[ctorg]

I have used several story lines repeatedly, or at least variations of them.

One of my favorites is to have the Federal League become not only competitive, but strong enough to force the AL and NL into a single league and have some massive realignment circa 1920 that sets up 24 teams in four six-team divisions. I've done this with both historical and fictional players, and I just carry out history from there with my own alterations.

I have also played out alternate versions of history that I've tried to keep realistic (e.g. no teams too far west in early years, expansion as population grows out west, etc.), but different from reality. For instance, I may have different cities with teams or more or less teams or different league alignments.

I have also had far-future leagues, usually after some apocalypse, the world is rebuilding and interest in an old favorite pastime is rekindled. These sometimes take place on Earth, sometimes on some other planet or reality, never so far off from current things that it makes thinking it through take too long to get to the game play, though.

I've also had complete fantasy leagues where I make up foreign countries or even just separate realities with no reference to our own.

I've also done smaller leagues, like a NYC Metro league and a Northeastern league, and I've once or twice had a mega-league that houses several of these regional ones.

I've done a few things like "What if the Dodgers never left Brooklyn" or "What if the strike in 1981 made things fall apart and a new league formed a few years later" and all that.

I generally don't like to have a huge number of teams because it slows things down and I like to play fast. Generally, I tend to get too ambitious in setting up leagues and lose my gusto for them before I even begin. My most successful endeavors have usually been my most straightforward. For instance, my current 110-season-old league (the longest running in game time that I've ever had) was created by modifying team and ballpark names in Lahman and using fictional players.