World Without Players
World Without Players is an always-on fantasy world simulator that advances in real time and records what happens. There are no protagonists, no input, and no reset. The system runs continuously, and the world accumulates history whether anyone is watching or not.
The project is inspired by BECMI-era abstractions, but it is not an attempt to emulate rules or reproduce play. Its focus is emergence: what kinds of stories appear when time, geography, weather, economy, and conflict are allowed to interact without direction. Events occur because something caused them. Consequences persist.
Time in the world is tied to the wall clock. Minutes, hours, days, and seasons unlock different behaviors: travel unfolds, settlements change mood, factions act, festivals arrive, storms pass. Delays matter. Absences matter. The calendar exerts pressure even when nothing dramatic happens.
The simulated region is finite and structured. Hexes contain roads, wilderness, towns, and dungeons. Trade routes move goods. Dungeons are depleted as they are explored. Settlements remember violence, prosperity, and loss. Nothing returns to a neutral state.
Characters exist independently of observation. NPCs are generated with traits, motivations, relationships, and histories, and those attributes collide over time. Adventuring parties pursue rumors, gain fame, suffer wounds, and disappear. Antagonists act on their own schedules, shaping territory and provoking response.
The system enforces causality through queued consequences. Fights produce rumors. Losses trigger retaliation. Discoveries attract rivals. Significant events spawn story threads—hunts, feuds, mysteries, rises and falls—that progress, stall, or collapse depending on what follows.
What the project produces is not a narrative, but a record. Events are written as logs: structured enough to be reproducible, expressive enough to read as a chronicle. The language is atmospheric, partial, and local. No voice sees the whole world at once.
World Without Players treats time as the primary medium. It’s a game that plays itself, and a world that continues without permission. Watching is optional. https://github.com/mbutler/fantasy-log