Anybody tried a campaign "Machinations Meter"?

[haakon1]

Faction-related tools:

Random Faction Interaction Tables

That's pretty nifty.

For Keep on the Borderlands, I rolled up a Wandering Band of Adventurers uniting with the Goblins (which is actually about what happened last time I ran it, if you count the PC's as a wandering party).

For Forge of Fury, I rolled up the Duregar having a conflict with the Trogs. I'm running it this Saturday, so I will include that in my mental notes (but not change the populations, just keep in mind the Duregar and Trogs are at war).

 

[davethegame]

First, [MENTION=81800]Durn[/MENTION], glad you enjoyed it. I'm not sure I've convinced anyone else to try this particular implementation out yet, but I'm definitely going to be using it going forward. The 5x5 method, on the other hand, has been used by a number of GMs now, and your example looks pretty good. The crux of making the two work together is if you really want to push on the resource management aspect of it, and deal with making resting a big deal, as well as encouraging players to pick their fights carefully. For a campaign, you can always make the triggers different as well, since the ones I used were specifically designed for the Temple of Elemental Evil. You might make Extended Rests and long journeys to be the two main advancements, for instance.

I found the "5x5 Machination Meter" to be unnatural and rather rigid. There didn't seem to be any logical connection between the triggers and the events, which meant that PC efforts to deal with the "machinations" were heavily metagamed.

In play, there was very little metagaming involved- the players learned about what the different factions were up to, and tried to head them off based on what they had learned IC, all the while knowing that the clock was ticking away. As for being too rigid: that's up to the DM. Some DMs have an easier time figuring out a plan in advance and having something to refer to when time is passing to help determine what's going on, and some are more comfortable planning in a shorter timeframe and linking things back.

 

[renau1g]

It's funny, this is similar to the ideas in the excellent Red Hand of Doom module from 3.5e, the party had to try and stop the events from happening, but if they dithered various things happened (won't reveal them on the off chance someone hasn't played it yet...and if not, what are you waiting for. )

 

[NoWayJose]

I see why the grid format could be too rigid.

ie., in a side quest to the main quest: hired thugs kidnaps victim --> cultists performs ritual --> summoned demon eats the entire village and roams the countryside

If the PCs stop the kidnappers and save the would-be sacrificial victim, the plot doesn't necessarily end there. The cultists might just try to kidnap a different victim.

For the sake of flexibility, maybe a better format is a tree flow chart. The default flow is marked with bolded lines. If the PCs interrupt a certain step, then the plot might end right there or fork out along a different path. Not all the paths have to be pre-filled, and a flow chart isn't even necessary except as a creative tool to spark ideas and/or to help DMs visualize the plot in an adventure module.