TL;DR: I discuss how to incorporate strong Cause & Effecting GMing into campaigns.
Batting Cages vs. Chess
We have a large array of GMing styles when it comes to Cause & Effect. On one end of the spectrum, the Cause/Effect chain of events in the world is virtually irrelevant, and each of the PC’s interactions and encounters are purely geared for their maximum challenge or excitement (whether that means combat or some dramatic zenith). I call this the “Batting Cage” style, where the point is to just pitch the balls to the batters to see if they can hit home runs.
On the other end of this spectrum is a GMing style that takes into consideration all of the events that the PCs affect, and to which degree they may affect them. This could be seen as - a "million ricocheting billiard balls" or (more simply) “Chess” - style (where all of the movements affect everything else on the board).
Whatever analogy we like, within this style, the GM keeps an eye on the links of cause & effect reverberating through the plot, especially as it pertains to the antagonists & their schemes.
My strong preference is towards this Chess-style of GMing, and that's what I will explore here.
My own method when I am working on the various plots of the game is to work out the actions of the antagonists, how others in the world will react to them, and the series of events that will result from all of that. So, I chart out exactly how, without the actions of the PCs, the antagonist will make out, including an exact timeline of the schemes and events. (Note: Calendars are indispensable for calculating the unfolding events in your campaign.)
Next, I go back to the beginning of this timeline, and find the most interesting & appropriate point for the PCs to enter into it. I find points at which they may experience the effects of the antagonists’ plans (although the PCs won’t know the actual source of these events). I start the game in such a way so that the PCs are drawn into this plot, with the potential to begin acting in ways that may (eventually) interfere with the antagonist(s), perhaps even physically confronting them, possibly unto the death.
This doesn’t mean that the PCs must be particularly dangerous, themselves. In some cases, the balance of power between the baddies & their enemies is not necessarily overwhelming on the side of the baddies. Not every campaign thread requires the antagonists to be Saurons. Sometimes, purely by discovering/providing special information to the right people, the PCs can change the outcome. Antagonists sometime rely on remaining hidden and secretive in order to win.
And campaigns need not involve large kingdoms, with tens or hundreds-of-thousands of people being affected. There need not be actual armies marching on battle fields. Your campaign could have the PCs be the only people combating the enemy. Small-scale and/or low-population scenarios are no less fun or interesting than large-scale ones, and they possess their own set of advantages as you’re sorting through the possibilities.
Whatever scale you choose for your regions, GMs must create believable ways for the PCs to be important in the scheme against the various antagonists. But how? In very small-scale scenarios, the PCs may virtually be the only skilled or dangerous people in the land who can accomplish the task. Or perhaps their past actions could specifically link up with the larger plot, uniquely making them the right choice.
The campaign progresses—perhaps battles occur, important characters and places are discovered, and mysteries present themselves. But the overarching fun of strong Cause/Effect structure is how these events that the PCs are involved in begin to affect the enemy.
Under this style of GMing, no events in your worlds happen in a vacuum. Everything in life is bound up in a causal chain (even if the effects are sometimes negligible). But since the PCs are involved with a quest that runs counter to the schemes of your antagonists, some of their actions should begin affecting the enemy.
Tracking Cause & Effect with "Gralen’s Plot"
Take this simple scenario:
Within a small warlike realm (think more of a ‘Chiefdom’ than a ‘Kingdom’), a lesser, embittered chief, Gralen, is trying to usurp the dominant lord by instigating a war between several other clans against the lord. To accomplish this, Gralen has several elements of a scheme in play.
Part of this plot has him hiring distant groups of bandits to hide along specific spots, then attack specific caravans, framing one or more warlord in the process. Gralen has also hired some cut-throats to murder the relatives of a few warlords, also implicating others. Of course, none of these thugs know that Gralen is behind these deeds, for he’s smart enough to always have minions (or even the minions of minions) to do the hiring and passing of orders/information.
I will have mapped out exactly where the bandit camps are located, how often they move, how they avoid detection, and (crucially) how information is passed between them and Gralen.
The long-term plan is for Gralen to stir up suspicion and rage between the warlords with this violence, while he, himself, appears neutral, thus able to manipulate these warlords with whispers.
Ultimately, after 7 months of his machinations, the competing warlords go to war with each other, and Gralen has the Chief Warlord assassinated, and succeeds in supplanting him.
Now we return to early in this timeline, and I introduce the PCs into the region.
Eventually, perhaps at month 2-3, the PCs (through a unique mixture of woodland skills or clever subterfuge) discover the hideout of some of the bandits Gralen hired. After killing them, the PCs don’t have any information concerning Gralen’s connection, but Gralen is still affected; he needed those thieves as part of his scheme to ignite war in the land. Now he must adjust his plans. If nothing else, Gralen’s timeline has been altered. There are no other bandits that he can find to replace them locally, and so he must now spend time and silver clandestinely seeking/hiring thugs from afar. This could cost him weeks or months.
You must determine what Gralen discovers about their deaths, with a host of considerations:
· How long did it take Gralen to discover their deaths? Days? Weeks? Maybe their bodies will never be discovered at all (unless the PCs lead someone there).
· Did any of them survive and flee? If so, where did they go?
· Did those survivors tell anyone about the PCs, or did they flee the region completely?
· What exactly could they know? Who would they tell? Would these survivors ever make their way back to Gralen’s minions, or would they intentionally avoid them?
Gamers are aware of the concept of “just because the GM knows, doesn’t mean that any characters in the world know.” And this is the kind of work we must do in order to keep the knowledge separate.
GMs have to constantly consider the multiple possibilities: the interpretations, perspectives, and dispositions of all characters. For example, perhaps the bandits were attacked at night. If so, it’s possible that survivors saw no one they could ever recognize, and perhaps have no clue about the number of attackers; they knew someone attacked them and they simply fled. Bandits are generally bullies, and therefore cowards, so fleeing when attacked makes sense.
But even if a survivor saw one or more of the PCs, so what? This doesn’t necessarily mean that they would A) be inclined to tell anyone, B) tell Gralen’s men if they did tell anyone, or C) would have anything useful to tell even if B. We must figure out what happened with the bandit survivors (if any).
After addressing that, we must also decide how Gralen interprets the event. What is the most natural conclusion for him to draw? Putting the PCs out of our minds, who would Gralen primarily suspect as the slayer of his bandits? Other bandits? Monsters? Internal strife?
Of course, we must also see what the PCs do. Do they feel any need to keep that battle a deep secret? Are the PCs actively helping one of the targets of Gralen’s scheme? If so, surely the PCs told that person, right? Who else do they tell? Perhaps they celebrate it openly. Is it reasonable, through one avenue or another, that Gralen discovers (or suspects) that these PCs did it?
Now let’s move forward with this scenario. Let’s assume that Gralen assumed that just another band of thieves slew his, and that he’s still utterly unaware of the PCs. Six weeks have passed, and Gralen’s new band of thugs arrive from 50 miles away for more caravan attacks. Again, the PCs somehow end up finding and battling them. Let’s say that one of the bandits (now captured) gives up the name of the man who hired them to come here. The name is false, but his description and location are not. Perhaps he wasn’t careful enough to sufficiently hide his face. Now the PCs know that a man called “Fegel” with pox-scars covering his arms/face hired this group to travel fifty miles and attack specific caravans. Therefore, the PCs start searching.
Again, we return to Gralen and his minions. Within 4-9 days, he will discover that these bandits are dead. Perhaps some of his men will end up finding their corpses. But what exactly do they discover? Do they bother accounting for each bandit? Did they even know the exact number of this group? If a body is missing, what do they conclude? That someone fled? That the corpse was dragged away by wolves? They don’t automatically infer that one or more of them talked to their attackers.
But Gralen is furious, and perhaps suspicious of a counter-plot from one of the warlords. Does he now start spending much more coin to spy? Does he start looking for bands of fighters who would have been capable of finding/killing his bandits? He may have discounted the slaying of his first group as “happenstance”, but not now. Something is wrong.
Again, his timetables are altered. If he needed each of these caravan attacks to happen to specific people on specific days, that has been taken away from him. His schemes aren’t ruined—he’s still moving forward with his plans, but he has to adjust. Finding bands of thieves (not to mention finding ones who can be trusted to perform a task) is hard in this region. It’s unlikely he can find another group within the next 2 months. What happens if Gralen lucks into discovering that the PCs were to blame? What does he know, exactly? Does he suspect that they are working for his enemies? What would he do with this knowledge? Have them followed? Have them killed? Why? Revenge? Fear? Is it worth the risks and silver?
But now the 7 month end has been ruined for Gralen, pushing easily into 9 or 10 months, and that means winter is coming. Winter is a much larger factor in the premodern world, for movement (especially army movement) grinds to a halt. Even if the PCs vanished thereafter, with these two acts, the 7 month victory may turn into 12 or 16 months. And perhaps things would change with this long wait. Perhaps Gralen adjusts, and comes up with a revised plan that can still work quickly.
So, campaigns require constant questions and revision based on the cause-effect chain. Sometimes the consequences of the PCs’ actions are minuscule, but at others, they can change the entire direction/timeline of our antagonists’ plans. Remember that not all antagonists are geniuses. Most will make mistakes, small or large.
Again, careful calendars are vital for campaigns here. Everything that our PCs, their allies, and enemies are doing happen in time. Using an honest cause-effect timeline requires keeping track of who does what and when.
I find that this Chess-GMing model deepens the sense of player-agency. The standard line to the players, “You’re free to do whatever you want” gains a whole new level of impact when they know that all they do can genuinely affect the world and the plot, and not just with the “climactic battles”.
People and events in this world are not immutable; they are naturally affected by each other, making them more real. And, as always, “realism deepens Otherworld-immersion.”
When we were kids, playing D&D with those old modules, the areas/rooms were numbered, telling us what enemies stood there for the PCs to fight. I doubt that most adult GMs use that simplistic paradigm any longer, but the further we move away from it, the better.