it. The negatives and the positives, even if they are minor things. Even having an NPC speculate out loud that they might have averted or delayed a war helps them see impact. Once the players feel like they have impact, they'll get more invested in places, and that's when the worldbuilding starts to matter to them.
I’ve been waiting for this! Thanks for the video!
Just play with your family so they have to care.
Bold of you to assume that
No way that can go wrong. 👍
never
This
Bahahaha, in my case, that statement can't be farther from the truth.
Thank you for all the content you create!
I evolve my world by considering what factions the players have helped or hindered. I also consider what magic or tech or science has been discovered and how that might affect each faction.
And then I consider how the neighboring faction might react to this faction being influenced. Will they exploit the new weakness, or will they shore up their own defenses. Or maybe they finally reach out a tentative olive branch in an attempt to persuade influence.
"I'll see you on your next visit to... The Lair" (ominously) -your new sign off catch phrase
Thanks Luke, always love your content!
Thank you so much for all this advice. Still got so much to learn, and this is invaluable!
This is super helpful, I'm building out another contonent and this gives me a good outline to work with!
Thanks for the video! Lots of great stuff to consider.
Apocalisse looks awesome, I’ll need to check it out, I also just subscribed because of how helpful this was.
This was just what I needed for my open world game thanks.
This is an excellent video. Good info and good organization. Thanks
great video. Sent it to my friend who is starting to be a DM.
And I found the Kickstarter a few days ago and it is now the first I ever backed. It looks awesome
I've been running a Battletech AU RPG game for over 3 years (110+ sessions!) and world evolution is a huge piece of keeping my players invested. One of the things I can recommend that I didn't see mentioned here was to have SEVERAL items out there that may potentially impact the world and basically only allow the players to choose one. So in context, let's assume three dragons are ravaging the world as a whole. The players may choose to help eliminate the local white dragon, which takes them to level ten. While they're doing this, the locals will become their allies, friends, and compatriots. They may give them access to the rare mineral at the heart of the mountain.
Meanwhile though... the green dragon devastates shipping lanes, wreaking havoc on the coastlines. The people there are scared and afraid, goods stop flowing from other parts of the world. In the time you took to take the white dragon down, the green dragon has amassed many adherents - even locals now who follow it with a cultish fervor. The blue dragon, while ruling over the massive desert to the south (original, I know), has made a pact with a sphinx and has begun using a local religion to unearth powerful artefacts. The sphinx uses his vanity to guide him for it's own ends. So now the players have another choice - do they go after the green dragon and it's hordes? The blue dragon? What about the sphinx, as an alternate path for the sphinx?
This is exactly how I've allowed the world to form and one other further thing I've done is when players reach a level of supreme power (the system I'm in doesn't use levels so there is a point where they simply become overpowered and bloated) I offer them the opportunity to hang up their character as an NPC, further influencing the world. This gives them real purchase in what's going on, and some direct stake in the future.
Wonderful video! 5 star!
One of the main ways I try to let my players impact my world is by having their actions change the way the world's various factions view them. For instance, in Tier 1 if the party succeeds on a quest for a noble, that noble realizes that they might have potential, and starts sending them on other missions, while in Tier 3 that same noble tries to lean on that relationship with the party in order to take advantage of the party's rise to power. Factions are headed by people, and one of the most important things about people is that they can change, so if a faction sees the party prove their mettle, that might lead them to change their plans, either trying to court the party as an ally or make sure they're out of the way if they're an enemy.
This is super useful as I am about to Tyranny of Dragons and I am currently also running Waterdeep. Both in a homebrew setting. So it will be interesting to see what I need to change for Waterdeep as a result or Tyranny. Outside of NPCS.
Very good and helpful video!😈😈
I have a masterplan for my soon to be world! Maybe an idea for you too if struggling? Simple. Make an alternate reality version of the place where you live!! 1: Less hassle to create maps from the ground up 2: De-modernize and then fantasticize the place, addin fantasy elements. The event that spawned say, a portal to the fantastical version of your surroundings could be a solar flare, hidden surges of different sources, some dimensional science gone haywire etc! I often fantasien about a green and yellow dragons vying for territory of a mountain+berg chain near where I grew up. I imagined darkish cave openings high up on the mountains, back in 1997 when was hooked on Heroes of Might & Magic 😁
I did this with the game I run for my son's. They are learning regional geography as we play. And they like knowing the names of places already. And some of the proper names of the places become NPCs they run into. Google maps, screen snip, hex overlay = insta maps.
The _Dresden Files_ TTRPG leads you through creating a city to play in and advises you to make it based on a city you know. Given that it's urban fantasy it works really well. I had quite a lot of fun imagining all the types of supernatural powers that could be hidden in the city I lived in back then.
Great vídeo
FOR THE ALGORITHM!
Great content as always. I admit my structure for campaigns tends to be preset; I have a story to tell and will allow my players to navigate it as they will but with a specific endgame payoff already determined. Part of this is because I keep running games for players brand new to TTRPGs in general, let alone a new specific system. That said, I will take this to heart and develop the setting beyond the Main Story Quest to adapt according to the players' decisions. They'll get to see these changes in higher levels when they return to old stomping grounds to beat the BBEG.
This is so good. I'm going to need to get Laura magazine
your the best DND channel out there by far
In mine they had just reached 4th level and was supposed to locate the missing prince and reestablish the throne with its heir.
Their lack of interest got me to have the city they started within getting destroyed as a result of a ritual that was thought to have failed was merely delayed.
So their kingdom was shifted into a domain of dread for a short period with devastating effect.
Sadly the other DM whose game actually had a far more interesting story was ditched because of his obsession with critical role!
0:28 Evolving your game world based on character decisions
1:21 What impacts are the success and failures on the world
2:26 Scope and impact changes over levels (tiers)
6:11 Tier 1: Local Heroes
7:58 Tier 2: Heroes of the Realm (impacts several cities)
9:41 Tier 3: Masters of the Realm (advisors of main cities)
10:59 Tier 4: Masters of the World (nearly demi-gods, changes will impact generations)
12:49 How to evolve the game world / 10 categories
13:13 1. Political Power
13:25 2. Religious Power
13:40 3. Economy
14:05 4. Social Attitudes
14:33 5. Military
14:59 6. Environment, Climate, Pollution
15:25 7. Underworld, Crime, Gangs
15:51 8. Ecosystem: changes to main predator / prey
16:18 9. Magical
16:45 10. Geography
grandcon!!! I’ll be there :)
I like to place ecological balance in hands of the party: The duke wants the gryffin nest in the Valley destroyed. "For public safety" he says, but more like to bring there his horses heards. Maybe that can grant affordable transports to the Pc. But taking down those superpredators will also grant more space to different ones. The manticore they kept away now expands her territory and targets the local miners, gluttonous of metal as she is...
catch phrase possibility, more like an outro
group shot (all in the same frame) of the cast of classes waving and saying stuff like "bye", "until next time", and such.
Make sire ti say Bacon like you asked for from other videos.
But jokes aside, this has been very helpful! It would be great to see a video on how to make those world and time changes can be done. A guide line could be helpful to more than just me, a new DM.
I was just wondering with your recent time learning PF2e with Ronald and several prominent D&D youtubers if Lair Magazine will start reflecting your new found respect and fondness of that ruleset. I recently divorced myself from 5e for nearly all the reasons you cited with Ronald. I don't have the funds to "patreon" any of my favorite TTRPG youtubers unfortunately but would serious consider purchasing Lair from your store if PF2e was given fair space in the magazine. Thank you!
I unfortunately don't have a group to play with:(
However, I have created 6 different lvl 1 characters in case I found a group.
Anyhow, 1 of those characters is an Astral Elf Anthropologist background Female Paladin (planning Oath of Conquest). Part of her desires are to create a new Queendom on the Mortal/Material Plane and a new Pantheon primarily based off Lost/Dead/Weakened Deities such as Garagos. As such she creates: Societal Change, Religious Change, and Political Change all at once:)
My players recently destroyed a magical flying college by crashing it into the city that held the power of the country. The leader has a hatred for fey and spun the story into the fey attacking the college and disrupting the magic to purposely crash it into the city.
Long story short the just sent the country into war with the fey :)
I noticed my players enjoy rumors or gossip from npcs as well. I can do a bit of lore and come up with interesting character interactions, especially if their being lied to.
I had the end of my last homebrew world campaign result in multiple insurrections and, specifically, a fight between heirs for the crown of one of the realms in that world. This was in part due to the actions of the players, even though they 'saved' the world from an evil entity trying to return after centuries of lying dormant. It has led to numerous new ideas for campaigns and I heartily recommend making your world dynamic. The party is a mere level 6 but has left so much in their wake, I was able to use some of it in a separate adventure with another group in the same world.
Great video. Just throwing this out there, but you can't make anyone care. You can make your world the most interesting place, but it has to appeal to the players. My players don't care about the world, they care about their character's story, and not much else.
I like how your barbarian guy character is super nerdy.
I have a catchphrase for the end, bring on the bacon!!
wasnt there a rutabaga phase too? (among other things)
@Oroku Saki I don't recall that, but that would be fun lol
@@rowdyparks6770 was when he was teasing the algorithm 😆 trying to make odd words trend
The apocalisse is here!
Good points
My party are known throughout the world.
for the algorithm. Good stuff here.
This video has prompted several ideas for after my players complete Skyreach Castle from HotDQ. My higher ranking cultists are predominantly Dragonborne or half-dragon. How will the political elites and populace at-large react to the “hidden threat” represented by their dragon-type neighbors?
In my waterdeep dragonheist game my players wanted "quests" to earn gold, but i had to come up with something. So i decided to give the paladin a ping from a holy statue burried in a ruin nearby waterdeep where cultist try to summon a demon. I urged them for 3 ingame days to go there. After 3 days, when they reached the ruins, the cultist are already summoning something by killing themselves in a stonecircle... My players watched them and giggled. 9 Cultists shouting in a uncomprehensable language maniacly. After the 4th of 9 cultist sacrificed themselves, the ruins began shaking and rumbling. Now they realized what was happening and tried to prevent them from killing each other. The cultists stabbed each other and only one cultist was killed outside of the circle... Our warlock went to the circle to offer his blood too (XD). I went overboard and thought 8 out of 9 cultists successfully died in the circle + warlock blood, so a Devourer would be perfectly horrifying. 3 of 4 players, which all are level 2, ran away. The warlock died on the spot (Pact of undying), got revived by his patreon the Shadow King who prevented him from dying. The devourer chases after the other 3 but didnt reach them anymore. The statue pinged the paladin again and said: "atleast give notice to the mages and to the Watch in waterdeep, that evil is coming" - which they ignored. In the coming night the Devourer attacked a sidegate of waterdeep and killed alot of people - but got slayn by the Cities Heroes after half an hour.
In 3 days is the grand opening of the players newly renovated Trollskull Manor. So i made the zombies rise at the 3rd Day. Zombies flooded from the graveyard and the Priests and Paladins of waterdeep have a little to much to do to keep them in check.
Their first guest in the newly openned Manor was a Zombie :D and 80 Zombies followed. My playeres killed them all with help of 11 guards (xD i dont know how but they did it) . So now they get honored by the Watch and the Mages for defending waterdeep. One single soul saw them get chased by the devourer - and he will talk. The watch will get them to confess in front of the King what happened and then i decide what to do with them.. Maybe jail or ban them from waterdeep, or they convince him otherwise. The devourer only got sent back to his demiplane, so he will come back for revenge.
How do i turn this disaster into "my players are invested now" 🥲
man if the world changes with my actions I'm gonna solve world hunger so fast plant growth shall be such a powerful influence on the world
"And until next time, I've been DMing since high school"
👍
As much as I want to use Golarion as my setting of choice, I'm scared that this choice would limit my ability to introduce world changing events and how that would lead to dissonance with the pregen adventures out there.
Just remember it's YOUR Golarian each time you start up a new campaign. Don't be afraid to shake things up
Well... Me and my friends stopped carring about our DM NPC's after he always killed them couple of sessions after introduction.
Most funny part is that its done outside the screen or in a way that we can't do anything to save them. So... yea.
Also funny take. Our party stopped bad ritual. Thanks to our sucess the good guys army's camp was anihilated,
2 npc unreleated to all of this died "outside the screen" and 2 other are in "undead state" bc of some bug inside of them.
DM made those bugs bc we have Life Cleric in the team, that can't remove curses, cure disease bc DM always do this in the way for him to be unable to.
So yea our Cleric feels usless.
To be fair, life clerics are brutal to dm for.
@@archersfriend5900
In what way they are brutal?
@Delta Life clerics are such overwhelming healers. If there is a life cleric in the party, combat is meaningless until the life cleric goes down. It's throwing super extra healing onto superheros, when the badguys do not scale adequately.
In my campaign the artificer's guild had invented a mousetrap whic would put the fighter's guild out of business (since 1st level adventures are all about killing rats). When the party failed to kill the invention there were mass layoffs in the fighter's guild, causing more bandits, and others who took advantage of the poor unemployed former fighters.
its "levi oh SAH!"
What is a levy othin?
This should be under basic TTRPG. This shouldn't be a finally thing but something GMs begin running games with this skill. The FINALLY title makes it seem as if you can get pretty far into GMing without doing that and I'm not sure you can. If the characters face no rewards or consequences for their actions then why are they playing? This should be rule number 2 behind what system you're using.
My players have spent so much time in the Temple of Elemental Evil that most of the settlements they met assumed they are dead lol
LOL!
Lol. I’m literally writing this comment just for the algorithm, while eating bacon.
Yo!
Hmm... You're not wrong. As an example, Age Of Wonders 1 gives you some narrative control on the world. It does make me care.
However when I try to read the history (in the instruction book) I grow so rapidly bored. Even with lines like "they found the Trump of the Dead, and threaten to blow it!". I worry they needed more name drops. The only named characters are one small family of elves.
You have to understand your players' playstyles before deciding on how to evolve the world. If you’re players are fast-paced, time-jumping, globe-trotters, but you are a slow-burn, bread-crumb-revealing GM, there's going to be a disconnect and not many players are going to wait around for something to happen to their characters or be as involved.
The 5th tier of play:
Masters of the Universe
So, He-Man. 😂
Regarding your end of video ask; something to do with dragon lairs. 🤷♂️
🤔
Comment for the algorithm.
All hail the algorithm.
😭
DM lair, would you be open to us "unwashed masses" to pitch our ideas about our campaign and get a critique from you? I have used a premade, store bought campaign and modified it. ( because I thought it really needed it and makes sense to me ) and it gave me a chance to get my creative ya ya's expressed. Or perhaps a person who plays and is not playing in my campaign? Any suggestions? Anyone?
Okay video, but this isn't about getting players to care. This is about fame, reputation, infamy, player influence, consequences of actions, cause and effect on the broader world and world events, and how the NPCs care about or regard the players, not the other way around. The video even leads to "How to evolve the game world."
This is fine, but I wanted help getting players to care about the world and issues.
I don't understand why people always associate the 4 horsemen with demons. They were the harbingers from heaven. The first 4 of the 7 seals of the apocalypse.
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Once my players get to it in the line of campaigns i have, my players will work to uncover a darkness seeping into a religion they've known about for a while. They'll discover that the holy city that is the capital of this religion is quietly suffering as the very light they live under is corrupted. The players will investigate the high clergy of the church, and eventually will be allowed to witness their god himself, a gargantuan, radiant element archdragon named Zadkiel, Zenith of Radiance. An extremely proud and arrogant being who let man worship him. Eventually the players will discover that the dragon has made a pact with a being of shadow that has been foreshadowed throughout the campaigns, and has been going through a slow metamorphosis. His light shed on his believers, his clergy, paladins and clerics have been suffering due to this corruption from their god himself and it is up to my players to defeat him. During the final stage of his metamorphosis they will face his Radiant form, a battle against brilliance itself, and then when complete, he turns to Zaphkiel, Darklight Eminence, for a challenging hybrid damage boss fight. This dragon during the fight will actually fire particle beam breath weapons at his own followers down below in the city to make a point that he no longer considers them worthy of his new brilliant light. So the consequences would be the fall of an entire religion, the destruction of an entire holy city, and the slaying of a god. Depending on if the players worked with the church or just barged in to take agency, the church might label them heretics for all time for slaying their god, sending zealots to assassinate them at every turn. They could even fail to defeat Zaphkiel, who wipes the holy city off the map and officially joins forces with the bbeg as one of his generals.
I agree with everything you say except you inflammatory statements about bacon.
Just kidding, you would never say anything mean about bacon, right? RIGHT!?
Here's the most effective way to make your players care about something that isn't "Their Character" This applies to the world, the NPCs, or anything that is going on around them. It applies to any game or setting. If your players don't engage with things other than what is right in front of them.
*Give them a stake in that thing, then threaten to/take that thing away from them*
If they don't respond to that, then they probably only want to play out THEIR character's backstory plot, and you are screwed.
Just the first two sentences... looking at you critical role...
I wish your stuff was cheeper.