The Campaign: Redeeming The White Elephants On Your Shelf

(Following from yesterday's post.)

"Look, I get what you're saying here, but I have this massive library of material. I can't let it go to waste."

Anon, look, I get it. You spent a lot of money on stuff, and you want to use it in the campaign. I get it. You're grappling with the fact that you never needed all that product that you bought, so this is some Sunk Cost Fallacy copium you're double-fisting.

Tell you what. Let me entertain this complaint, and I'll give you a fantastic way to make use of all that stuff sitting on your shelf and still be able to run a campaign so fantastic that Napoleon, Julius Caesar, and Sun Tzu will beg God to play at your table.

The Tedium Of Turning Cope To Gold

Remember what I said a few days ago? Take all of that stuff you're keeping around. Plot the modules, adventure seeds, and whatever else you've got on the campaign map- the biggest scale one you're using.

Then take notes as to what the NPCs are doing, and would accomplish, if player-run characters did nothing to stop them. Plot the time it takes on the campaign calendar, and where their efforts go on the map- including consequences. If Bob The Secret King sets off the Zombie Apocalypse on April 1st in Seattle because the Supreme Dark Lord won't acknowledge his existence, then that's what goes down assuming nothing stops him.

Do this for every single adventure module, sourcebook, or whatever it is that applies. Take notes, and map out the consequences on the map and the calendar; you will refer to these as campaign play progresses, and they are going to screw up some player's plans sooner or later.

Yes, it is tedious if you have a large library of supplementary material on your shelf. You asked for a solution, and this one I know will work because I did it- and before me there were officially published notes for 1st Edition Greyhawk on where various module locations where, so it's older than I am.

The Desired Effect

You're aiming to replicate the disruptive effects that random events rolled off a table or chart can provide without doing so, with the added benefit of permitting players--be they adventurers or Faction leaders--to intervene before the consequences can manifest to either shut it down entirely or to suborn the plot for their own purposes.

Those books about those inexplicably modern industrial corporation in the post-apocalypse game? You can use it to track development and rollout of its wares.

That book about the Totally-Not-Cthulhu thing with globally-reaching mega-tentacles and the cults/minions it has? Track its reach, spread thereof, and (NPC) efforts against it.

That module about the completely-not-congruent-with-the-source-material music-themed sonic weapons? There's a timeline you can extract from it, most of it implied or easily deduced; have at it, especially if you have the cut material.

You're getting the idea now.

Players familiar with 4X strategy games, certain card games (e.g. Legend of the Five Rings), etc. will understand this as "Events" that come up over a playthrough. Some can be avoided or ignored. Others cannot, or should not, for various reasons.

If you take the time--tedious, again, as it is--to comb through that stuff you collected and plot it all on your map and calendar you will get the same effect. Players in the campaign, therefore, have to account for the possibility of happenings beyond anyone's control popping up and disrupting everything- or threatening to do so, permitting them to show off their skill by dealing with it, one way or another.

It's a lot of work, and the payoff may not be what you expected. You wanted a solution, Anon, and I just handed you the hammer you need to pound that nail. Handle it.