Monday, November 4, 2019

Historical Events - Yearly Events

When creating a sandbox the GM should create some history to make the place real. The color that makes things a bit more believable, that is where Historical Events come in. I would recommend going back at least 5 years to detail history and forward one year. Going forward?

Yes, going forward. The GM knowing what's going to happen in the near future means they can have oracles predict the future, or foreshadow events to create a build-up as the historic event gets closer and closer. Events for the future, if appropriate, should be written up as Events. That is temporary changes to all of the encounter tables including possible associated adventure hooks. This might be part of the foreshadowing, maybe the characters will notice.

Of course not ever Event will change the encounter tables and the GM should be flexible to take character actions into account. If the characters do something that might change or kill the event the GM should do just that no matter how much work went into preparing the thing.

These following tables assumes a 12 month calendar with four seasons of three months each. You can make a more alien world but it's really not worth the bother, even Tolkien used the well known months in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Yearly Events
Yearly Events are events that take place on the national level. That is the kingdom, emperor or whatever.  Everyone in the realm, and in the neighboring realms as well. Whenever reasonably possible the GM should try to link the events and/or reorder them to make sense.
  • Roll 1d4 to determine how many events occur each year.
Then for each event:
  1. Roll 1d12 to determine which month
  2. Roll 1d8 on the Event table
  3. Roll1d6 on the Table the corresponds to the result of Event table.


Table 1: Events Table
1d8
Event
01
Noble Business 
02
Natural Disaster
03
Peace
04
Peace
05
Religious
06
War
07
War
08
War

Table 2: Noble Business
1d6
Event
01
Birth
02
Death
03
Feud
04
Marriage
05
Scandal
06
Visitation
 
Table 3: Natural Disaster
1d6
Event
01
Earthquake
02
Famine
03
Fire
04
Heat Wave
05
Plague
06
Storms


Table 3: Peace
1d6
Event
01
Nothing Happens
02
Nothing Happens
03
Nothing Happens
04
Ruins Discovered
05
Fashion Trend sweeps the nation
06
Trade Route Opens


Table 3: Religious Events
1d6
Event
01
Major Celebration
02
Minor Celebration
03
Inquisition
04
New Leader
05
Heretical Leader
06
Purge/Schism


Table 4: War
1d6
Event
01
Civil War (Nobles fighting)
02
Dynastic War (Royals fighting)
03
Holy War (Recruiting/Crusade)
04
Peasant Revolt/Uprising
05
War, invading other
06
War, Invaded by others

When creating a bunch of events it helps if the GM has a list of names appropriate for nobles as well as the name of the realm, Shire/County/ and settlement.

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