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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 1820154" data-attributes="member: 172">I'm not sure if this qualifies, but I am going to go out on a limb and say "yes".I never realized how intricate the workings of my primary game world was until I sat down a few times and tried to describe it. It was very easy to go on and on because, well, everything that I could relate related to something else because it was linked somehow.And the results of the campaign? Let's just say I had the players specifically request extra session because they couldn't get enough.Some who have poo-pooed on "complexity" above have went on the assumption that those who do are flooding the players with information. It doesn't have to be that way. In fact, it SHOULDN'T be that way.Ideally, to me, proceeding in a campaign should be like peeling back layers of an onion. One secret unveiled reveals another mystery. As soon as that is peeled away, there is another. There is satisfaction, because the players are learning why at each stage, and the intracacy of it all gives a feeling of depth, realism, and involvement. But there is always the next challenge.How to do this:1) My personal method -- whenever anything happens, ask yourself why. Why is the NPC trying to take over the town? Why is this puzzle-golem-gnome in the wizard's castle?and when you do it, try to look for similarities and coincidences that exist and try to explain them.An example, one of the pivotal villains of my last campaign was a conjurer name Galea. She was acting to disrupt trade and assist the drow in the surface world. Why? Because the PCs nation stood in the way of her plans. Why? Because she was part of a cabal of wizards obsessed with establishing themselves as a ruling class. That's how I conceived them, but until some time later, I hadn't asked that next why.When the players encountered the puzzle-golem gnome in the lair of one of the Arcane Alliance's wizards, I started asking why again. Well, he was cursed. Why? Because he would not join the arcane alliance's purposes. Why? That's where I took the devolopment of the arcane alliance deeper. Why would there be a number of wizards who came together for this purpose. It just so happened that part of the background of my world was that a nation to the east suffered a coup, a nation that was formerly a magocracy. Some of the exiled and escaped mages wanted to return to power. Some did not see it happening in their homeland that was steeled against them, but many looked to the less ready lands of the west, towards a new future.2) Ray Winniger's Dungeoncraft articles has a variety of techniques for making campaigns interesting, but this one was the one that impacted my game the most readily: whenever you make up an aspect of your game world, make up a secret to go with it. It doesn't always work that way, but it's a nice enough thought to strive for, and can really pay off.</blockquote>

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