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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8169090" data-attributes="member: 82106">I would call it a "mindmap" or maybe "entity relationship diagram" (well, those are a thing, and this is not one, but it has a sort of analogous role). It seems essentially similar to the diagram presented by [USER=85555]@Bedrockgames[/USER], although more granular (his only shows entire organizations). I assume he might break his down, or at least describe, some of the details inside his organizations in a fashion similar to this.As you say though, this was a post hoc diagram. I don't see what purpose these would serve 'ante play' in a game like mine, though I have used similar tools maybe 12 years ago, at the start of my 1st 4e campaign. I quickly concluded that blank sheets of paper were superior! Because that campaign, and the couple of follow-ons, happened in my established D&D setting, they were really never exactly 'zero myth' (and 4e doesn't especially have support for that anyway). Still, I would simply look at my existing maps and notes, and start either weaving existing NPCs and whatnot into the narrative, or adding new ones which seemed thematically coherent and addressed the players. I guess a diagram like this for "The Midrealms" or "Kinergh", etc. could be generated. For myself it is enough to have a personal Wiki where each thing or group of related things has an article and links to whatever it relates to. These are mostly purely documentation of things discovered in play.In fact, I have never felt wedded to anything, even things I have established for my own edification in the past about the setting, such as Cosmology. While I've assumed a sort of 'World Axis like' (WA amuses me since they clearly followed the same path I did, but 40 years late) kind of cosmology, there's never been a resolution of such basic facts as the literal structure of the Erth! (How big is it, is it flat, is there an 'outer space', etc.). Nobody ever cared, so why define that? I may have written up a few ideas at various times back in the 70's and 80's, but I have no reason to take them as canonical 30-40+ years later. Likewise, if I happen to get ahead of myself and write some notes on what I think is going on in a game now and elements to use later, I am often surprised by how things go and just throw them away or recycle the parts. I don't do this much anymore though.</blockquote>

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