Quote from: BedrockBrendan;856836Also prep like that can come into play down the road. If I have the time and interest in working on something, then I will happily do so. Sometimes it is stuff that will directly affect play, sometimes it never comes up, sometimes it comes up later on either directly or just as background. It almost always helps contribute a sense of depth to the setting. Even if the players don't see the material itself, somehow for me as a GM, knowing about it, helps me visualize the setting as a more complete thing. This ultimately helps me with stuff like ad libbing and managing unexpected events on the fly.

Indeed.
Started this a while back.  

Do the same thing with the timelines.  It is so helpful in the framework building , in terms of, as you said, seeing it as a complete thing.  I have a session tonight where the PCs are in a basement of a castle and finding items and ruins from a separate area history, but one that they know, as there was a three way partnership that I created years and years ago that the PCs only partially found out about.  now they get to add onto it, since I have all the stuff that puts it together.

There's the matter of purpose. I'm not making up stuff so I can tell my friends, "Oh, this and that happened in my imagination alone, and it would have been a great adventure, but you missed it."

At least Robilar -- one player more than zero -- had some fun in the Temple of Elemental Evil, but Gary apparently had intended it to be fun for a lot of other players.

If none of the players have encountered it, then the sign reading 'Child Run', the rumor of treasure in Hoak, etc., might as well still be the way to the same interesting situation.

I will add that if you use the same setting for your campaigns over a long enough time the situation is no different than the referee who preps a lot of detail for a single campaign.

So the issues of what the players see and don't see are going to have to handled by a referee at some point regardless. This observation doesn't mean that you have to do at all upfront. Different people think differently; one referee works better if it build up incrementally over time. Another will want a framework already built to help him. Regardless of the approach after X years both style wind up in the same place if the same setting is used again over many campaigns and many groups.

Quote from: Phillip;856837"Generally it matters very much WHERE the PCs go but not at all WHEN they go there."

If that's how it is in your neighborhood, might it be at least in part because generally "the PCs" are a monolithic group? What's over the event horizon to one is so to all, effectively just the GM playing with himself?

This is one of those things that's much less an issue when you have the kind of multi-player, multi-character, multi-axis game originally played.

This.  This this this this this this this.

When Robilar is 12th level, Erac and Tenser are 8th level, and Gronan is 5th level, you're going to be covering a LOT of different ground.

Also, Rob loved city politics and intrigue, Ernie wanted loot and magic, and I wanted to explore and be heroic.  Likewise, this gives you a lot of different things going on.

Quote from: estar;856852I will add that if you use the same setting for your campaigns over a long enough time the situation is no different than the referee who preps a lot of detail for a single campaign.

So the issues of what the players see and don't see are going to have to handled by a referee at some point regardless. This observation doesn't mean that you have to do at all upfront. Different people think differently; one referee works better if it build up incrementally over time. Another will want a framework already built to help him. Regardless of the approach after X years both style wind up in the same place if the same setting is used again over many campaigns and many groups.

My current Wilderlands/Altanis campaign has about five years of relevant play behind it now (from past campaigns in same/nearby areas - the current one started 2015), it definitely means there's a lot of detail, but I think it's a bit different sort of detail from what pre-designed stuff would look like.

Rather than building a timeline, I think it's better to just give major NPC and factions strong motivations at the start. Decide what they are doing now. During a session, look for ways they might react to the PCs actions if they are helping or hindering them in some way, or simply making a lot of noise.

Between sessions, go back and revise what NPCs are up to. Maybe even revise their motivations based on events of the last session. Look for ways that NPC can be interacting with each other as well.

It's basically building a timeline, but doing it only a week ahead, so you don't limit yourself.

Quote from: Baulderstone;857015Rather than building a timeline, I think it's better to just give major NPC and factions strong motivations at the start. Decide what they are doing now. During a session, look for ways they might react to the PCs actions if they are helping or hindering them in some way, or simply making a lot of noise.

Between sessions, go back and revise what NPCs are up to. Maybe even revise their motivations based on events of the last session. Look for ways that NPC can be interacting with each other as well.

It's basically building a timeline, but doing it only a week ahead, so you don't limit yourself.

I think this works really well. Usually I do timelines for things that haven't been directly involved in sessions (so maybe events in a neighboring kingdom). With any timeline, there is a danger of being enslaved to it. If you plan a year in advance, a lot could happen that might change those events. Generally I do my timelines month to month. So I do what you say with my npcs, but I roll for "big events and historical turning points" on a table each month. Historical turning points are rare though on the tables, so they don't usually come up. Mostly it is stuff like, the emergence of a new social ill somewhere, a city being rampaged by soldiers or a monster, or the spread of a new form of entertainment.

Agree that knowing an NPCs motives and goals is key. That pretty much gives you what you need to play out things. Sometimes though I do need to consruct a likely timeline in my campaign calendar. For example if I have an NPC putting several pieces of a plan into motion, I find it handy to jot down when and where those things develop.

Quote from: Baulderstone;857015It's basically building a timeline, but doing it only a week ahead, so you don't limit yourself.

There is nothing magical about a week, month, year, centuries, or spur of the moment. Your initial advice is sound however my recommend do what is needed and what your interest allows no more or no less.

The big issue in my view is that World in Motion has a steep learning curve. Experience counts by at least an order of magnitude. The trick is for those of who are experienced to explain things in a way so that a novice benefits.

Putting hard limits like a "week" doesn't address issues facing the novice sandbox referee. What I found more useful is to advice come up with three or five bullet points about each locale and NPCs. Try confining yourself within a constrained environment at first and have no more than a dozen elements (NPCS, locales, factions, etc) at first. A dungeon is great for this. Figure out how they interconnect, figure out their near future if no PCs were around.

Anything that germane if it involves how the locales are presented or how the NPC behave.

To fill in gaps, develop a Bag of Stuff. A set of generic templates in your head that you can extrapolate quickly consistent detail for when the party does something unexpected. For example I have an image of how the average peasant hut looks in the Majestic Wilderlands and along with a handful of options that I apply to make a hut in Viridistan different than a hut in City-State.

Luckily there is minimal learning curve to this as our culture is bathed in fantasy and heroic tropes. The key is not to think of how something ought to be at first but how you think it is. Whatever stereotype or image that in your head right now about what a peasant hut looks like is the correct one. Then later as you have gained more experience and more comfortable with juggling the management of a sandbox campaign then think about how things ought to be.

The same applies to World in Motion. When starting out use the first thing you  think about how an NPC should act. The only hard and fast rule is to be honest with yourself and be willing to change your conceptions in light of your player's reactions.

As for making Astrology important, I tried a bit of that for my retake on Maztica (in the Development forum). However I wanted to focus on the At-Play aspect first, so Astrology was more of a worship modifier for when making talismans. And Astrology as a Priest Non-Weapon Proficiency was integrated as a skill that interlocked with the Warrior and Rogue advantages, so all the classes needed each other.

Basically the cosmology was tied to alignment (canon), which was tied to astrology (non-canon), which was tied to cyclical nature of the world (sorta canon), which was tied to the cultural tension of proselytizing expansion and occult mysteries (non-canon).

TL;DR To make more magic goodies, one had to play up one's part of society. That means giving deference to the cyclical nature of the gods' power on the True World, which was read in astrology.
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If I were to go further about Astrology, besides selling a variety of calendars and trading favors among professionals, I would sprinkle in major events. Since Maztican magic lacked much divination I would defer that to astrology as well. Could be a hoot having PCs buy horoscopes before adventures and try to scry divine meaning from it.

Kindred of the East tried to tap heavily into occult, astrology, and horoscopes if I remember correctly. Dragonlance "Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home" had quite a bit about their complex astrology, but I don't remember them doing as much gamewise with it. I'd have to double check my collection who else dabbles in astrology as a game thing.

Quote from: estar;856852I will add that if you use the same setting for your campaigns over a long enough time the situation is no different than the referee who preps a lot of detail for a single campaign.

So the issues of what the players see and don't see are going to have to handled by a referee at some point regardless. This observation doesn't mean that you have to do at all upfront. Different people think differently; one referee works better if it build up incrementally over time. Another will want a framework already built to help him. Regardless of the approach after X years both style wind up in the same place if the same setting is used again over many campaigns and many groups.

Plus, it's easy to come up with new adventuring hooks; simply drop the new group in the aftermath of whatever the previous group did.

Quote from: Cave Bear;857077Plus, it's easy to come up with new adventuring hooks; simply drop the new group in the aftermath of whatever the previous group did.

Works best when the old group screwed up really badly.

Quote from: Baulderstone;857015Rather than building a timeline, I think it's better to just give major NPC and factions strong motivations at the start. Decide what they are doing now. During a session, look for ways they might react to the PCs actions if they are helping or hindering them in some way, or simply making a lot of noise.

Between sessions, go back and revise what NPCs are up to. Maybe even revise their motivations based on events of the last session. Look for ways that NPC can be interacting with each other as well.

It's basically building a timeline, but doing it only a week ahead, so you don't limit yourself.

Arg.
I don't mind the ideas, and hey, factional goals and plans are always a great way to start, but interactions need to be better understood from a large perspective.  

National/political level stuff moves at a different pace.  And to keep things consistent, a lot of it has to be mapped, at least in pencil, further in advance.    I mean, travel is a *little* faster in my world on average than many earlier historical periods, but in general, it takes time, as does much communication.  And this slows events.  Money, also, does not move as fast, which affects larger events.  
Much of my more powerful magics take days or weeks to cast, spell ability comes back slower in our games, and some of the more powerful adversaries are involved in searches for legendary items.  And sometimes they wait for times when the sphere's are in more advantageous positions to cast a spell.

I have to plot these moving parts on the future calendars as well.  The future timeline is critical for me as a GM, in keeping a logical, consistent, and Present-to-the-players framework.

Quote from: LordVreeg;857148I don't mind the ideas, and hey, factional goals and plans are always a great way to start, but interactions need to be better understood from a large perspective.

"This is happening" vs. "this will happen" is less a matter of a smaller perspective than it is of a different one.

Quote from: LordVreeg;857148National/political level stuff moves at a different pace.  And to keep things consistent, a lot of it has to be mapped, at least in pencil, further in advance.

Not really, no.

I make note that "the ambassador left today to negotiate with FarAwaynia", then track his progress until he arrives, then randomly determine the course of the talks as they take place until an accord is reached three months later.  You instead write a future timeline which says "in three months, this treaty will be signed" and then, presumably, backfill the in-process events which lead up to it.  The events end up progressing at the same rate either way.  Both of our players' characters can go to visit the ambassador during those three months and be told that he's on a mission to FarAwaynia.  It's the same end result either way.  The only difference is in how you get there.

Well, ok, that's not quite true.  I feel that my way allows more opportunity for things to be derailed in ways that surprise me, because I insert random factors at every step along the way, which I assume you probably don't.  In the above example, when the ambassador sets out, I don't know exactly how long things will take, whether he'll arrive safely, how the negotiations will turn out, etc., even if no player-driven events interfere.  And that's one of the main things I like about my way over writing a future timeline.  (There's also the possibility that the ambassador's mission could be helped or hindered directly or indirectly by PC actions, but I assume you adjust your future timeline to account for that sort of thing, particularly since you mentioned the timeline being written "in pencil".)

Sorry, I noted the term, "A week ahead", and took it as that.

QuoteIt's basically building a timeline, but doing it only a week ahead, so you don't limit yourself.

I never let this limit me.  But then again, I spend a lot of time working on my timelines and story arcs.    I do have random events charts, actually, but I also   have long term arcs that work above smaller ones that need to be congruent.  There are cogs within cogs within cogs, and while I let random rolls affect the peripheral, the stuff that works with the main arcs has to still fit logically.  

Your ambassador is connected to many people and many groups, and I think I tend more than most to include those interconnections. But I think my detail orientation suits my style of game much more than it would help many other styles.

Great thread. I've been researching tools that will let you run a World-In-Motion/"Living" Campaign more easily, allowing you to track and update these character and location details on the fly. I think I found one that will work wonderfully: TiddlyMap (http://tiddlymap.org)

This is an "edition" of another tool called TiddlyWiki. TiddlyWiki is a "Wiki in a single HTML file". It's meant to be a "local HTML application", not a hosted-website (although you can make that work also). It allows you to create arbitrary small-blocks-of-data (called "tiddlers"), and link them to each other, generate lists, show one block of data in another Tiddler, etc. Really flexible.

TiddlyMap adds on a "concept map" plugin that takes all your cross-linked Wiki content, and shows it as a node-and-line concept-map, much like I manually created in my old "Extracting Semantic Content From Classic Modules" thread. TiddlyWiki also has "ToDo List" functionality that works with TiddlyMap, which I think can be used to map out future timelines (even with branching paths) and have a visual map to reference when you need to.

See this demo map: http://tiddlymap.org/#TaskManagementExample%202.0

Right now I'm considering re-doing that Hommlet project with TiddlyMap. I'm also learning how to code plugin "Widgets" that would allow me to create custom Character Sheets for say, Earthdawn or D&D. I just have to get the data-model nailed down first.