The Momentum Of Breadcrumbs
There are ways of imparting dynamic life to a background and to characters that are hard work and ways that are easy. This is one of the easy ways.

It’s not easy finding pictures with an animated background set against a static foreground, but this one qualifies. Image by Sergei Gussev courtesy Wikimedia Commons and used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

I made the time-out logo from two images in combination: The relaxing man photo is by Frauke Riether and the clock face (which was used as inspiration for the text rendering) Image was provided by OpenClipart-Vectors, both sourced from Pixabay.
This is the latest in my series of time-out posts in between the Trade In Fantasy series.
I’m concurrently reading two books right now:
- Dr Who The Handbook: The Third Doctor (The Jon Pertwee Years 1970-1974) by David J Howe & Stephen James Walker; and
- The [Dr Who] Discontinuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping.
(links are top Amazon, I get a small commission if you buy).
Between them, they make one good reference book for the period they overlap. The first one is basically a detailed synopsis of the episodes broadcast in the years in question by the BBC, plus a couple of reviews of each plotline.
The Second has lists of production goofs, snatches of dialogue both prosaic and peerless, analysis of continuity flaws and logic holes, and so on. They will even sometimes correct one another, inadvertently giving you the full picture.
The first only covers the four production years in question, and it’s the only one in what is clearly a series of such books that I own. The second covers the entirety of the classic run of Doctor Who from the first season right through to the end of the 26th, so I had plenty of time to see what it was like as a standalone work. If you knew the episode in question, all well and good – but if not, you lacked essential context in which to place the detailed information being provided. What’s missing from the second book is a short episode synopsis. Even a few lines, the length of each of the other subsections devoted to a story-line, would make a huge difference.
Context matters.
So I’m reveling in the multi-page synopses provided by the first, for as long as they last. When they end, I may have to presage each entry by looking up the Wikipedia entry for the episode, if there is one.
In the middle of the discussion of the 6-part adventure The Green Death, the Discontinuity Guide describes the state of politics within the fictional government, showing how this has been dribbled out to viewers a little at a time as it became relevant to the plot in various adventures, combining to tell a slice of history that we experience only as a series of wave-fronts of relevance. An isolated snatch of dialogue here and there links the more substantial pieces together and those substantial pieces place those isolated mentions into context. Together they tell the story of what’s been going on in the background, almost completely unseen by the audience, in exactly the same way that the two books combine to make one great reference.
As soon as I read this summary, I saw the parallels, and it immediately got me to thinking about imparting dynamics to what are often extremely static backgrounds in RPGs.
The Creation Process
This consists of three simple steps.
- One should be a consequence of a PC action. Since the first adventure (presumably) hasn’t happened yet, this may have to be anticipated. Be careful NOT to monkey with player/character agency, pick something that will happen regardless of PC choices.
- One should be political
- One should be social or sporting
- A fourth list should be just a list of random stuff happening. You probably want this list to be twice as long as any of the others, maybe more. Half of it will be trivial in nature, much of what’s left will be gossip or rumor.
Step 1: Three Stories plus stuff that just happens
You start by developing three background stories, typically quite different in tone.
Step 2: Soundbite Sequencing
Break each of the first three “plotlines” into soundbites one sentence long, one to a line (and leave a half-inch or so of empty space before and a quarter-inch after). Between all four, aim to have two soundbites per anticipated game session in the campaign – and allow a bit of margin, because everyone always underestimates how many game sessions any given adventure will last, especially at this early point.
You want to tell the story arc of what happens in a set of lists of such soundbites, one per story.
Don’t be afraid to throw in the occasional random development out of the blue – such things happen in real life. And don’t be afraid to upset the status quo – but try to leave yourself a pathway back to something resembling the status quo over the medium-to-long-term.
Step 3: Calendar Notation
Before each soundbite, list a minimum number of in-game days before the next development in that story. In some cases, you may also need to note a maximum number of in-game days. I would do so by separating the two numbers with a slash (“/”), knowing that if there’s just one number on it’s own, that’s a minimum.
No minimum should be less than 1. And, to be realistic, no maximum should be more than 30 – if you have an event with a maximum higher than that, you need to insert one or two unrelated developments just to keep the story-line ticking over.
To ensure there’s room for those (and for any notes that the GM wants to make about reactions of the PCs), I would actually leave a blank line between soundbites if documenting them longhand. But, since I’d probably use a text file, I can insert lines as necessary, so that’s not an issue.
Choice Of Text Editor
Choice of text editor is probably worth considering. I use Kate for most of my text editing because (1) it’s free, (2) it works on almost every system – I’m not sure about Apple hardware, though; and (3) it has a number of useful tricks up its sleeve, one of which is aligned indents.
Here’s a quick screenshot to explain the relevant program features.
1 – the name of the current document. “Untitled” is the default, changed to the filename when you save it.
2. Shows that the left-hand tab contains the document “untitled”.
3. Shows that the right-hand tab has the working draft of this article.
4. The blue underline means that this is the tab whose contents are shown in the window below.
5. The lack of underline means that this tab’s contents are not currently shown. You can split the view to look at multiple documents at the same time, or even two different positions within the same document at the same time, which can be incredibly useful.
6. These icons – and the asterisk in (1) – indicate that there have been unsaved changes made. Always double-check this before closing the program or a tab.
7. The left hand wall of the text area, to which text will naturally align.
8. The cursor (flashing when you are able to actually edit / add text).
9. The current position of the cursor.
10. This is what happens when I hit the “Tab” button – “soft” means “add spaces, not a tab marker”, the “4” indicates how many, and the Insert means ‘don’t type over the top of existing text’. Note that the ‘soft tab’ still behaves like a tab at times – “shift tab” removes one, for example – but at other times, it’s four spaces, which can be individually deleted.
11. A paragraph of text, most of it nonsense words, automatically left-justified and aligned with the left-hand wall of the text area, as you would expect.
12. If I hit tab and then write a second paragraph – again, mostly nonsense – second and subsequent lines of the paragraph are aligned with the position indented 4 spaces from the left.
13. If I hit tab again and then enter a third paragraph, the alignment of text again shifts four spaces to the right.
14. Although it’s almost impossible to see, there is also a right-hand wall to the text area. I’ve added some green dots and a darkened enlargement to make it more visible. Any text that goes over this line wraps around to the next line of the paragraph, behavior you can turn on or off with F10.
15. Finally, there’s a document thumbnail panel to help you navigate. An Orange bar on the left shows where lines of text are that have been changed since the document was last saved; when you save it, these turn an aqua color. Everything that is displayed in the main text window is shaded so that in a much longer document, you can see where you’re at.
To the right are two more preview areas from different documents. The one on the left is from the draft text of this article as it was before I started writing this paragraph; the one to the right of it is the text document containing the last 4 entries in the Trade In Fantasy series, with the cursor on the last (and 24087th) line. The regular patterns that you can see are the effects of the HTML-coding of tables, and I make it a habit to put lots of white space (more than a screenful, in fact) in between different posts, creating a visual border between them. It’s important to note that paragraphs in the preview panel are never wrapped, they are a single line – as you can see in the example above.
So, why is this so useful in this context?
I can put the soundbites aligned left, with a gap to separate the different plot arcs. If I need additional commentary or notes, I can indent them. If I then need to note PC actions or reactions, I can indent those a second time. A single blank line at the bottom of each trio of lines to visually separate them and I can see where each is at with a glance.
It has other purposes as well, but that’s what’s relevant to this article.
Delivery
Each time the PCs are somewhere where they can get the news, check the number of days since the last soundbite in that story got ticked off your list. If it’s been long enough, the news contains the next element. If there’s nothing from one of the three main plots, tick off the next item from the fourth list instead (so that there’s always something).
Spend absolutely minimal time on this in-game – it’s a little bit of background color, no more important than the color of the castle bunting. It’s a way to have something for NPCs to talk about, nothing more – or so it seems.
Soft Time
News travels by the fastest available route, but in a Fantasy campaign, that can be pretty slow. Soft Time is time added to an event that represents how long it takes for news of the event to reach the PCs.
Obviously, the closer the PCs are to the scene of the event, the shorter the span of soft time.
Let’s look at a series of events to see how this works.
00 Event A
10 Event B
05 Event C
News of Event A reaches the PCs in the first game session and starts the clock ticking. If there was a minimum time here, it would be relative to one of the other plot arcs, whichever one had the shortest minimum time. The PCs are, at this point, located 3 weeks away from the scene, so the soft time of 21 days has to be taken into account – the actual event happened three weeks ago, on day -21, but word is just reaching the PCs now.
The PCs then go off and have adventure #1. It takes 3 days. As a consequence, they are certain to need to move to the regional capital for Adventure #2, and it’s a week away. In actual fact, the GM plans for Adventure #2 to happen en route, and Adventure #3 will be the one with the next opportunity for the PCs to hear news.
When the PCs set off on their journey, the news of Event A is 4 days old, and they are still 21 soft-time days away from it. Four days is less than the 10 days specified for Event B, so news of it has not yet arrived even though it took place 21-10=11 days ago. At the start of the game session, the GM should provide news of an event from the fourth list.
The PCs have Adventure #2 en route, adding 2 days to their journey (even though it actually consumes 3 or 4 game sessions). 4 + 7 (travel) + 2 = 13 days. But the soft time is reduced by 7 days because they have travelled 7 days closer to the location – from 21 to 14 days.
On day 13, the PCs reach the regional capital. It’s been more than 10 days, but Event B doesn’t happen exactly 10 days after event A – that 10 days is simply how soon it could have happened. But this is the first opportunity the GM has had for the news to reach them (unless he throws in a random encounter with a traveler), so news of Event B has only just reached the capital and it’s all anyone is talking about when the PCs arrive.
Subtracting the new soft time from the current date (Day 13 – 14 days = day -1), we find that Event B actually happened on day -1, a day before the PCs even set off on Adventure #1 – but the news has just caught up with them.
The earliest that Event C can happen is 5 days later, on Day 4 (at the same time as the PCs were just setting off), and the earliest that the PCs can hear about it is on Day 4+14=Day 18.
If Adventure #3 takes three days, that would take the PCs up to Day 17, and word of Event C will not have reached them yet. If it takes five days, that would take the PCs up to Day 19, and it is now possible for Event C to be the new talk of the town. But it didn’t happen 5 days after Event B, the timing says that it actually happened 6 days later.
In reality, the PCs would have passed through any number of small towns along the way, so news of events could have reached them much sooner – if they had stopped to talk with a local.
Events are not occurring in a fixed time interval, news of events is reaching the PCs every time there is an opportunity for them to hear about them, and the actual timing of the events is manipulated to allow for the soft time needed.
The result is that anytime they talk to someone heading away from the scene, or located closer to it, if the minimum time has elapsed, there will be news.
Immediate Impact
The immediate impact is that the game world and the NPCs that inhabit it will seem more vibrant, more real, and better able to interact with the PCs because they will always have something to talk about or react to.
From their personalities, you should be able to invent out of whole cloth how each NPC will react to the latest news. The soundbites are there to stimulate conversation.
If ever discussion of an Event seems to be getting a bit tired or overworked or that Event appears to be gaining significance in the eyes of the players, it’s time to change the subject and pop in a fresh bit of news.
Longer-term impact
As time passes, the players will start to notice the connections between one soundbite of the story and the next. If there are relevant consequences to the Event, they should be experienced by the PCs.
The result is that the players will become aware that the background is dynamic, changing over time – there’s a story unfolding that has nothing to do with them, though it may affect them, and it’s something that they may or may not choose to involve themselves in. If they don’t, it’s just evolution of the setting; it’s not intended to be a plot hook (though you can insert plot hooks into list four anytime you have one).
It’s quite possible, especially early on, that the PCs lack the capability to do anything about a situation even if they are so inclined. Any NPCs who are around should pointedly make the PCs aware of their limitations if they start to get all gung-ho.
More than anything else, the fact that there is always news – it could be one, two, three, or (more rarely) four items – marks the passage of time.
And the passage of time matters, as I pointed out in an early Lesson From The West Wing.
Campaign Interactivity
The players (courtesy of plot arc 1) will eventually notice dominoes falling in the background as a consequence of their actions.
This immediately makes them and their characters feel connected to the game world and lends gravitas to their decisions, because their may be consequences and they may be held to account for mistakes they make.
So they should (will?) tend to sharpen up and pay a bit more attention to what they are doing and what you are saying as GM – because there’s nothing worse than completely stuffing something up because you misheard a vital part of the GM’s briefing.
Intervention
At any point, the players may decide to intervene, to involve themselves. Your prepared plot arc will almost immediately go off the rails when they do so; that’s fine. The players have made the call to involve themselves in something more significant than another random dungeon.
They are Engaging with the plot.
You will have to create an adventure in which they make their attempt to intervene – you will need to expand on your plans to accommodate that intervention, or even rewrite them completely.
The results should be drama-filled and exciting, whether that’s what you had planned or not – and there should be a complication for the plot arc; these things should have immediate consequences and ramifications.
As soon as you have worked out what the changed plotline is going to be, you need to work up a replacement plot arc and list of news-bites to present in place of the one that has just been whisked onto center stage.
The more directly the PCs are impacted by events, the more likely that are to want to intervene.
You have to make sure that the players know that if their characters aren’t up to the job of dealing with whatever situation they are choosing to meddle in, those already involved will chew them up like dog meat. Use NPCs to sound appropriate warnings, and don’t forget to exaggerate the capabilities of anyone who has a whiff of the legendary or mythical about them – at least in the minds of the NPCs doing the talking. But if they insist, so be it.
Upping The Storytelling Quotient
From time to time, serendipity means that the background events can manifest in a more palpable difference to the course of events in the main plotline. Don’t go out of your way looking for these, but always be on the lookout for them when they present themselves.
For example, something happens that forces the government to spend money. They have some reserves to call on, but replenishing those reserves and funding further action demands an increase in taxes, initially of 10%, and a tithe of 100 GP anytime an object worth 1000 GP or more is bought or sold.
The people the PCs are trying to sell their loot to have to raise the money to pay their tax, so they will drop the price they are offering by 10% and cut 100gp off the top of the result. The magic item that was worth 5,000 GP? It’s now worth 4400 GP.
At the same time, princes on everything that the PCs buy have gone up 10%, plus 100 GP if the price-tag is high enough to trigger the tithe. That suit of fancier-than-usual plate mail that was 3000 GP? It’s now 3,400 GP.
Or, it might be that a curfew has been ordered, or a region placed under martial law, or prayers of thanks (and a donation to the temple of the PCs choice) might be ordered, or all sorts of other possibilities. We won the war, hooray! A day of celebration has been ordered, all businesses to close unless they are of a festive nature (apply for exemptions here by such-and-such a date and time).
Have you ever been in a city that’s home to a team who have just won a major sporting tournament (or progressed further than that team has ever gone before)? A kind of fever sweeps the populace. Decorations and team uniforms and souvenirs… okay, most won’t be able to afford non-mass-produced uniforms, but flags or something symbolic of the team like ribbons? They will be everywhere. And anyone not wearing one will be treated with suspicion and hostility.
Make the Background engage with the PCs, don’t wait for the PCs to engage with the Background – when and how that’s appropriate.
This simple technique can bring a dormant setting to life and make NPCs seem more real and more interesting. Keeping track of the Soft Time can be a bit of a pain, but it’s not all that complicated once you get used to it – and boy, are the results worth the effort.
An example
Summaries:
- Plot Arc 1: The PCs find a treasure
- Plot Arc 2: Political Shenanigans at Court
- Plot Arc 3: The Rounders – the most reviled team in the sport – come from nowhere in a dominant season.
- Plot “Arc” 4: Odds and Sods
Plot Arc 1: The PCs find a treasure (seeded into the loot from Adventure #1). NB: The events in this plot arc are not the primary binding agent of the campaign, they are a second plot thread that combines with or interacts with that narrative, whatever it is to be.
- PCs recover a rare (magical) book in the course of adventure #1. None of them can read the text to know what they have. Identifying the book will require consulting a sage but there are none locally.
- Unknown to the PCs, the book attracts monsters – anything within 1/2 mile per HD will be drawn to it, and will interact with the PCs as they normally would. They will describe it as a compulsion of some sort. Discovering this is the whole of Adventure #2.
- In the regional capital, the book will summon thugs and thieves and cultists and dark priests and black wizards. The sage will put it behind wards to temporarily nullify the effect and ask for a week or two to study and research the tome. He can’t read the writing, either.
- A cult (see above) kidnaps one of the PCs demanding the book be turned over to them. They believe it to be a holy work and a long-lost part of their faith, a lure to trap and kill the Gods. This will be a substantial part of Adventure #4.
- Every Adventure until the book is dealt with will at some point involve contact with a higher-level monster as though they were still carrying the Book.
- One of the most upright and virtuous Temples/Faiths will demand that the tome be handed over to them for destruction. They allege that it’s a Demon forced into this particular form by his superiors and designed to destroy virtue.
- The PCs will discover that the siren call is interdimensional – it just takes longer to affect other-planar creatures.
- The PCs will realize that possession of it has somehow tainted or cursed them. Attempting to get the curse lifted will reveal that it can corrupt the noble and pious, as the virtuous priest they consult about the curse attacks them instead of trying to lift the curse. This will be the focus of an adventure and mean that the PCs cannot trust the faith (see [6] above) to actually destroy it. The Sage will suggest that lifting the curse may require the book to be intact and in their presence, a second reason not to simply hand it over.
- An order of Paladins will decree that failure to turn over the Tome for destruction as demanded (see [6] and [8] above) means that they are being corrupted by it and declare a crusade against them. In addition to [5] above, each adventure will also now involve an encounter with one or more members of this Order.
- The sage completes his analysis but has been driven insane with a lust for power by overexposure to the Book despite his wards. The PCs have to attack and defeat him to acquire his notes. They reveal that both cultists and church are half-right and half-wrong, the book is designed to destroy anyone who possesses it, the creation of a nihilistic demon and bound by the Demon’s own flesh.
- Dealing with the Book has to become the PCs top priority. But they are accused of the murder of the Sage and publicly listed as wanted criminals. It’s unsafe for them to remain anywhere near town as everyone resident there has started to become corrupted by its presence. This will be the focus of their next adventure.
- The PCs have to decide where to go for help in dealing with the Book. They obviously can’t linger anywhere, and they will have to be careful in dealing with authority. They can choose (i) one of the mother Temples in the National Capital, (ii) a rumored Holy Ascetic who wandered into the mountains to pray 30 years ago and has not been seen since, or (iii) directly consulting the God of Knowledge on Plane [x] which means finding a way to reach Plane [x]. Travel to wherever they need to achieve the next step will be their next adventure.
- Whoever they consult has to be forced to help them, unless it’s the God Of Knowledge himself. (i) they will be told of a way to destroy the book – casting it into the mouth of an active volcano which creates a river of fire that feeds into the Styx – in Hades. But that may not lift the Curse. (ii) The ascetic will tell them that their souls have been bound to the book, each of them now has their own page within its covers. Lifting the curse requires those pages (and only those pages) to be removed and the remaining book destroyed as above. He doesn’t trust the PCs to do this, and so attacks them. Nor does he know how the book can be destroyed. (iii) Whoever facilitates their journey to Plane [x] has to be forced to do so. The God Of Knowledge will provide both the answers of (i) and (ii).
- The PCs have to consult a second source to get the rest of what they need to know. Either of the untapped sources can provide the missing puzzle piece (see above)
- Before they can act on the knowledge just acquired, the PCs are attacked by a minor deity, ‘summoned’ by the Book. They can’t defeat an enemy of this power, but they can trick or deceive them or engage them in a battle with some other Deity long enough to flee.
- Before the PCs can sneak into Hades in search of this Volcano, they will need a plan to deal with the Demon Princes / Arch-devils who the Book will compel. Whatever prep they decide to make will be another adventure in its own right.
- AS PART OF THE SAME ADVENTURE, the PCs will be attacked by the Ghosts of the [NPCs] who were the last ones to possess the Tome and who travelled into the wilderness in a vastly remote location and committed suicide to hide it away forever, because they saw no other way to escape it’s taint. NB: These are not ordinary Ghosts, they are closer to intangible semi-Liches or Ringwraiths.
- The PCs sneak into Hades in search of the Volcano and have to deal with a couple of the Demon Princes / Arch-devils as per their plans, above.
- The PCs reach the Volcano only to be attacked by the creator of the book himself, who has acquired enough power by being back in Hades to manifest separately from it. He wants to seize the book from them and teleport it randomly to somewhere on the Prime Material Plane to start the process all over again. The only way to truly defeat him is to destroy the Book, but they will have to hold him off long enough to remove the last [n] pages with text on them, presuming these to be “their” pages. Cliffhanger ending leading to the second part which starts with the Destruction of the book.
- The Book is destroyed but the volcano explodes as a result. The PCs and every resident of Hades not able to survive the wall of lava flowing downstream into the Styx has to flee, too busy to do anything but survive. These all now have a legitimate grievance against the PCs. Part 2 of the plot arc ‘finale’.
- The PCs now need to force someone to remove the curses on the pages. To their horror, they discover that they have torn out one page too many, leaving a seed that will one day regenerate the entire book. Wherever they go for this treatment will be sacked / besieged by displaced residents of Hades seeking revenge. This forces whoever they have approached to set aside their natural enmity toward the PCs (because of the Curse and past events) long enough to relieve the Curse. They will be given a testiment by the High Priest absolving them of blame in the events surrounding the Book.
- The PCs need to attend the King’s Court with the testament in order to get the civil charges against them dismissed. Plays into plot thread #2, below.
- Every adventure thereafter, there is a 1-in-3 chance that a former Resident of Hades will try to destroy the PCs with whatever resources they have on hand.
- Every adventure in which the above does not take place has a 1-in-2 chance that there will be some other spillover / consequences of the (temporary) destruction of Hades that impact the party.
Observations:
1. It can be harder to get started than once you get going.
2. It helps to have an idea going in, even if you remove or replace it. In the above example, I had the first two items and a vague idea about the third. Everything else was a logical consequence of those first two items, and world-building on the fly.
3. This plot is more immersive than it is supposed to be in terms of PC engagement, so it’s not a great example of what today’s article is all about, but it’s too interesting to discard. Whatever the main plotline of the campaign is going to be, it had better be pretty spectacular to keep this in the background!
4. After doing this one with a text editor, I would never attempt to do one with pen and paper – unless I had no other option. I lost count of the number of times something had to get moved up or down the list.
5. I didn’t do the step of setting the timetable because you need all four lists first.
Plot Arc 2: Court Intrigue starting small and growing more epicly melodramatic as it progresses, with a bit of inspiration from Robin Hood (amongst other sources) and a bit of international relations thrown in on the side.
- A report sweeps the Kingdom when it alleges that quality Iron Ore is getting harder to find.
- The Exchequer mints a new Gold Piece, worth the same as the old one but with different images sculpted onto it. But, in a bureaucratic stuff-up, there is a mispelling on the coins; they won’t be able to enter circulation for another month or so.
- The Merchant’s Guild blocks a move by the Blacksmith’s Guild to increase the prices of steel products by forming an alliance of sorts with the Teamster’s Guild. This alliance wants to concentrate and coordinate supply so that ‘essentials’ get supplied first. Those out in the hinterlands will have to find a substitute, accept lower-grade ore, or do without.
- There is a persistent rumor that the King’s Champion, Sir Lesley, has behaved inappropriately with the daughter of the Elvish Ambassador. Both parties deny any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the Elvish Ambassador demands the removal of Sir Lesley from the court. He also sends his daughter back to the Elven Kingdom to remove her from temptation.
- Sir Lesley is exiled to the fortress at Ispley on the Southern Border.
- The Chancellor of the Exchequer increases tax rates 5%.
- The Temples complain about the tax increases, fearing that the lack of reserves will impact donations to the Temples. As a result, many formerly-free services provided by the Temples will now have to attract a charge. This will be a hardship upon the people.
- King Harold orders the Chancellor to justify the tax increases, and if capital is really needed, to look for some other way of raising the necessary revenue.
- The Chancellor promises that the increases are only temporary, but are needed to establish a critical reserve of high-quality iron. This seems to confirm the rumor (see [1] above).
- Positive news sweeps the Kingdom as it is announced that the Queen is with child for the first time. Soon, it is to be hoped, the Kingdom will have an heir!
- The Elvish Ambassador advises the Court that Orcs have overrun the Dwarven stronghold at Kuzad. This blocks the roads between the Elvish and Human Kingdoms, and has displaced 5,000 Dwarves, who are in urgent need of resettlement. The Elves are doing their best despite the long antipathy between the two Kingdoms but if the pressure is not relieved quickly, matters may escalate out of control.
- King Harold offers places in the Western Mines to the displaced Dwarves. This will take them far enough away from their lost stronghold that they will not throw lives away in a doomed attempt to recapture it, but keep them close enough that a joint expedition can be mounted if an opportunity exists.
- The Chancellor increases the tax rate by another 5% to cover the cost of resettling the displaced Dwarves.
- The temples announce a schedule of fees for previously free services. The smaller the service, the cheaper, but it is still going to cost money. It becomes policy to require clerics in the field to charge for the services they provide through faith on behalf of the temples. There is much grumbling.
- The new Gold Pieces finally enter circulation. They are few and far between, and the rumor soon does the rounds that getting one in change means good luck.
- Bandits sack the Red-gold Iron Mine. It will be months before it is again productive. A message left in the ruins of the barracks of the miners states that this is in protest at being forced to accommodate the Dwarves, and the taxes that doing so have imposed. Sir Duggan is sent to investigate.
- Sir Duggan finds evidence that the ‘bandits’ were actually mine workers who over-reacted to a rumor that the Dwarves would take away their jobs.
- The Temples offer to mediate between Dwarves and Locals, and to negotiate for the surrender of the ‘Bandits’ in return for a lighter sentence.
- Orcs marching from the Kuzad Stronghold capture the Terrak Pass, blocking access to the Blue Fire Iron Mine. The Kingdom no longer has a source of high-quality iron. Prices of quality steel products immediately rise by 10% and smiths begin hoarding what high-quality steel they have.
- King Harold announces a Quest to recapture the Terrak Pass, which he will lead personally (Quests are akin to Crusades but need not be religious in orientation). He accepts the offer of Temple mediation in the matter of the Red-gold Iron Mine Bandits.
- King Harold leads an army of 2,000 men and 2,000 volunteer Dwarves out of the Capital, leaving his cousin Salin in charge. Salin is viewed as a weak ruler by the populace, but he is next in the line of succession and was a playmate of King Harold’s in his youth, so the King trusts him.
- The Chancellor increases taxes another 10%, with Prince Salin’s blessing.
- The Temples double the fees they have started to charge. It is made an excommunicatable offense for Clerics to provide faith-based services without charging the full fee demanded.
- Small Bands of Bandits are reported to have sprung up in the region of the Lefthshares Forest.
- It is reported that Orcish raiding parties have attacked the mills in four southern Duchies, capturing almost 1/3 of the yearly flour production. The price of flour, bread, and other baked goods doubles overnight.
- Delegations of commoners complaining to Prince Salin are imprisoned on his orders to prevent the fomenting of unrest.
- Delegations of commoners who want to protest the turn of events begin seeking audiences with the Queen instead of official channels.
- There is a pitched battle at the Terrak Pass, costing the lives of 1/4 of the attackers without result. King Harold is wounded, and would have been killed were it not for the timely arrival of Sir Lesley and an additional 500 men.
- The Temples report mounting unrest over taxes to the court. The leader of the Blacksmith’s Guild supplements the report with a blistering denunciation of the new taxes, and is immediately imprisoned for Treason by Prince Salin.
- The Queen falls very ill. The Temples begin holding prayer vigils for her recovery, all over the Kingdom. Whatever the malady, it resists all their healing magic.
- The young Price, hope of the nation, is stillborn. The Queen is also close to death. The Kingdom plunges into mourning without waiting.
- An Orc Assassin attempts to kill King Roland but only scratches him. In the confusion, the assassin escapes, but a piece of Elvish jewelry is discovered where he was hiding.
- A second attempt to recapture Terrak Pass costs the lives of 1/3 of the attackers. It came closer to success but still ultimately was unsuccessful. Sir Lesley blockades the roads leading to and from the Pass in an attempt to starve the Orcs out.
- The King is suffering from a mysterious illness. Whatever the malady, it resists all magic healing. The temples put up a reward of 100,000 GP for anyone who can discover the nature of the illness and a cure in time. Descriptions of the Assassin, his tools and equipment, and the piece of Jewelry, are described in detail as the only clues. Every temple in the kingdom repeats the message, the reward, the symptoms, and the few clues available, every hour on the hour when the sun is up. It is certain that almost everyone in the Kingdom has heard about it after a couple of days.
- The Queen dies from her illness.
- Prince Salin, fearing the worst, begins making public plans for his own coronation.
- In an attempt to make his accession to the throne more popular, Salin announces an amnesty for all crimes short of murder; hundreds will be released from Prison, including the ‘Bandits’ who sacked the Red-gold Iron Mine.
- Sir Duggan brings one of the released prisoners to the PCs. He wants the PCs to chase down a clue that might lead to the reward being offered by the Temples – if so, then he wants an equal share of it. If the PCs agree, the prisoner reveals that the ‘bandits’ were paid to attack the mine workings by an odd duo – one was very tall and hardly spoke, while the other was shorter and seemed unable to speak louder than a whisper. The tall one dropped a piece of jewelry, but stopped to pick it up; the ‘Bandit’ saw it clearly. It matches the description of the one dropped by the Assassin. But the Red-gold Iron Mine is in the West Northwest, the fighting is all in the South southeast – a long distance apart – and there’s no way that either of the hooded and cloaked figures was an Orc, anyway; he was definitely human.
- The slight wound at the hands of the assassin suggests some sort of poison. Everyone is tearing up every avenue of research into Orcs and their poisons, without success. The similarity of symptoms to the sickness that killed the Queen suggests a common cause, but she was nowhere near the fighting and there were no observed assassination attempts on her. If it was done at all, it had to be at Court in the Capital. The only humanoids of roughly human size but taller are Elves. There’s an Elvish Ambassador at Court. Maybe the Ambassador, or someone on his staff, are in a conspiracy to put Salin on the throne, and none of what’s happened is a coincidence. In which case, maybe the poison is an Elvish concoction. By sheer coincidence, the PCs are not far from the Kingdom of the Elves at the moment. Maybe if they nose around a bit, ask some careful questions, they might get somewhere.
- If the PCs choose to investigate the Elves, they will learn (roleplay the investigation) that there is an infamous Drow poison whose symptoms match those described. It’s exceptionally rare, only someone very well connected in the Elvish Kingdom could get their hands on any. There is a reasonably common cure – mash up three seed pods of a Yellowbulb Tree, boil them, add the contents of an egg, mix well, and wait for it to solidify and float to the surface. With a cup, draw off the egg and discard it (and the poisons from the seed pods with it), leaving a clear bluish liquid. Three drops every three hours for a day will cure the poisoning, if the Drow poison was the cause.
- Make the cure and a mad dash to where the King lies in his camp. Get put in the queue which contains every faith healer, folk healer, and medicine man in the Kingdom, each of whom has their own ‘sure-fire’ cure. By the time the PCs work their way to the front of the line, it may be too late – they have to find some way of jumping the queue.
- The PCs cure works, but the King will be very weak for months. He might never fully recover, he was so close to death. The implications begin dawning on the PCs if they hadn’t done so already: Rare poison to which the Elvish Ambassador would have access. Same rare poison used by an Orc on the King. The Orcish military action to place the king in a vulnerable position. A mysterious Elf and a human partner stirring up unrest to draw off loyal members of the court. Sir Lesley, another loyal member of the court, exiled on the word of the same Ambassador. This whole situation has been engineered by the Elves for some reason. Perhaps the Assassin escaped because of other gifts of the Elves – cloaks and boots and what-have-you. But the Orcs have to know some of what’s going on – they wouldn’t be part of the conspiracy, just cat’s paws. Negotiating some sort of truce with them might permit details to slip out in conversation; they have suffered as much as the Quest in losses. The same thoughts have also been occurring to Sir Lesley; he can’t leave, he is now Commander in the Field. But he can send the PCs to negotiate a truce.
- The PCs negotiations are successful, and in the process they learn that the Elves sent an Ambassador to the Orcs and made all sorts of promises if the Orcs would inconvenience the Dwarves and drive them out of the Stronghold at Kuzad. Once they had done so, the Elves reneged on the deal. The Orcs realized that they were vulnerable in the Stronghold unless they also controlled the major pass leading to it – Terrak Pass. They also needed food, being unequipped for a lengthy campaign, so they did what came naturally, and raided. They couldn’t go back home, through the Elvish Kingdom; they couldn’t move through the Human Kingdom; and they didn’t have the manpower to fight their way through the entire Dwarven Kingdom to get back home. They were trapped! If the PCs can guarantee safe passage, they will vacate the pass AND the citadel, handing them over to the Humans until the Dwarves that had been driven out can return. The Orc says that they were all paid in Gold to do what they did and shows a PC a Gold coin – one of the new designs, a design that wasn’t even in circulation when this bribe was paid – and this is the ultra-rare version with the spelling error that was never supposed to be circulated (though a few inevitably were). The only person with access to thousands of those coins was the Chancellor Of The Exchequer. The PCs can buy the gold coin (for two gold coins) to be able to prove their allegations.
- The deal done, the Orcs vacate the field, watched closely by the army. When they are gone, Sir Lesley detaches a small force to hold the Citadel and the Pass, and instructs one of the men who is good at that sort of thing to draw up some better defensive structures for the Pass. He then takes the rest of the army – and the PCs, who he conscripts – to the Capital to put down the attempted coup and determine whether or not Salin is a figurehead or a conspirator. His plans are to assault the palace from the outside while the PCs sneak inside to discover what they can, and – once they know one way or another – to denounce the guilty in open court. Then fight their way out, if they have to.
- Unless the PCs have a better idea, they have to attempt to carry out Sir Lesley’s plan. Investigation reveals Silas to be a barely-functioning idiot, in no way capable of this level of scheming, but very good at empty-headed formality. This is something that had been very carefully kept out of public knowledge. Nice dramatic moment at the court denouncing the Ambassador and Chancellor. One of the PCs notices that the head of the Merchant’s Guild looks very upset by these revelations and tries to edge his way out of the court without being noticed. He can choose to intercept him or stop him if he chooses. This draws attention to the attempted escape and prompts the Chancellor to accuse him of masterminding the whole thing. The Guild head counter-accuses the Chancellor and the whole accusation stands proven. Silas proves up to the job at least once – ordering the Defenders of the Castle to stand down and show the flag of surrender, and ordering the conspirators to be arrest for their crimes – including the murder of the Queen and the Heir of the Kingdom.
.
Observations:
1. Now, that’s more like it! 45 items means at least 45 game sessions, probably more if these events get spaced out. Some adventures will take only a game day, some could take a game week or more, after all.
2. The reputation that the PCs acquire over the early/mid campaign has to be enough that Sir Duggan will go to them at the right time; the fact that there are almost twice as many entries in this story as in the first means that there is plenty of time for such a reputation to be established, but the GM needs to make sure that Duggan’s move is justified, nevertheless.
3. Events start of small and… insignificant is the wrong term, but I can’t think of anything better at the moment. And slowly build in significance. And build, and build, until the PCs get pushed at the big finish to the plot arc – with an option to bail out and hear about the outcome from others. Assume that Sir Lesley assembles his own “spy force” to infiltrate if the PCs aren’t there.
4. Note however that some of those minor events early on become hugely significant by the end. The Ambassador sending his daughter home to get her out of the way, having used her to get Sir Lesley sent into exile; the bungled coin minting (if these had been circulated on schedule, there would be nothing provably significant in the orcs getting paid in them; it’s the delay that makes that damning).
5. Of course, the Elves using the Orcs as cat’s paws to interfere in the internal politics of another Kingdom is an act of War. The King is frail – so much so that he hasn’t even been told of the murder of his wife and son yet. There’s still plenty to unravel from this point – but that would be better handled in a new (and much shorter) plot arc that takes the place of this one, and again puts the narrative back into something to be followed in the ‘news’. There’s also the matter of rewards – I would think that noble titles from the King and the nice hunk of cash from the Temples should be enough, though. But that’s what I would probably build the next arc around – the domain(s) granted to the PCs as rewards, and the unexpected finds within them.
Plot Arc 3: The Rounders – the most reviled team in the sport – come from nowhere in a dominant season.
Roundball: An introduction
Roundball is the most popular sport in the Kingdom by several orders of magnitude. Amateur-league games are a weekly event for most of the year, there are semi-professional regional competitions, and there is an elite league of 64 teams. The sport is a basic get-the-ball-in-the-opposition’s-net game, but it’s the rules wrapped around this that make it distinctly different.
The game is divided into quarters. In one of these quarters, a team must have 5 players on the field, in another, 6, in a third, 8, and in a fourth, 10. Which order these occur in is decided at the start of a quarter by the team’s manager and strategist, but inevitably additional players will change the balance within the team – stronger defense, stronger attack, faster, more mobility in passing the ball, better able to stay upright when tackled and gain precious ground, and so on.
In addition, teams are allowed two substitutions per completed quarter, which they can use at any point in the game, and the number of times a team can be tackled before they have to hand over the ball to the other side changes with the number of players fielded – 8, 6, 5, 4, respectively. Tactics inevitably have to to change as a result – but you have no idea what configuration your opponents are going to use in the next quarter until both teams take the field. There is an instant scramble to adapt your game plan to counter theirs.
The game is fast-paced, tactically diverse, and wildly unpredictable. Better management of what resources you have on the field and using your substitutions strategically are the keys to success, but even well-laid plans still have to be executed successfully by the on-field players. There are lots of other rules, but the above are the heart and core of the game.
Series Structure of the Elite League
The competition is structured a bit like the world cup. Teams are placed by random draw into a series of pools. Each team has to play each other team in their pool twice, once at home and once at their home city or town. Victories earn points, scoring more than a certain threshold earns points, a higher score differential between the teams costs points, so the objectives of the game are for each one to be a tight contest; teams can lose the championship be being too dominant. There are all sorts of ways to earn bonus points (or give bonus points to the other side).
These points are then used to seed a second round and the tally board wiped clean. Again, teams are pooled, with all matches in pool A played first (those with the lowest accumulated points from the first round), then pool B, and so on. The top two teams from each pool get promoted into the next pool, and keep half their accumulated score from the previous pool, giving the worst teams an advantage that the better teams have to overcome. When the outcome of all pools is known, the teams are ranked according to the points earned. It is possible for the lowest-ranked team in pool A to fight its way into the next round of the series and even to go on to win the whole tournament. These games must be played in stadiums belonging to neither of the teams.
For the bottom half of the League, as scored this season, their seasons end here. The top half go into round 3 – which is a sudden death series. Actions which brought championship points in previous rounds now add to the scoreboard instead. Teams are seeded into the contest in order of their ranking in round 2, so the two teams with the lowest scores face off, and then the next two lowest scores, and so on. In rounds 3 and 4, the lower-ranked team gets the home-field advantage. Those who win their matches advance to round four, then round five, at which point the top four teams have survived and the rest culled.
The semifinals pit the weakest team against the second-best team and the second-weakest team against the strongest, with the stronger teams given a points handicap that they have to overcome in order to win the game. These handicaps are the average differential in points scored per game – so being dominant in the knockout rounds only makes it harder for you to win the championship and introduces an uncertainty that makes even one-sided contests exciting. Can the best team overcome their handicap, or will the underdog survive? These matches are always played at stadiums in the capital who have to secretly bid for the rights to host. The revenues from the winning bids fund the competition for the coming year and the administration of the sport. There is a reserve pool of money kept at a fixed 10,000 GP and a separate pool of 1,000 GP per player (cumulative) that is used to support families who lose a player through on-field accident. Any revenues in excess of these three amounts are payed into the prize pool.
The losers of the semifinals then play off for third and fourth place in the series, respectively. Once that outcome has been determined, the grand final pits the two winning teams against each other. But there is a catch: both these teams have to outscore the teams from the playoff match or they will be relegated to below those teams in the final competition result. This forces the teams in the grand final to go all out for a crushing victory. The more successful they are at that, the more they suppress the other team, the more likely that team will be relegated to third or perhaps even fourth place. But both teams are trying to achieve this at the same time, so it’s never that easy.
There are 64 teams in all. These are organized into pools of 8, so each team plays 14 games in round 1, a total of 64/2 x 14 = 448 games. 32 of those games occur on any given restday, so round 1 lasts 14 weeks.
Round 2 sees a new game played daily, There are 8 teams in Pool A, and will be 8+2 teams in Pools B through H. So there are 7 Pool A games and 9 games from each of the other pools for a total of 70 games in 70 days – another 10 weeks of Roundball, for a season length (so far) of 24 weeks.
Round 3 is the top 32 getting paired off, so there are 16 games played over 4 restdays (ie 4 weeks). Round 4 is the top 16 getting paired off, so there are 8 games played over 4 restdays (ie another 4 weeks). Round 5 is the top 8 being paired off so there are 4 games played over 2 restdays (another 2 weeks). So these rounds take a total of 10 more weeks, bringing the season length to 34 weeks.
There is traditionally a 2 week buildup to the semifinals, which are played on the same restday. These are then played on successive restdays, extending the season to 37 weeks.
That’s followed by another 2 week gap to the playoff match and a week later is the grand final, so the whole season is 41 weeks in length.
Prize money
Gambling on games is strongly regulated and restricted. Each registered bookie has a bespoke bookkeeper-accountant assigned to them by the Exchequer who monitors both money in and payouts. They have no control over the odds being set by the bookie, but ensure that the payout matches the odds accepted by the gambler. 5% of all profits made after the winners are paid out goes to the Crown (on top of any tax) to cover the expense of the bookkeeper-accountants, and another 5% is paid to the Roundball League to form the basis of the annual prize pool. 1 SP profit on 25000 gambles a week (kingdom-wide), average, = 25,000 SP; 5% of which is 1250 SP = 125 GP per week. In later parts of the series, the number of gambles gets smaller but the amount increases. The semi-finals and finals see an increase in gambles and a further increase in stakes, so these 4 games bring in 8x the revenue, or 1000 GP.
As a rough estimate, then the prize pool is 34 x 125 + 1000 = 5250 GP per year. The prize pool is divided into 4,447.92 shares.
Every participating team gets paid according to final rankings. The lowest-ranked team gets one share; each team higher up the ladder gets 1 1/10 the payout of the team placed below it. If two or more teams tie, their payouts are totaled and evenly divided so that the next team up the ladder gets the benefit of beating the extra teams. The top team therefore gets a payout 405.27 times that of the lowest ranked team, an average of 478.35 GP a year. Management and owners take 1/2, the rest is divided amongst the 20-30 players on each team; the methods vary from one team to another. So the average player on the top team can expect to earn around 9.56 GP per year.
This is obviously not enough – not when skilled labor earns a GP a week. Team sponsorship and paid-for public appearances provide the bulk of a team’s financing, and they also get 1/2 of the entry fees to the stadiums at which they are playing. The first earns about 10x as much as the prize pool and the latter twenty-five times. It is not uncommon for the wealthier teams to actually own their home stadiums, doubling the revenue the team gets from entry fees – but they then have to pay maintenance on the facility. By and large, these are proportionate to the revenue share from the prize money, because that’s based on the team’s ranking, but this equivalence is vague and approximate.
Theses sources boost the average pay per player per year to around 172 GP – on the top team – or 42 1/2 silver pieces for those on the bottom. But not all players are equal, and an elite player may earn 5-8 times this much – at the expense of their teammates.
Roundball teams are eternally agitating for a bigger share of the gambling revenues, but the League are determined to keep this a minor part of the income stream to the teams fearing corruption. Which brings us to the backstory of the Rounders.
The Rounders
Twenty-four years ago, the Rounders were the team to beat, Stronger, faster, more agile, more tactical – they had it all. And yet, this particular year, they didn’t seem to quite gel on the field, and many victories were far narrower than they should be. Half-way through the season, it was discovered that the three key players in the team, the play-makers, were cheating, deliberately setting the team up to narrowly fail to make the playoffs. This deliberately sacrificed almost 1/3 of what the club could expect to make, but these players had wagered thousands of GP at almost 10 to 1 odds that the team would fail.
One player had a little too much to drink, got rolled in a back alley by a footpad, and complained to the town watch about the theft – despite having spent up bigger than he could justify in anticipation of the payday to come. When the watch investigated, one rotten domino fell after another and the scandal enveloped the series.
The Rounders were treated harshly by the League, forfeiting all fees, fined all revenues earned for the year, and their every remaining game in the season declared a loss. The players involved all went to prison for long terms – the mastermind only being released 4 years ago – and the team became the most hated by fans throughout the Kingdom. Most of the remaining players quit the team at the end of the season; the team were forced to recruit an all-new lineup for the following year’s contest.
Strangely enough, this notoriety has been working in their favor, little by little, as it almost certainly brings the fans of whatever rival team they face out in droves, and this has enabled them to slowly rebuild. But it also means that their rivals go the extra mile to beat them, so year after year, they have struggled to get much beyond the third round.
Over the last five years, then-new manager Ryan Kempler has been strategically investing in up-and-coming players and this year he hopes that it will all come together. He has a master plan to take the series…
The Master Plan
Kembler has recruited and nurtured four players that he thinks are ready to become the best in the League at their own specialized roles – play-maker, scorer, driving fullback, and defender. He has been secretly training them to mesh tactics in combined plays.
He has divided the contest into teams that he thinks are likely to make the third round and teams that aren’t, plus a group in the middle.
Against the weaker teams, he will play 10 in the first quarter, 5, 6, and 8. The goal will be to establish a strong lead early and then defend it until it’s just enough. He will bring on one of his stars (but only one) at some point in the last three periods to control the pace of the game. His goal is to win 2/3 of these games; that alone should be enough to get them into the lower ranks of the 32.
Against the stronger teams and the more uncertain ones, he will adopt a 8, 5, 6/10, 10/6 strategy. One of his stars will play in the first half, and he may replace them with another in the second half. He doesn’t mind losing 2/3 of these games, but would prefer to win 1/2 of them without showing his full hand. If the team are ahead at the end of the first half, he will go with the 6 and then 10 configuration, if not, the 10 and then 6. Star Power will be employed as necessary.
That should be enough to lift the Rounders into the top 16, but not much better than that.
When the knockouts arrive, the strategies will change, and a reassessment of the profile of the opponents be made. You can’t afford to lose ANY of these games, but you also can’t afford to win by too much. So the strategy will be 5, 6, 8, 10, starting with one of his stars and adding a second in the second half. Which stars will depend on the tactics he expects from the other team.
All these strategies will be subject to refinement and change based on their opponents – if they have a habit of fielding their biggest team in the first quarter, for example, or play a really good game with few players early on. At this point, the pool draw has not yet been announced, so he can’t plan more specifically.
The goal will be to advance to the semifinals in 7th position and scrape into the finals in last – without showing off any of the coordinated tactics and combinations he’s been drilling into his star players. In the playoff game, it will be no-holds barred to set a score that will withstand both the more highly-placed teams in the grand final who will tear each other down enough that neither can overcome the benchmark set by the Rounders.
Will it work? That remains to be seen.
Delivering the rules / backstory
None of this will be known to the players at the start of the campaign. It will get broken up and fed to them when it becomes relevant. But it was necessary to get the concepts together in advance.
Final Decision
The final decision to be made is whether or not the Rounders are the team local to where the PCs start play or if they are based elsewhere. There are benefits to both options. If they are based elsewhere, are they part of the same pool as the local team this year?
Being able to introduce the Rounders early on lets their backstory get broken up and delivery of it to the players spread out a little more, so either they are in the local pool or they are the local team.
If they are the local team, the fans will start out supporting every other team out there and willing their team to lose; only as their campaign gathers momentum will they start to rebuild their local fan-base.
An on-field moment of some kind in which the Rounders refuse to take advantage of a rival’s mistake even though the rules say they can, because they don’t want to win in an unsportsmanlike manner will be a pivotal turning point in this respect, finally erasing some of the old taint.
If they aren’t the local team, then there will be lots of opportunity to get the players comfortable with the game itself before the historical element gets presented to the players; if they are, then it will be front and center from mention one. So I think they are not the local team, they are from somewhere some distance away.
Oh, and one more thought: teams should alternate between home games and away games.
With that sorted, I can begin mapping out the sequence of events, starting with the draw and introducing the format to the players.
Then there’s the pre-game 1 buildup as fans discuss their prospects for the coming year, and the other teams in the pool – giving the first hint of the old scandal.
For the next three or four games, the pattern will be the same: the outcome of the game, where it leaves the local team standing within the pool, and who their next game is against, and whether or not it’s a home game. The PCs can vicariously ride the roller-coaster of ups and downs inherent in a contest designed to make easy wins a disadvantage.
Then they will be scheduled to come up against the Rounders. Backstory time, which should build interest in the game. Note that by now, the PCs will have relocated to the regional capital at least temporarily, so ‘the local team’ may have changed.
Outcome of the match – the Rounders lose, but not by much. Celebrations all around, the local heroes having put everybody’s villains ‘in their place’. Next game will be against one of the strongest teams in the entire league.
Complete the round through until it is the Rounders turn to host the local team. This is the time to pull that ‘sportsmanlike’ event out of the hat. From that point on, there will be a slow growth of fans for the Rounders as their ‘second favorite team’ (after the locals, of course).
Finish the round, randomly roll results for the other pools, allowing for the relative strength of the teams, map out Round 2, and so on.
Unfortunately, I’m running out of time to get this article finished and ready for posting – which is why I’ve described what I would do instead of actually doing it – which would take four or five times longer, time that I just don’t have.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as I’ve given readers everything they need to know to be able to do it as practice.
Jumping Into The Middle
While this approach would be at its best if introduced from the very start of a campaign, it’s almost never too late to add it to the mix. You’re just starting stories in the middle, usually with some of the groundwork already established, but if you need to start a new plot thread, so be it. Just make it a shorter one, to match the anticipated length of the campaign.
And The River Rolls On… Continuing Campaigns
Not all campaigns are designed with a predetermined end point. Some are cyclic, with characters coming and going regularly; others just carry on into Epic Levels if and when the players get that far.
This tool – and that’s what it is, a background enhancement tool, a background ‘animator’ if you will – can be just as effective; the second example plot arc shows the way. One plot arc ends, and another begins. That’s all there is to it.