Re: [BNW] Meta-Plot vs Static world

["William Davis" <williamjdavis@hotmail.com>]

Well, I sort of answered this on another board... but:

1) original game should be stand alone. Secrets from the GM is a big no-no 
for me. (see the player's for surprise!)
2) Supplements: depend on the game sort of. However, in general, most books 
fail slightly in the category of fit. I have rarely read advice on HOW to 
work the new things into an ongoing campaign. If a new power, how or why 
wasn't it seen to this point. If detail on a location, make it generic 
enough to drop in almost anywhere with a small amount of work. If detail on 
a specific race/class/package, well try to make it optional as opposed to 
"well we left this vague, and now we've decided how it works and will work 
in ALL future supplments". It would be nice to see 'plot' threads.
Like Bank robbery (very competant)...
Day 1: crooks contacted by disgruntled employee and arrange meet.
Day 2: crooks go to meet with employee at (fill in location), buy security 
plans for building.
Day 3-?: crooks study plan and decide on good day to hit bank.. (payroll day 
or some such).
1 day prior to hit: crooks disable security device disguised as workmen in 
garage.
Day of robbery: hit bank during security black out... no video or panic 
alarms.
Night of robbery: crooks have slight falling out and kill one of own at 
(public location) but manage to hide body unless noticed and divide up loot.
This could be dropped into any modern campaign. Using existing crooks, or 
with provided crook NPCs, and generic bank NPCs. You can decide whether to 
let the scheme go off without a hitch barring PC intervention OR have a 
slight random roll for success failure of each step. Which would run "in the 
background" until the PCs stumble on it. OR "Daring Daylight Robbery" hits 
the headlines. At which point you will have had the backstory already done.
I use old calendars to plot this kind of thing out.
Right now, my BNW has three calendars for each year: Political, Criminal, 
and Defiant/Delta Prime. Some arcs are a single event (like accidental 
fires) some occur over a week (like arson). some are months (like arson and 
insurance fraud), and a couple are for the whole year. Plus these calendars 
have phases of the moon, and I note general weather as I am plotting the 
other things.......
There is nothing quite like beginning an adventure with:

"Your alarm clock buzzes, cutting into the morning radio broadcast 
...ztt-ember 6 and the weather for today will be a light snowfall in the 
morning clearing to sun in the afternoon. Temperatures will hover just below 
freezing all day. Police have released the identities of the victims of the 
fire at....."

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