Adventure Ecology

>>50290952
First thing first, i like you and i wish more GMs were like you.

Forest has most relations because it has several opposing factions inside it, while other forces are more homogenous. You could add some unexpected stuff to castle, like harpies or some other flying menace on the upper floors (maybe chieftain considers them simple beasts), or a rogue ghost faction in the barrows (particularly underhanded warrior who wanted to depose of chieftain before he died?).

>>50291195
I could work something with the disloyal warriors; have them stalk the barrows as ghouls, being denied the rest their brethern are (mostly) granted for their treaturous hearts.

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>>50290952
Bumping with a slight update. The Castle and Barrows are now part of the overall Plains, and the traitorous Ghouls and Wizard's tower have been added. Right now, the Wizard's tower is pretty much an afterthought. I've not given it any significant relations to other entities at this point.

>>50290952
>>50292469
That is really freaking great! Awesome stuff but it's also quite uncommon for any DM to make things like that and not many players would be familliar with that. It would take time for players to understand your concept and appreciate it unless you play with your close friends who understand already what you are trying to do or fresh players (they almost always are more open-minded).

Interesting approach anon, It's good to see you putting effort into it. Though just as a warning from what I hear from other GMs is that players are notorious for causing the best laid plans of mice and men to so often go awry. I've never GMed so I have no idea if this is good advice or not, so take it with a spoon full of salt, but I'd personally try to design everything to be modular to a certain degree if possible. So if a player messes something (or a lot of somethings) up you can switch another part in and keep going.

Anyways good luck on DMing anon, hope you have a good time.

>>50292514
Yes, this.

The best laid plans of the GM are nothing before the chaotic stupid stampede that is players.

I'd prepare a couple of alternative hooks in case they misinterpret stuff or screw up in a magnificent fashion.

>>50292507
Well, my players are new. What I intend to do is have a simple introductory adventure of them trying to find the treasure and deal with the Dryad. If I DM the game a bit decently, they will run across some of the different connections (Blights and Goblins most definitely), and they will have a choice of other leads to chase after that. If they are content to party down after they got their treasure, the local lord might be interested in hiring them to retake the castle.

Hopefully the rest will flow organically from there.

>>50292543
>>50292514
The best part of what I'm doing is, is that I have no oveall "plan", just a situation for the players to stumble into, status quos to be overthrown, and treasure to be looted. They kick shit around, and I just follow the lines to see who's affected.

>>50292598
That's how you do it, anon. Good man.

Isn't yED fucking amazing?

I'm using it right now to make a living starmap for a campaign i'm planning on running.

>>50292792
It's very nice yes. Especially if you've got a very convoluted chart, the automated layout algorithms can make it a lot easier to read

>>50291195
>>50292507
>>50292754

Bumping to point out that I was inpsired to use this approach by of Steven Lumpkin talking about ecosystems and building one on the fly on his Twitch Channel. There's a VoD on Twitch, but 4chan thinks it's spam.

This particular example was intended for an OSR game, with one complex adventure location. I'm trying to adapt it a bit for 5e.