The Status Quo for the Story Guide
“Overseeing a world’s state is a complex endeavor. Future timelines are susceptible to the butterfly effect, a phenomenon that becomes even more striking when a pre-planned narrative collides with spontaneous events that unfold along your plot line.”
Events constantly change the Status Quo of the campaign. As things move along the players and their shenanigans often throw a corkscrew into the long term preparations. By using an effective strategy for derailing moments we can keep the game on rhythm regardless.
My Top Three Strategies
Location Vira Series Writing: Location Vira should include events which follow their own storylines. Each time the players visit the same location a new scene should be moving forward. These scenes don’t have to be connected, but my players love to see the little stories attached to a place. Like the Librarian and the Bear where a man confesses his love for the librarian and she rejects him. Then the next scene for the Librarian involves someone who is angry about late fees. The Librarian has a story ready if they ask about the Bear, and even if not asked, the next time after any player returns, there is another scene where he is shooting his shot again and she agrees.
Main Story Plot Progression: For every session I include a Session Scope. Every single time we sit down to play, at least one scene or piece of lore needs to connect back to my main plot. This can be introducing a supporting character who later gets impacted by the big evil, or a player finding a note. I’ve used literally thousands of different Session Scopes. The easier they are to throw in, the better. Many times they’ll lead to an hour or two exploring the Main Story Plot, sometimes, they end up being a small bit of foreshadowing which creates questions, and leaves a nice upcoming AHA! from one or more of the players.
Letting Go and Switch: If the players skip over the planned materials. You know? They end up getting into a fight with a surly supporting character who was my plot point, don’t bother to search a room. I don’t bother with the Quantum Ogre (A Railroading Technique). It is better to know my setting well enough where if the characters miss a line of information or a whole quest, it doesn’t hurt the story. We can always stumble back to the place where those things are important again. Letting Go and making the Switch let’s the players pursue what they were interested in. This may be the hardest strategy to get comfortable with, but it is the strongest strategy to reinforce player agency.
The Status Quo Defined
The Status Quo is the state of the game. A status quo for the Story Guide is a little different than for Players. Where players will track their to Player Keys (To-Do Lists and Quests). The Story Guide typically keeps a Timeline for major upcoming events in addition to the Player Keys. Having this timeline gives the Story Guide a tool to make materials relative to those things happening from rumors to news. Faction War? A Royal Ball? We can add events which have passed and events which are upcoming. Bringing this information to the party through whatever chosen medium helps give them choices and whether or not they are involved, you have material to reference in a later session.
The Timeline in Alttime
We do little to no “Downtime” in our campaigns. I prepare for each day most of the time, with a few major events weekly. The majority of the campaign setting takes place in an environment with Forty Two Million denizens, dozens of major factions, and infinite daily possibilities. We have transportation which can see the party reach any point on the map within one to two days, and the crafting system isn’t designed in a way where it takes months to make a single item. These adjustments can be made to other systems.
In stead, we do something called Alttime. We should endeavor to strengthen our roleplaying chops to a point where combat encounters are no where near half the game. Alttime is worldbuilding through informational engagements. These scenes can take time to prepare, but when you’re used to throwing them at the party, like any other prep, Alttime worldbuilding becomes a useful and enjoyable exchange.
Delivering the Status Quo
A solid list of different settings gives us more storytelling power than any other element. There is a right place and a right time for everything, right? Some examples of ones we use are small hallways, the tavern floor, the tavern room, the camp, the elevator, the ballroom, and I could go on and on.
One setting I love to include is the small newsstand. Includes a supporting character who is knowledgeable in rumors, and holds several publications about the world at large. Keep in mind people don’t tend to read the materials until later, so a few headlines, gossip, and a thumb newspaper of the Status Quo you probably prepped weeks ago or nabbed off us if you’re using our systems.
Everything which is currently true is part of the Status Quo. This includes if the party is beat up and needing to heal, or how the party is split. If a player is disguised some way, the world may treat them differently. Keeping up with these small details rewards player agency, and helps to keep nailed down where the party is headed.
Timescale Status Quo
Our Setting, The Vorcrux, banks on constant time travel through gates and by other means. As the campaign progresses, Time Shock, Mandela Effect, Paradox, and the Butterfly Effect are constant variables we get to play with on both roleplaying and mechanical levels. Much of this is covered by the Factions and their Anchors as well as Probability Monitors who work to keep things relatively cohesive.
Our first rule to make things manageable sets the Status Quo Flow. Where the gates operate, and any other form of travel between the Overzones, includes the Rule of Constant Passage.
Rule of Constant Passage: Any time which passes in one Overzone also passes in all other Overzones, with the exception of the Amcor. For example, if it is y.3 in Mediva, then you add 3 years to the time in all other Overzones aside from Amcor. This Rule is designed specifically to prevent easy access to time lapse abuse. The Anchors, who are at least five dimensional beings, exist throughout the entire time they are anchored within, are the structures who prevent Time Shock.
Time Shock: Time Shock is an event which causes the butterfly effect to completely destroy the Status Quo of later Timescale Overzones. There are a lot of ways the campaign setting resolves these destructive or altering points of history. The simplest answer is Snipping. The existence of the player’s character who caused the issue gets reset, making them aware of the possibility of the boundaries, or they get completely erased from ever being born. The latter of the two only being true if they’re not important to the timelines.
Mandela Effect: Minor changes in the timelines across timescales is when a character gateslips and invests in a company or involves themselves someway with the natural course of a Faction or Organization. This investment or otherwise causes a minor change in logo, spelling, or feature of the Faction or Organization. Mandela Effects make for great story starters.
Paradox: When we use the Rule of Constant Passage, we reduce the possibility of a Paradox only marginally. Many species live a long time, and some actions may cause accidental Snipping. When a Paradox is a possible outcome involving a character they begin to become intention sick. Intention sick starts as fear, becomes dread, and if the paradox happens directly related to a character, they often die by erasing themselves. Strangely enough, some Paradox situations are the catalyst for them to exist in the first place.
Butterfly Effect: Of all our time altering concepts, the Butterfly Effect is the weakest. While it may still happen, thanks to the presence of the Anchors and other beings, it is mostly mitigated. Kill an important leader? Find out they’re just a figurehead. (For now that is my wonderful example, we make a lot in the campaign setting).
Any changes to the Status Quo will go noticed, but it is by design. Not every alteration is met with a squad of Ahn-Tallah or other Faction hunting down the party because of an illegal change. This is because once people awaken, they are among those aware of the lines. The population of the Overzones makes the exception possible. There are a massive number of supporting characters regulating the timeline passage. Even if they’re only less than 0.1% of the combined population of all the Overzones. It’s a time war after all.
Alabaster’s Memoir “No More Notes”
It wasn’t until I had been a Story Guide for over a decade when I began the transition from making things up in improvisation which I would have to jot down, to knowing my setting well enough where I was marking off the boxes on my Status Quo. When I do, and I do fairly often, make something up on the fly, my note ends with several extra thoughts. The conversion changed from “let me write down this note,” to “let me write down this title.”
Making my new notes “Titles,” to work on later to lock pick the door the players and I wanted to open and take a step through it to explore it became one of my more prominent preparation tools. Under the title I would also save my players questions along with come up with a few of my own. This way I could answer things in the coming sessions which I wasn’t prepared to answer on the spot.
