Comments on: Tuesday Tips – Connecting factions & NPCs

By: Dara

Dara — Sun, 25 May 2008 02:17:43 +0000

This is a nice design but I might add arrows to indicate the relationship direction at a glance. i.e. Thieves Guild wants to kill the PCs ….The text tells you but an arrow would tell you at a glance what the relationship is. Also, you could have multiple relationships….with differing entities within the boxes. So you could say

Thieves Guild (box) ———-wants to kill——-> PCs (box)

just a thought. I think I will try to set one up. Nice Tip!

By: Tommi

Tommi — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:20:58 +0000

I always have the world revolve around the PCs. They are who the story is about, everyone else is there to make their life interesting.

By: loneGM

loneGM — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:17:21 +0000

This is the same process I use to work out my games’ plotting. I start with whatever the plot revolves around – an event, an object, an npc – which I draw in the middle of a sheet of paper. Around that I write the primary factions involved, connecting them to the focus with lines. Along the side of each line, I write thier intentions – do they want to destroy it? Acquire it? Hide it? Reveal it?

After this, I draw the lines between factions showing their attitudes towards one another.

By: niggle

niggle — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:10:09 +0000

Heh Quartermaster Bob, sounds like one of my more retarded pcs that moved away.

I use bubble maps like that one for everything from scratch adventure ideas, to initial room and trap layout. Organization is a dms best friend.

By: HolyYakker

HolyYakker — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:28:57 +0000

I like to from Macro to Micro. I start with various kingdoms/power centers and how they interact. Then what roles do the certain towns/cities within the kingdom play, how do they interact? How do they interact with each other?

I think I might try a mind map to show the town relationships over my world map using layers in Paint Shop Pro.

Another organizational idea that I like, rather than writing directly on the map, is I buy a small sized notebook (typically about 200 index card sized pages for under a buck) and I’ll make a map with numbers and write up a page for each room number. I’ll include descriptions, dimensions, treasure, monsters, all on that tiny little page. Best part is that after an adventure I can paperclip/staple those pages together if I want to save the info/notes for later or just tear them out and start my next adventure. It also means I always have small pieces of paper on hand for player notes.