This is the second half of this article; the first dealt with character backstories during character generation, and this deals with making use of them once play has started.

It is also the third of five articles scheduled to be part of the November 2016 Blog Carnival, which Campaign Mastery is hosting. The carnival subject is “ordinary life” – in this case, the ordinary life of a PC, and how to create plots and subplots using the character profile generated in the first article as a foundation.

I should add that while it is intended for fantasy games such as Pathfinder and D&D, it can be used with any genre.

Introduction/Recap:

So you’ve got a shiny new PC Profile, generated using the method outlined in Part 1 of this double act, or some reasonable analogue thereof, and it’s time to generate some plot connections or subplots using it.

Each of the axioms has at least two ways that they can be applied to this purpose, and on top of that we have the character evolution information that provides context for those axioms. And, of each type of axiom, a player may have none, one, two, or three that he has applied to his specific character.

Image credit: FreeImages.com / pipp

The axioms, once again, were:

• Past Successes
• Past Failures
• Past Mistakes
• Past Life Lessons
• Past Moments Of Danger
• Past Travels
• Family Incidents
• Past Ambitions
• Fascinations
• Proximity to key events

and the contextual directions were:

• Background Context
• Core Concept
• Supplementary Words
• Axiom Sequence
• Character Direction
• Character Destination

If you employ the system that was described in the first half of this article, players will allocate 20 axioms to construct their backstory. These are milestones in the evolution of the character’s personality. If you don’t know or don’t recall what is meant by any of them, use the link above to review the definitions before we continue.

Overview of the plot-creation process

There is a basic process to go through when constructing plotlines using a character profile.

0. Review Profile
1. Prominence
2. Direction
3. Opportunity
4. Setback
5. Consequence
6. Conflict
7. Confluence
8. Subplot

All these except the last one take the form of a series of yes/no questions, answered in order until you get to a ‘yes’ response. The final option is the default response that gets selected when there is no higher-priority ‘yes’ response. They identify the nature and extent of the character’s connection to the plotline. I’ll get into specifics shortly.

Once you have a ‘yes’ decision, or have arrived at the final option, a subplot, you enter a second stage of the process. This is similar in all cases, identical in many of them:

1. Axiom Selection
2. Relevance
3. Defined Elements
4. Undefined Elements
5. Theme/Counterpoint/Side-issue
6. Story
7. Intensity/Tone
8. Timing
9. Execution

That all sounds like a lot of work, but each step is usually short (with the probable exception of the last one, Execution) – a matter of seconds, and more often a handful or two than a more substantial number of them. The theoretical minimum is about 20 seconds, plus however long is spent on execution, which depends on GMing style and the depth of prep that you like to undertake prior to play. But, in practice, and when your imagination is fired up, inspiration can actually drop that time to a quarter of that or less. I encourage that process with a step zero, as shown above – not strictly necessary, but it has proven beneficial so often that it’s a standard part of my routine, and strongly recommended.

So that’s the overview. Let’s step through it in detail.

Phase 1: Seven Decisions

The process assumes that you have a rough idea of what the main plotline is going to be, even if the details are vague, that can be expressed in a simple statement. This could be a high concept – “What is a monster?” – or a plot direction – “The PCs inherit an enemy from the previous generation of heroes” or “Magnetic-Man makes his move” – or a reaction/question – “The PCs have made an enemy of Lord Bedswick, what happens?” or “The PCs are questing for the Unholy Cross of Vladimax, what do they find?”.

Step 0: Review Profile

Start by refreshing your memory of the character’s profile. You don’t have to read the entire backstory – use the development notes as an index and worry about the specifics when you know what part of it will be relevant.

Once that’s done, you can start asking the questions. Remember, stop as soon as you get a strong “yes” and move to the second phase; a “maybe” is a “yes” only if you don’t get a firm “yes” further down the list. Don’t agonize over these questions; they should be made bang-bang-bang-bang, a succession of snap judgments. It’s easy to over-think and over-analyze and fall into a trap engendered by wishful thinking which relies on events playing out according to a script; counter that by not giving yourself enough time to formulate a script in the first place. Use your first instincts, and you will be right more often than not.

Step 1: Prominence

How prominent is the character’s involvement in the plotline to be? Is this a star vehicle for the PC, or for a different PC, or is this more of an ensemble moment? Refer “Ensemble or Star Vehicle – Which is Your RPG Campaign?” for discussion of the decision.

Another way of phrasing this question can be, “is this to be a pivotal event, another milestone in the character’s evolution?”

This is a critical question because it determines whether or not the adventure will feature the PC, or if the character’s participation will be less-central. It shapes the weight that is attached to a ‘yes’ response to any of the subsequent questions, and is the only one of these questions that does not lead immediately to Phase 2 in the event of an affirmative response.

Step 2: Direction

Can the planned adventure advance the character in the direction that the player wants him to go? What circumstances are needed to encourage this?

Step 3: Opportunity

Does the planned adventure open a previously-closed door for the character that will enable him to advance in the direction the player desires at some future point?

Step 4: Setback

Does the planned adventure place a roadblock in front of the character direction desired by the player that will have to be overcome? Can that overcoming be part of the rewards for success in this adventure or will it have to wait for a subsequent one?

No development should come without the occasional struggle, the occasional temptation to turn aside. As a GM, you aren’t required to ensure that a PC achieves his ambitions, but you are required to present him with the opportunities to do so.

Step 5: Consequence

Has the character recently taken a step in the direction that the player wants, and if so, is there a consequence or ramification that can be highlighted by the adventure?

Step 6: Conflict

Does the desired direction of the PC conflict with that of another, and if so, does this adventure offer an opportunity to highlight and/or resolve this conflict?

Step 7: Confluence

Does the desired direction of the PC accord with the ambitions of another? If so, has this point of mutual desire been explored in the past? And, if not, is this adventure conducive to such an exploration?

Step 8: Subplot

Unless you have a firm “yes” to one of the above, the decision is made that this is NOT a milestone in the life of the character, or at least not intended to be. It is, instead, just part of his ordinary life as it currently stands. Events can still take on a life of their own!

‘Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It”

It’s a simple matter to rephrase the question to which you found a ‘yes’ response into an additional piece of description for what the adventure is intended to achieve, a second sentence to the one with which you started, if you will.

But, of course, most campaigns have more than one PC. Let’s say, for example, that there are 4 PCs: if you apply this same process to each of them, you end up with an adventure description that is one-part GM concept and 4 parts PC-driven. That can be a difficult proposition to reconcile and structure, so there are a couple of shortcuts and techniques that I employ so solve the problem.

Rule one: One personal milestone per adventure

As a general rule of thumb, I will only permit one character to achieve a personal milestone per adventure – to be the most prominent ‘star’ of that adventure, in terms of character development. There are times when exceptions will be made, but as a general rule, one is enough, and two are more than enough.

That doesn’t prohibit personal progress, it just means that such progress is not central to the adventure.

Rule Two: Inevitable focus foregos anything but a subplot

Some adventures are naturally going to spotlight a particular PC for one reason or another. If an Adventurer’s Club adventure has a supernatural element, we know in advance that Father O’Malley will feature. If there’s a military or maritime situation, we know that Captain Ferguson will already have a good slice of the spotlight, and so on.

The same is true in my fantasy campaigns; each PC has something distinctive that the blend of player and character brings to the group, and some adventures focus more intently on those elements of the party. That doesn’t mean that the others are irrelevant; just that they aren’t central to the plot.

While they might still receive a subplot, a ‘what have you been doing lately’, I’ll try to avoid making it especially personally significant because they are already receiving a greater share of the spotlight in the adventure.

Rule Three: Subplots come in two grades: Minor and Major

A minor subplot is more incidental, less significant, and less transformative, than a major subplot. It matters less, and it’s more a case of the character simply experiencing his life as he is currently living it.

Compiling the Adventure Description

Examples are sometimes a difficult proposition. While they can be illustrative, making something clear that isn’t obvious, they can also be a trap when they are just one of many possibilities. To address a process in general terms, an example can be counterproductive.

For that reason, I didn’t want to include an example in this section; but I’ve found that one is necessary or the process becomes too vague to be understood.

So, let’s assume that there are four PCs: Adam, Baker, Carlos, and Deborah. Adam is going to naturally feature in the adventure, so he gets only a minor subplot at best. The list of questions produced only “No” answers for Baker, so he will receive a major subplot to compensate for his reduced involvement in the main adventure. The plot could present Carlos with a Setback (from a Step 4 “yes” for Carlos), or it could highlight a conflict between what Carlos wants and what Deborah wants (a “yes” in Step 6 for Deborah, with Carlos as the other party member involved). Normally, rule one would force a choice between the two, but in this case, the two obviously dovetail: Carlos encounters a set-back in his personal development and Deborah has to choose between what she wants and what Carlos wants, a significant step in the relationship between them.

If the potential conflict was with Adam, say, instead of Carlos, then rule one would definitely be in effect, and I would have to choose between them. Such choices are most easily guided by future opportunities: If the choice is between a milestone for Carlos and one for Deborah, I would look at which one I’m more likely to have a future opportunity to explore; the other one gets the nod.

But I also consider how long it’s been since the character had a prominent advance in their development; if Carlos has just had a milestone, I’m more likely to give it to Deborah even if opportunities for Carlos are relatively few and far between.

To be candidly honest, I try to avoid this problem arising in the first place by altering my planned adventure sequence. A lot of my campaign planning is aimed at distributing opportunities and spotlight time evenly amongst the PCs. Blair (my co-GM in the Adventurer’s Club campaign), for example, doesn’t like hard SF and “Cosmic” adventures, while Vala (one of the PCs in the Zenith-3 campaign) and Runeweaver (another of those PCs) lend themselves to those types of adventure, respectively. But that’s not all there is to either of those characters, so for each adventure focusing on those natural proclivities, there will be another that focuses on some other aspect of their characters, and two that are more humanist – emotional or humanitarian – in focus, and one or two that are detective/mystery stories (to suit the remaining PC), and one or two general romps. You can read more about the techniques that I employ in another of my older articles, “Scenario Sequencing: Structuring Campaign Flow“.

Getting back to the example, we have:

• The main plot idea from the GM, featuring Adam, with significant personal developments for Carlos and Deborah;
• A Major subplot revolving around Baker;
• Possible minor subplots for Adam, Carlos, and Deborah, though one of those might lead into the main plotline instead of being a standalone sub-adventure,

…but, we could have just as easily have had:

• The main plot idea from the GM, featuring Adam, with significant personal development for Carlos;
• A Major subplot revolving around Baker;
• A Major subplot revolving around Deborah;
• Possible minor subplots for Adam and Carlos,

…or,

• The main plot idea from the GM, featuring Adam, with significant personal development for Deborah;
• A Major subplot revolving around Baker;
• A Major subplot revolving around Carlos;
• and Possible minor subplots for Adam and Deborah,

Some adventures feature more than one character; in our planning for the Adventurer’s Club campaign, we even have a few that feature *all* of them prominently. So the composition of each adventure will change depending on the nature of the adventure.

I should also point out that some subplots can be such that another PC is likely to become involved. Such involvement counts as a minor subplot for the involved character, or increases an existing minor subplot for that character to the equivalent of a Major one.

What’s the difference between a major and a minor subplot?

In a nutshell: length and complexity. A major subplot can be divided into three or more scenes, a minor one is one, two, or very rarely, three scenes, no more. It’s all about the screen time.

I don’t have any fantasy examples at hand, so I have selected a pair of examples from a recent Adventurer’s Club adventure, “Boom Town”. Midway through the adventure, which appeared to have concluded with unanswered questions, there was an interval before the second part commenced, during which period each PC had different subplots.

• Captain Ferguson: Minor subplot: The captain’s ship is commissioned by the Government of San Salvatore to attempt recovery of cargo/treasure/artifacts from a Portuguese shipwreck believed to date back to the 16th century that has recently been discovered in a cave on the north side of Rum Cay in the Bahamas. The wreck might be the Portuguese ship Chagas which was captured after a battle with three English Privateers and sent home as a prize by the commander of the English Fleet, Sir George Clifford, the Earl of Cumberland, the following winter. Under the command of Christopher Lister and with a cargo of looted silver, she was lost with all hands in a gale. The wreck has been found deep in a cave. It’s unclear whether the crew sailed into the cave seeking shelter after being blown off course by the gale or if it was driven there despite their best efforts. It might contain as much as 20 tons of silver, worth as much in 1930s dollars as US$317,274.82 (Modern equivalent, US$3.17m). On top of that, log book and instruments, because of their historical and collector’s value, could be worth another $32,000 (1930s). The Antares will earn 30% of whatever she recovers. The trip is expected to take 2 days, the salvage as much as a week, and delivery and return to New York another 3 days, for a total of 12 days voyage, possibly less. Scenes:
  • Initial Briefing, possibility of other PCs accompanying Captain Ferguson.
  • Finding the cave and examining the wreck, verifying that it is the Chagas.
  • Salvaging various things – the silver has long been looted by someone who found the wreck and didn’t report it. The log book tells the story of the last days of the Chagas. Evidence suggests that the Crew killed the Captain before abandoning the wrecked ship.
  • Dealing with a WWI sea mine that has also drifted into the cave.

• Father O’malley: Major Subplot: After conducting a church service, Father O’malley engages in social niceties with the parishioners. “Mrs O’Reilly’s cat is doing much better. Mr Dunkley’s Dog is no longer chewing on the furniture, he has moved on to Mr Dunkley’s wooden leg. Miss Driscoll has the flu and her sister would be grateful if someone could look in on her sometime. Mrs O’Reilly promises to do so – a bit of hot chicken soup will soon have Violet all in order. Colonel Leiber, a German Jew who served in the Kaiser’s army during WWI before emigrating to the US, is convinced that the boys from the school down the road are stealing his apples, and if he ever catches one he will “give him such a thrashing”. Father O’Malley is not overly concerned by the threat, he’s heard it before; Colonel Leiber is infirm, uses a walking stick, and is unable to move at anything faster than a stately amble. Mrs Brancowicz, a 34-year old widow, and the mother of one of those boys, is looking distressed and instead of sharing whatever has been going on in her life, simply asks Father O’Malley to pray for her, she doesn’t think she will be able to cope without it. She doesn’t specify what’s wrong, but she has clearly not been sleeping well for the last few nights and this is the first service that she has attended in over a week, something that’s unlike her usual habits. Clearly, something is amiss.” Scenes:
  • Introduction (quoted above), discussion with Mrs Brancowicz reveals that the boiler in her building has stopped working, and she and the children are very cold, and the owner doesn’t seem willing to do anything about it, except to threaten to raise the rent to more than she can afford in order to pay for a replacement. Father O’Malley promises to see what he can do to help, drives Mrs Brancowicz and her children back to the apartment, inspects the boiler and fails that maintenance of the property is abysmal.
  • Investigating the owner discloses a criminal past and a connection to a sports team owner, and model behavior – for a slumlord.
  • O’Malley can confront the owner, get Steffan (another PC and an engineer) to take a look at the boiler, report the owner to the authorities, or try to get the sports team owner on-side. He chooses option number 2, and is interrupted by the arrival of City building inspectors. Steffan reports that his repairs are only temporary and that the condition of the boiler is dangerous.
  • O’Malley needs to find the money for a replacement boiler. His choices have now narrowed to the owner or the owner’s ex-partner in the illegal liquor operation that enabled the slumlord to buy a string of apartments and the ex-partner to buy his baseball team. He chooses the latter and manages to convince him that his own reputation looks at risk due to his past associations, and reminding him that the League has a moral turpitude clause in their owner’s contracts; if he isn’t careful, the League may revoke his franchise and resell the team to someone else. This persuades the ex-partner to buy the building and repair it.
  • O’Malley persuades the current owner to sell and use the funds raised to repair his other buildings without increasing rents or face criminal charges.
  • Concluding scene delivering the good news to the Brancowicz family.

The first breaks the three-scene limit by separating the initial briefing and the first played scene, finding the cave, but that’s a minor point; there is clearly a lot more detail and emotional involvement in the second subplot. Nevertheless, the first one is an important moment for the PC, as it was the first time in-game that he had been “seen” performing his “day job” as a salvage operator. Of course, I’ve omitted a lot of descriptive narrative, photographs and maps and the like from both.

The key point is that Neither subplot has any relation to the main plot at all, they are self-contained examples of the characters going about their daily lives and doing the things that they do when they aren’t out adventuring, but one is clearly more substantial than the other. (I’ll be talking more about subplot and main plot integration in the Adventurer’s Club campaign in another article within this blog carnival).

I should also admit, at this point, that the character development tool described in the first part of this article and utilized in this one is a new tool that has not yet been implemented in any of the campaigns that I GM. At some point, however, they will be – you can never have too many planning tools at your disposal! The example subplots were a combination of character backgrounds provided by the players and campaign background elements added organically in past subplots.

Phase 2: Construction of Subplots and key plot moments

Phase 1 defines what you have to construct and then integrate into your planned day’s play; once you know that, it’s time to actually create those plotlines, large and small.

Axiom Selection

The first decision in constructing a subplot that is part of the character’s ordinary life is what part of that life experience you are going to connect with. Sometimes, that will be quite obvious, if inspiration has visited you with a plot idea, at other times you need some additional inspiration.

The GM should quickly look through the list of axioms for the PC who is to feature in the subplot or to be affected by the major subplot. If any of them seem especially relevant, he should choose it; if not, he can roll a d20.

Relevance

Once he knows the axiom, i.e. the part of the character’s background that is going to be relevant, the next step is to decide how it is going to be relevant. This will, of course, be different for each of the different axiom types.

Defined Elements

At it’s most general, you can view a plotline of any size as a jigsaw puzzle, with the same general classes of pieces recurring. These are something that I think of as “plot elements.” Examples include

• The identity of the Antagonist,
• how & why the PC involvement comes about,
• the nature of the conflict,
• the antagonist’s intentions/desires/plans,
• how/where the conflict will be resolved,
• what the outcome should ideally be (and what else it could be), and,
• what the consequences should be (if any) for the character.

There may be others, such as setbacks and how they are to be overcome, identifying the things the character needs to know in order to resolve the situation, sources of information and how the character will (a) learn of, and (b) interact with, those sources, what quid pro quo’s might be involved, alternative paths to the confrontation, and so on. These are the basic building blocks of the adventure.

This step involves taking what you already know and filling in any of these plot elements that have been predetermined. The specifics of the axiom chosen will be at least one of them.

For example, look over the list of standard elements above, and consider how many of them could involve a Rival over whom the PC triumphed when still young: the Rival could return as the Antagonist; he could appeal to the PC for help, bringing the PC into the plot; he could simply serve as the messenger of some unexpected consequence of the rivalry (the nature of the conflict); he could have stumbled on the antagonist’s plot and be making an independent effort to stop the antagonist before the PC does; his home could be the venue for the resolution of the conflict; or perhaps the outcome of the past rivalry is holding the PC back from the direction in which the player wants him to develop and it has to be resolved before he can move forward, and that is both the consequence and the cause of the PC becoming involved. Pick one that doesn’t seem too much of a cliché and go from there!

Undefined Elements

Once everything that has already been decided is “locked in”, fill in the blanks.

Note that while the result is an outline of the plot, it isn’t complete enough yet to actually be played. These bare facts are just the skeletal outline.

Theme/Counterpoint/Side-issue

The next thing that I consider is the theme, if any, of the campaign and/or the main adventure. In particular, there are a trio of questions to be answered, and these it’s fine to spend a few seconds or even minutes thinking about if you sense that there is something there to be prised out of your subconscious:

1. Can the subplot highlight or reflect some alternative aspect of the theme that isn’t present in the main adventure?
2. Can the subplot offer a counterpoint to the theme or premise of the main adventure?
3. Can the subplot look at a side-issue raised or implied by the main adventure that is not resolved within the scope of that adventure?

These questions are deep stuff. In essence, they use the subplot as a way to add depth of meaning to the main plotline. If you aren’t into deeply philosophical thinking and artistry within your campaign’s plots, this step can be foregone, but the most memorable adventures always seem to get the players thinking. In section 4.6 of the first article I offered in this blog carnival, “The Everyday Life of a GM“, I offered a substantial breakdown of the current adventure in the Zenith-3 campaign that provides an example of the kind of depths that I’m talking about.

One of the themes of the campaign is “Heroes are those who act heroically”, or variations on that notion. The converse is, “Villains are those who commit villainous deeds”, and a variation on that converse is “Monsters are those who commit Monstrous deeds” – and the current adventure looks at that statement and its implications, implying but not answering the question, “Who is the real monster – the creation or the creator?”, a question that’s been inspirational since the first publication of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, if not longer.

I’m not interested in being pretentious; I am interested in adding depth and richness to my plotlines and forcing my players to think about what their characters believe, think, and feel.

Story

The next step is to check the character background for more information on the chosen axiom, as it applies to the featured PC. This is made possible by consulting another part of the evolution plan, the one that indexes the axioms in chronological sequence of affecting the PC; this tells you where to look in the background for the pertinent details.

With that information, you should be able to sum up the planned plotline in four short paragraphs, one for each PC, outlining the adventure in its full specifics of who, what, when, where, how, and why. It’s almost ready to convert into a full ready-to-play adventure, but first there are two important considerations.

Intensity/Tone

I’ve made a big thing about the benefits of the GM consciously manipulating the emotional intensity of both an individual adventure and the entirety of the campaign in a series of articles on the subject (there are too many to list here, I’m running short of time). Before you can execute the creation of the ready-to-play adventure, you need to decide on the tone of the plotline and how it’s intensity is going to rise and fall.

Take the two example plotlines listed earlier from the Adventurer’s Club campaign: the first had relatively little intensity until the sudden threat of the mine appeared. The overall tone was more wistful, everything important had happened long ago. In contrast, the Father O’Malley plotline was full of peaks and troughs, of triumphs and setbacks. The O’Malley character has no particular axe to grind against slumlords, but by the end of the subplot, he could easily justify such. I could translate the basic plot outline to the Zenith-3 campaign with only a few detail changes and it would engage a completely different character belonging to a completely different player – who also doesn’t have a listed hate-on towards slumlords but who would be no less aroused and inflamed by the situation.

There is a big difference in the settings – 1930s Hell’s Kitchen in New York City Vs 2050s New Orleans – and that would have an influence, but the basic plotline would be unchanged. And the uncaring landlord is such a universal trope that the same plotline could easily be modified to operate in a Fantasy setting – if you had a character would react to it. The problem might be a leaky roof instead of a failed boiler, but the basics would be the same. And, once again, the tone would be slightly different because of the differences in the settings.

Timing

The other consideration is the timing, and how you are going to subdivide the plotline to move the spotlight around the table. It’s never a good idea to focus gameplay on one character for too long; you need to have a single scene and then move on to someone else. Sometimes that’s easy, and sometimes it can be quite tricky, requiring scenes to do double or even triple duty in terms of advancing the plot. A good example of that was in the Father O’Malley plotline when the health inspectors turned up and acquainted Father O’Malley with the extent of the social problem, the current legal framework, and the reputation of this particular landlord, giving him what he needed to advance the plot to the next scene.

Execution

Finally, the longest step of all: actually writing the plotline up in scenes and narrative and dialogue and die rolls required and anything else that you might need to have prepared in advance to immerse the character in the plotline. If you’re comfortable improvising off the cuff, you can skip this step, or most of it; but most of us will want to make notes on the locations, create the NPCs, and so on, at the very least.

Last Minute improvisation

It happens to all of us at times: the players zig instead of zagging and we need to come up with plot on the fly. Hopefully, you can lead them back to the main adventure, but whether you can or not is not as immediately important as having something with which to engage the players right now.

A quick d20 roll to select an axiom and an off-the-cuff allocation of plot elements takes only seconds, and gives you at least the raw materials to improv an entertaining encounter or plotline. “You see an urchin in the marketplace swiping an under-ripe and overpriced Malgin-Fruit. He looks so much like your long-dead brother, who died when you were but a youth, that the memory of those events comes flooding back afresh for a moment. The merchant spots the urchin and gives chase; he will run right past you. What are you doing?”