Campaign Organization: Lists and Cards

link to part 3

Before John goes and performs grand larceny, lets pause for a moment and consider our context elements.

Context elements could be considered granular setting elements that come together to make the whole body of the campaign, but just as you recognized you have an arm or a pair of eyes, so each element in the setting is its own thing. Still the totality of the elements comes together to make the setting.

But enough theorizing and double speak, lets jump in to the gameable "bones" that will actually be of use at the game table. 

(As an aside, I am strong proponent of gameable elements, or practical gaming. If it is just theory, as much as I love theory, but adds little or nothing to the game, it probably can be left out of the body of a essays like these, and be covered in the comments. Not that I am against game theory. I love it, but this document is about something you can pick up right now and play.)

When it comes to organizing campaign content, there are nearly an endless variety of possibilities at hand: an indexed journal, for instance, or a piece of organizational software. Both of these work do a great job, but both have an investment in time and effort. If an index journal isn't upkept regularly, and it is a just a list of things that occur in chronological order then you end up spending as much time flipping through the index as you would searching back through game notes. As for organizational software, even the free ones have a learning curve that requires more than the most basic "look it up in a web browser" level of computer savvy. If you are like me, a word processor is about the limit of your software skills. 

What we need is a simple system that both organizes and hold content notes. Thus, we come to Lists and Cards.

The list is the first step. In fact it maybe the only one if you have a sharp memory. As I creep towards the middle of middle aged I don't quite trust that memory as much as I used to, so cards that contain the details that are important to continuity are essential as well.

You can divide your lists as finely as you like. Some people, places, things, or events may fit into more than one list, but I believe that there are 4 essential lists: Characters, Locations, Events, and Goals.

These can be put in a pretty notebook, or kept on your character sheet, or give their own little word processor file. They can be subdivided, arranged by importance, and numbered to use as random elements when you need a bit of context to pop up in game (more on that at the page bottom and in the next article). Two important points to keep in mind are that the lists should be easy to read and don't become too crowded to use quickly.

You will want separate list for each type of broad element described below. Also, instead of a list starting at 1 and going on into infinity, group them in clusters of 6. The first element in the micro list would be 11 and finish at 16, then start a new micro list with 21 followed by 22 and finishing with 26. Keep adding elements in this pattern until you reach 66 (which would be 36 active elements). If you get more elements on your table than that, consider pruning, but if that is not an option restart the numbering process from the first entry with 111 followed by 112 and so forth. Besides keeping list short and easy to scan, setting the lists up this way you can randomly pick an element from a list with a couple of d6 rolls. If you roll an impossible number (maybe micro list 5 has only 2 elements in it), just pick from the list the element that looks the most fun (not that you can't do that anytime you want).

Now, lets go through and discuss what goes into the four essential lists.

Characters

• Player Characters include the single PC or cast of characters you play. 
• If it is a single character put it down as such. If it is part of a troupe of characters note every character in the troupe and the troupe itself as a character
• Named NPC go on the list. 
• Not necessarily every character with a name. If you decide the barman in a one horse town that you are is named Billy, there is no reason to add him UNLESS you think he will play a part in future adventures. 
• Unnamed NPCs that really should have a name. 
• Let's be honest. We  all sometime fly through a scene and never consider the names of the characters we interact with, so when you book keep jot down who that character is, and if you feel like generating a name then, or maybe after wrap up for the day it is now a named character, and you can imagine the happy glow they get from it.
• Important off screen characters.
• This could be the local baron or maybe the common name of the dragon that terrorizes a local trade route. 
• Important groups.
• This should include the background folk that could at any point come to the foreground (local citizens, or the baronial court). It could be large groups active groups that you have not yet encountered (maybe wandering knights errant that serve out the baron's justice on the road, or a whispered about thieves guild who's actions are known, but their personage is not). Finally and most importantly, it should include groups with which you have some favor (a large influential family you saved from a curse) or enmity (a local goblin tribe you have clashed with but not destroyed). 

Locations

After characters, you will want a list of locations of importance. This could also be varied into sub lists depending on your style of play. Some important places to consider are:

• The PC's home. The building he lives in.
• The PC's home town
• The current location of the PC
• The largest city or village near the current location or home town (adventurers end up drawn to big urban areas in my experience)
• Famous or infamous ruins
• Famous or infamous natural features
• The seat of the local government and if applicable the national government (this depends on your game scale)
• and any other place the character visits or hears of that could impact their lives. (Even if you never go to the capitol city, finding out that it is suffering from food riots, may be a grim portent for the rest of the kingdom)

Events

Events are things that are:

• happening (like a rebellion), 
• have happened (like a past adventure),
• or happen regularly (like a town fair). 

I realize that is vague, but this is one of the two most subjective lists. Over time and through inspirations and oracles, you can get a very hefty list of the past and the present event, but I suggest that if the event is flavor of the moment, and not useful as an adventure hook, don't bother with recording it. Certainly, play out the scene of passing through a small town fair, but if you will never see that town again then it is just a back drop for a scene, and ultimately not important enough to go on the list. 

Lists are your working tools. They do a job. Remove any useless events as they are just clutter in the list, but more on that in a moment.

Goals

The last, and probably shortest list is Goals. What do the characters whish to accomplish on the long medium and short term. I will jot down some examples below, but this is purely a subjective category.

• A short term goal could be Get to the Cave of Wonders, Survive the Cave of Wonders, or Escape the Cave of Wonders.
• A medium term goal could be pay back the loan shark who financed your dungeon dive.
• A long term goal could be, to unseat the usurper ruler and install yourself as monarch.

What goes on a goals list is anything you want to accomplish. It is that simple. It is also that malleable.

Actually, all the lists are quite malleable. After every adventure or maybe short campaign go through the lists and prune them. If the bar and barman that used to give you rumors is now part of a chard collapsed building, sad as that may be, he doesn't really need to stay on the list. Likewise if you leave a kingdom or a continent or planet or dimension, with no intent to return, then there is little reason to keep most locations and people in your prior lists. Like your campaign, your lists are living things, like a many branched bush. You will occasionally need to trim them.

(What I just said above is excellent advice and the simplest advice, but you may also want a separate list for retired game element that could boomerang back as rumors, undead, bounties, trial evidence, or any similar event.. That adds one more level of complexity, but it is one that I find useful)

Ok, I have gone over lists, now how about cards? Well if you divided your lists into manageable chunks and numbered them, those numbers can be used as tags for index cards (or digital equivalents). If a setting element has details besides a name and brief description, label an index card with its list number and name and fill it with the details. I highly suggest you hold the details to the front of the card. That keeps the reference brief enough that you can access it in game play, and its main purpose is to jog your memory about details. If you also record your games in print some where (I use Google Docs), then the back of the cards are useful for leaving notes referencing which adventure or adventures that the tagged element played an important part.

We keep lists as setting element reminders. We use cards for those that deserve a bit more attention, now we can bring in the dice. Now suppose you are in a location of some type and feel stumped on what to do next. Pick and element list that you would like to explore, and roll your d6 twice. The first roll will tell you which micro list you are rolling in, and the second roll will tell you the particular element or that list comes into play.

Lets say your character is in the capitol city trying to sell loot from your last profitable adventure. You have hit the merchants, are carrying some cash, but have to wait a while while your plate armor is being repaired. You decide not to skip time until the repair is done, but instead to explore the city. Then you draw a blank on what to do or what is going on. You could use some Yes/No questions, or random word generation, and/or you can roll on your character, locations, events, or goals tables, and work its findings into current scene. Thus immediately finding something of interest to your character into the current scene. 

This will also come in handy in our penultimate article on adding a touch of the random to your game. After all a physical GM will toss you a curveball, why shouldn't your emulator do the same. 

Attached below is a link to John Everyman's lists for an example of how to organize them.

W.D.

John's Lists and Cards

link to part 5