I am sorry for the additional thread hijack, but it continues.... This is in response to the World Pack and Linkage above
http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1274



In most cases, I write everything up in a two paragraph kind of format. The first is the general information, the second is the deeper details that the GM should know. Paragraph is an over generalization, it should say section.

The GM pack presented to the players has the second paragraph removed and printed out. The GM packet I use, has both included.

To be honest, I kind have moved past that. Normally the world pack is the world pack, and all the "cool notes" are in my legal pad of gaming notes. (I am trying to make the legal pad into a large computer file, but to be honest, I am more comfortable just writing some of it out long hand.) The cool notes would be the "customization" that any GM would do with a setting, adding their own twist, flare, and flavor (as well as details needed for their campaign).

Again, do what is good for you, your troupe, and your campaign. Your milage may vary.

Now, one or two of the tools I use to make up the World Pack come from designing the setting.  I use the worksheets that I explain in the now infamous World Building 102 article ( http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1148 ). It is the worksheet that I use in there, and the fact that I will use the same worksheet for smaller areas inside the world (it makes it easier when you can say, see World Worksheet). Some examples can be found in the Worksheet Setting submission  http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=3572

Strolen's is a lot of fun. It is an idea guild, where people put non system specific gaming material (NPCs, Items, Plots, Locations, Lifeforms, etc for fantasy, sci fi, modern, supers, etc genres) up for public consumption. It is a place where I can put all my spare ideas for safekeeping, yet still have people respond to them.  I like keeping articles I have written there as well. There is quite a repository of knowledge and ideas on the site.

Now, to bring this back to the map....
You can link plotlines to specific geographic locations. Some could just be scenes, others could be contained story arcs.  If you can treat The Weather ( http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=1637 ), Nations, and large groups as characters with their own storylines, a smaller location should be possible as well.

I tend to have scenes build on a location (See the Ninjas attack stuff earlier), for color, filler, and supporting scenes. It is not much more of a stretch to make actual plotlines revolve around there.

Now the true GM Genius comes in interweaving all these plotlines into a useful campaign, and borrowing scenes and elements from one plotthead and merging it with a character's thread.