Nothing takes a TTRPG player out of the game like wondering what the GM 'wants them to do'. Knowing the players were most interested in roleplaying their characters in an immersive story, I designed Investigators Inc. as an open world game to give them the greatest freedom. Here are some of the strategies I employed:
1. Mystery
Mystery lends itself to open world gameplay. The driving force behind both character and player choices tends to be curiosity. I approach the action of Investigators Inc. - from the macro to the micro - so that anywhere you look there's always more to learn or at least something fun and exciting to discover.
2. Everything Connects
To keep this exponential method of worldbuilding from becoming tangled, overwhelming, and eventually uncompelling it has to connect...
- to the overall plot,
- to the character,
- or to the player.
Ideally, all three at once!
From a player perspective the game is open world and immersive. From a narrative perspective they can only move closer to the center, no matter the path they choose.
This pacing of information also serves to keep the game itself fresh and gives a feeling of progress for the PCs. They start with little information and track down leads as they're uncovered. Once the players reach the core mystery, they know all of the paths that connect to it and can now choose which to focus on at a time.
3. Build from the PCs Outward
All of the players in the campaign explicitly dislike
the 'chosen one' trope. With that in mind, I still needed to find ways to connect the PCs to the core plot on a personal level without
it feeling contrived. I created the world around them, so that they could organically stumble upon clues just by exploring. I created neighbourhoods, institutions, and hidden villains all interwoven with the mundane aspects of their day-to-day.
4. Adaptability
Since the players can go in any direction at any time, I've had to create a system of clues, prompts, and encounters that can adapt to wherever they are in level and narrative at any time. Some key clues can be found in a wide variety of locations. The localized villains are each a path to discovering the rest, since they work together. Depending on which neighborhood of the city the PCs explore in depth, they'll find a different villain and their particular section of the overall mystery.
There are also a few long term quests that are inaccessible to the players until they reach certain milestones. Those I've kept locked off only because they'll be stronger story beats after a certain amount of narrative stakes have been established.
With my tools in place, I was able to fill in the world with Gameplay and Story.