You know, this is pretty much the exact sort of thing I was envisioning when I composed my heresy. I'd like several maps of the campaign world/region, with one of them being a bunch of trade arrows and lists of goods going in that direction. When the players get a "protect the caravan" quest, I want them to be able to find out what is in the caravan, and have that have meaning. The caravan should not be a sprite they simply have to shield from harm through a series of dice rolls. As a DM, I shouldn't base the rest of the adventure on a specific outcome of the caravan trip. I should not require that the caravan make it to town OR that it be looted by trolls enroute.Vebyast wrote:Agreed. When I say "economies and ecologies", I mean really, really high-level stuff. Like "the region is in a major economic depression because $event and $socialproblem interacted to cause $majorevent, which caused a downward spiral only halted because the entire middle class died". For a city, one sentence. Maybe a paragraph if it's a major trade hub. Typically my entire economic system is two maps of trade routes and political borders and a page of text. If you want to have a particular encounter, find a good spot for it then modify the area's interactions until it fits perfectly. Do this until you have a campaign laid out.
A different map with political groups and their interactions would be nice too. Just because the elves here are at war with the dwarves there when you open the book doesn't mean it has to stay that way. The players could decide to get involved somehow, favoring one side or simply fueling the conflict.
I want players to say, "WTF? Griffons don't act like that." when an encounter with one exhibits unusual behavior. This is a fucking magical world, for chrissake! That "griffon" could be charmed, trained, ploymorphed, illusory, fiendish, or a dozen other things. At least let the players recognize that something is amiss by having observable behavior differ from what they've been officially "taught" about griffons. And to do that, there has to be some concept of what normal behavior for a griffon is in the first place.
With the earlier laws comment, it's fucking pointless when the characters go to Harshistan and get harassed by the authorites for breaking some law or another, because there's no player agency in that. That's just the DM saying, well, I need one of you to get arrested so I can tell this "story." Fuck that shit. If the players can look a Hammurapi's Code carved into the stone at the city gates, they can decide that they need to avoid eye-gouging and tooth-pulling while they're in town. Or they can say fuck it and loot teeth from hobos and take their chances. Either case, the players are making conscious decisions based on information rather than getting buffaloed with some bullshit about wearing blue on the 37th day of Holidaria. I'm not looking for modern legal codes here--10 to 15 common "universal" probibitions (stealing, killing, fighting, etc) plus another 10 or so location specific DOs or DO NOTs (DO pay the gate tarriff, DON'T be drunk in public, etc) would be fine.