Let me go back to the endless plain of creative potential (or, more colloquially, back to the drawing board).
We are going to be wandering out in metaphor for a while. So defocus your eyes, but scan over our unlimited, boundless expanse. Now, consider seven dimensions of existence - Change, Distance, Elevation, Intensity, Happiness, and Satisfaction. Below we will discuss each one, and our constant in the discussion is the Passage of Time. the one 'dimension' of existence by which every one of us can comprehend the difference, without having to build constructs, devise metrics, or otherwise arbitrarily invent structure.
CHANGE
What is the difference between a rut and a routine? Between comfortable consistency and stupid stagnation? The difference is a perception of the differences... an attitude or intention shift. So it is with role-playing games. We all have manic phases, when we can't seem to keep a campaign on track, where one week we are killing goblins by the dozen, the next, we are solving a puzzle designed by Rorschach, and the next we are collecting bunnies for the fertility ritual. But we also have our weeks or mundane pattern, sailing a vessel around the Horn of Hellespont, or that long expedition to the top of Mount Obadiah. In other words, the rate of change over time, the number of seemingly random resources and tasks is itself one aspect of the landscape, the terrain if you will, of the time of a Story from inception to completion.
But in planning, building a landscape for adventure, change can't be the framework, the drumbeat of stability that defines the world. Change, by its very nature, has to have the primary element of instability. It can't have a pattern, it can't have any form. So, from a design standpoint, my recommendation is to take the idea from Mahatma Gandhi's advice.
Let your Players be the Change you want to see in your world.
On Nycos, the Director lets the Cadre's decision matrix, their desires on a whim of a game session, guide the course of Change in the world. So, in terms of gameplay, Nycos is a place that is ultimately as stable as the players that show up. Some campaigns stay laser-focused on the Primary Story, while others playfully bounce from one plotline to another with barely any continuity. And to many, that concept itself is scary enough.
DISTANCE
The space between point A and point B, regardless of what defines those points, has at least some bearing on the world, how one perceives it, how one can interact with the places themselves. This understanding of distance, of how big the world is, weighs surprisingly heavy when one considers all the possibilities in a fantasy setting.
As an example, let's say I live next door to you. If you live in an apartment, that might mean only a dozen or so feet from your current position to the edge of my living space, and maybe twice that to find an entry to my dwelling. But what if we were situated in the Suburbs? Yards instead of feet, maybe more. Or how about on rural property, even developed residential holdings? That might mean a quarter mile or more... Now, open your mind to a frontier. Your nearest neighbor might be miles and miles away... but saying we are 'next door' holds different meanings; the frequency with which you might engage with others changes up and down that scale. Thus, Distance can be a good measure for a world's population's architecture, of determining how close, how distant to make such things as Cities, Towns, or other communities.
Now, this further is complicated by the means of travel one uses. If one has airplanes and sonic or even subsonic speeds at which they can travel. places get closer, travel times get shorter, and the number of potential encounters increases. Worse yet for these kinds of calculations and considerations are such things as teleportation and temporal or spatial gateways... You and the Venusians and Martians would be next-door neighbors!
For Nycos, the basic unit of measure is the Farspell, roughly the distance at which one can differentiate landmarks from the horizon, which equates to roughly ten miles across absolutely flat terrain. Taking into account a rough travel speed for horses over uneven land, each hex on the map is 49 to 50 miles, approximately 5 Farspells. Most magical transportation means are limited to a Farspell, so again, a Hex is how far a traveler in most cases can make in a day's hard ride. Or five moderately powerful Magical Effects.
For Nycos,
Distance across the mapped and codified lands and the nearby oceanic hexes are the framework against which time is stretched and in that time/space, the adventures occur concurrently in both the Present and each Iteration accessible by the Storms. But that is a different architecture altogether.
TIME (in the real world)
In doing any planning at all, one must account for time. Perhaps in the case of a one-shot tale, the actual duration of the even might have some "slap' in its format.. a four-hour game and a six-hour game are fundamentally the same thing, in terms of the actual play of it... But a campaign ark of four months is considerably different from one that goes on for six. So it is, that the mechanism of the actual passage of time does constitute a tangible framework on which to build.
TIME ( in the Game)
Of course, the passage of time IN the game, in the lives of the characters, of the Cadre, is necessarily NOT a solid frame against which to plan anything. Perhaps the players will endeavor to wait out the harvest in the Cornucopia valley, but they might not. Six months, six hours, six minutes in a game can be a virtual lifetime, and dozens of years can pass in an instant. This is critical to be aware of because as a storyteller, one must use timing and meter to adjust the flow of the action. In bringing such structure and planning in game terms to meet the deadlines and schedules of players, the Director achieves the story goals within the allotted play time. Now, granted, many campaigns are not so limited in duration, but certainly getting through the mountains before the snows come in character is far direr for Cadre, than the same might be for the players!
So, at the end of it all, the architecture of a story must have a framework, built of
time in the real world, and
distance in the fantasy realm. Working one variable against the other is the dynamic whereby the
change the Cadre brings to the game clashes and conflicts with the
structure and planning of the Director. By sharing one understanding and the collaborative language of RPG mechanism and interplay, between the two a magic literally takes place, and the game world,
Nycos, comes to life. Like the Tower of Babel, the uniform understanding, the collaborative nature of play, allows the Cadre to accomplish anything to which they focus their intent.
