Quote from: Azraele;1017837Dammit estar, now I've got more reading to do!!!

Sorry man . But I will say if you have the time and follow the steps you will get something that useful for your campaign. I ate my own dogfood on this when writing the Points of Light setting and Blackmarsh.

But any of the steps can be short circuited if you are confident of winging it from whatever in your head. For me often a map with a few notes is enough. Sometime I need to do more especially if I running stuff in a region that I don't use often. For example my Thursday group is about to explore the Sea of Five Winds. I am not as adept with sea adventures so I have to do more prep to keep on top of things.

The same at first with Middle Earth for my Adventures in Middle Earth campaign.

Use Red Tide, or, really, any Sin Nomine generator. Tie together as you see fit.

Quote from: flyingmice;1017771Ghaa! I'm going back almost a decade here!

https://iflybynight.blogspot.com/2009/09/situational-gming.html - This is the basics

https://iflybynight.blogspot.com/2010/01/building-setting-part-i-in-built.html - ideas for set ups

https://iflybynight.blogspot.com/2010/07/interrupted-plans.html - using these principles for a one off

Hopefully that would get you started! I thought there would be a lot more, but apparently I was posting more in fora back then!

Thanks! I'll check them out.
*Edit* That was quick. Good stuff.
I think a huge problem in GMing is that the actual structures and procedures are rarely explained well. (If at all) It's not that I haven't set up adventures as scenarios, but this kind of explanation helps actually lay out the structure and make it easier to do it well.

The person running this website is a racist who publicly advocates genocidal practices.

I am deleting my content.

I recommend you do the same.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1017855Thanks! I'll check them out.
*Edit* That was quick. Good stuff.
I think a huge problem in GMing is that the actual structures and procedures are rarely explained well. (If at all) It's not that I haven't set up adventures as scenarios, but this kind of explanation helps actually lay out the structure and make it easier to do it well.

You are very welcome, Ratman! Any time!

Quote from: Justin Alexander;1017857Yes. And then I jumped into a time machine and wrote the article.  

Ah well, I knew who you were, at any rate! It's on me not realizing you were still around, as I don't read as much here as I used to! Glad you are still here, Justin!

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1017785That's a good point - I never really thought about having the factions try to reach out and use the players.

I've been noodling around ideas about how to run factions specifically in regards to how they interact with the characters. The best I've come up with so far is a kind of reputation system.* The problem is, if there are a bunch of factions, tracking rep for each one, for each player, could get bogged down in bookkeeping.

*Nothing concrete yet. Just the idea that rep is measured in something similar to xp and levels. Doing favors for one faction raises your faction level, and working against a faction lowers it. Perhaps raising xp in one faction will lower it with another, etc.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1017880I've been noodling around ideas about how to run factions specifically in regards to how they interact with the characters. The best I've come up with so far is a kind of reputation system.* The problem is, if there are a bunch of factions, tracking rep for each one, for each player, could get bogged down in bookkeeping.

Why? Look I get where you coming from but the ultimate point is to help you roleplay NPC X interacting with PC Y. Politics, religion, culture, and faction only matter during the session if it shapes an NPC behavior.

For example in the Adventures in Middle Earth campaign, one of the party is known as a Hero of the Woodsmen. The book has some mechanics about this but by and large I use it to slant how I roleplay NPCs who are Woodsmen. In general they become more friendly once they figure out who they are talking too. But it just a starting point. Subsequent actions can change their attitude. In addition only Woodsmen at Radaghast's steading of Rhosgobel knew about the title. Over time the news spread over the month until last session when even Woodsmen Outlaws living alone in Mirkwood heard about the character and the exploit that earned him the title.

I just note which cultures are friendly to the PCs, which are not and change the note if the PCs does something that warrants a general change in reputation. If I feel the need too I will roll a d6. 1 the NPC is more historical, 2 to 5 the NPC acts as expected (with variations), 6 the NPC has better than expected reaction.

Quote from: estar;1017886Why?

To give the players an explicit grasp on the concept."This faction likes you, this one doesn't"
And I like to brainstorm ideas. Some work out, some don't. Some spur different ideas that do work.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1017906To give the players an explicit grasp on the concept."This faction likes you, this one doesn't"
And I like to brainstorm ideas. Some work out, some don't. Some spur different ideas that do work.

I recommend keeping it to "This faction likes you", rather than some complicated point-tracking system.
I dunno, my Wilderlands game is full of factions, they often have views of the PCs (and vice versa) but I don't find any value in a metric. If a PC wants to know what the Rangers of the Wode think of him, he could ask a Ranger. A lot of the political gameplay comes out of interaction between NPC factions so I'm usually more tracking stuff like what Lord Bronze of Hara thinks about the Nerathi Black Sun - when he betrayed the Black Sun and pledged allegiance to Hakeem (PC) it was a major turning point.

The Child Eaters, my first RPGPundit Presents adventure scenario (for Lion & Dragon/Dark Albion of course) has gotten some criticism for people in that it's not an adventure with a plot, per se. It's a setup of a whole place, people and groups, with a situation. But the resolution of how that all plays out is left up to the GM and the players.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018248The Child Eaters, my first RPGPundit Presents adventure scenario (for Lion & Dragon/Dark Albion of course) has gotten some criticism for people in that it's not an adventure with a plot, per se. It's a setup of a whole place, people and groups, with a situation. But the resolution of how that all plays out is left up to the GM and the players.

Why I have only written three adventures, ever, and none for the last decade or so. They aren't adventures as most people know them, and I don't like saying a thing is X when it is most definitely not X but may possibly be the square root of 1.

Quote from: flyingmice;1018259Why I have only written three adventures, ever, and none for the last decade or so. They aren't adventures as most people know them, and I don't like saying a thing is X when it is most definitely not X but may possibly be the square root of 1.

They used to be called modules... If well presented I love an adventure that doesn't have any plot other than maybe some hints as to what the goals of any major NPCs are.

Frank

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018248The Child Eaters, my first RPGPundit Presents adventure scenario (for Lion & Dragon/Dark Albion of course) has gotten some criticism for people in that it's not an adventure with a plot, per se. It's a setup of a whole place, people and groups, with a situation. But the resolution of how that all plays out is left up to the GM and the players.

Now, to me that sounds awesome.  But I'm a bad-tempered flatulent old curmudgeon who has publicly stated that "modules" are the worst thing to ever happen to RPGs.  In other words, not the mass market audience for modules.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1017727One of my goals this year is to get better at using the "Prep Situations, not Plot" approach to GMing. I don't seem to have any trouble doing at least some of the prep this way - e.g., creating motivated antagonists with resources, goals and agendas; creating clocks (these bad things will happen in order if nothing stops them). However once I get to the table I have a lot of trouble turning that into a coherent session.

So I have some inciting incident / hook that lets the player's know what's up (some kind of situation they may want to deal with).

NORMALLY I'd prep a bunch of semi-linear scenes that they have to go through to achieve that goal, then run into problems at the table creatively as things go off the rails (they're supposed to).

There *must* be some published game that gives advice/instruction for how to turn the situation based prep into a bunch of things that happen at the table.

Let's assume that the players have bought into whatever the adventure premise (mine usually do so that's not the issue).

Well, you need to give the players opposition, so they act. Then the world reacts to their action (which they might see as a reaction, themselves). I think that's what PbtA games call "the first session".
In fact, the concept of "the first session" is worth reading, if you can find a free PbtA game (or if you own one of those already).
Ron Edwards calls this concept a Kicker and...

Quote from: flyingmice;1017739I have never written any except on my blog years ago, and I have been the main proponent of situational play for many years. I start things off with a kicker - that is the name Ron Edwards gave to this technique, which has been around since the seventies at least! A kicker is a situation that the PCs MUST respond to, something happening that is NOT directed at the PCs, but is a step towards realizing the goals of one of the organizations. The results of this start defining who the PCs are. The competing organizations should begin to recognize the PCs as PLAYERS, and begin feeling them out. Are they potential allies? Enemies? Distractions? What are their motives? Their resources? Who belongs to them? The next phase of the game is the PCs defining who they are and what they stand for, and thus how the others should treat them. The PCs may or may not know what they are walking into, as they may be from OUTSIDE, but they may also have been lying low and observing. The next phase is the PCs making friends and enemies as they wish - alliances and feuds, subversions, buying out, tricking, and in general attempting to eliminate orgs they feel opposed to.
You should be making changes in the attitudes of the other orgs between sessions based on what happens in the previous sessions. Actions have consequences, for good or ill, and it's in between the sessions that you adjust things. Never assume who will be the PCs' friend or enemy - let them make those decisions. They can react naturally to what you present, and you base the other org's reaction to what they see the PCs do. The other orgs will not change their goals to accommodate the PCs, but they can change the actions they take in pursuing their goals. Do that. As time goes on, the PCs will make their own place in the organizational ecology.
The main point is reacting to actions the PCs initiate, and initiating situations set up by the other orgs that the PCs may or must respond to. Action->Reaction.

OK, that's a much better explanation than Ron Edwards' own:D!

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1017785That's a good point - I never really thought about having the factions try to reach out and use the players.

Oh yes, they should, and powerful NPCs count as a faction, too:).
In fact, they should also reach out "under false flag", if possible, and misdirect, and so on. And you should explain to the players that the PCs allying with a faction, or making their own faction, is pretty much a given;).