How do you create a world where players can take on both episodic 1-2 session adventures or full campaigns in a way that makes it feel like their decisions matter? Or that the world is alive and changing with them? These are questions I have been exploring for Bug & Claw.

One of the ways I have been exploring this is with the world map and the way locations are denoted.

If each location has stats similar to a character, those stats can be adjusted as necessary.

Stats like the following can be tracked:

1. Infection level
2. Resonance level
3. Social standing
4. Economy or settlement level

These can, of course, be short-form, with full settlement sheets for the main places characters visit being incorporated into the Weaver's materials.

An example where no settlements have been visited:

Example where settlements have been visited:

Other methods I'm exploring:

Map-level

• Shape and colour of map markers
• Adding new locations
• Removing locations
• Roadblocks
• Patrols and wandering monsters
• Terrain changes
• Flavour changes to a location's sheet
• Rule changes to a location's sheet
• New random item/market availability
• New random quest availability
• Instructing players to disfigure infected areas
• Revealing of areas previously obscured by infection

Game-level

• Overarching rule changes
• New ancestral order unlocks
• Altering random event tables
• Random event table swaps
• Random item table swaps

The majority of the way I can feasibly think of doing these other methods is with stickers or digitally, which is part of why I'm only focusing on them for later.