Campaign-burning

As I mentioned above...
So Example 1 is too "zoomed in" on a single PC. This is a potential Belief.

And Example 2 doesn't have any actual specific event or conflict. For it to be a good BP, we need who are the families (identify them - the King, his 2 brothers, and 3 merchant families?), what exactly are they squabbling over (name the resource(s)), and how are they squabbling (what is the nature of the conflict - political, legal, militant, etc.).

Well, there's a number of ways we could approach a big picture. Most aren't even mutually exclusive.

1) We could have a human conflict. Maybe a conqueror's path is turning toward our homeland. Maybe a king's relative is rallying support for a civil war. Maybe a number of lords are on the brink of conflicting, and it's the efforts of one old, ailing lord who's been keeping the hard-kept peace.

2) We could have some naturey/magical conflict. Maybe a plague is killing off horses, which are a major component of our land's military and lifestyle. That strain on resources is going to cause issues.

Stuff like that. We set up a half-dozen specific dominos, or even less, and we'll quickly have a whole big picture that spills out from that. A conqueror's path is turning toward our homeland. Some of our lords hope to lessen the blow by siding with the conqueror. Some of our lords are looking for other allies. Some people are seeking hope in magic and the powers of old. One aspect, at least three different generalities that spill out of that.

I like the idea of the human conflict with the conqueror, as well as the plague

So the conqueror is a person, relation of the king, and there's obviously the king himself. I don't know, but would it be wise to have another dimension to this? Maybe a third party or a wild card? Maybe an outside threat, maybe Dwarves or an Orc army, which the Civil War proves a distraction from?

That feels a little familiar though, so I have to wonder if it might be useful to have the other side of the civil war somehow profiting from ignoring the outside army, rather than being short-sighted.

Maybe, for example, to build on the idea from earlier of a secretly-corrupt order of knights, what if the rebel was the commander of that order, and sees an opportunity to win more support from the masses by delaying his reaction in order to sweep in and rescue the peasants in dramatic fashion?

But then how would the PCs find this out and is there an npc we can put there?

(Am I totally off track here?)

Okay, so it sounds like we're drifting away from the initial court-intrigue place where we started? Moving toward conqueror? Maybe we can split the difference...

A Conqueror coming for everyone is a very straightforward type of conflict, which isn't necessarily a good thing when you're trying to make grist for the mill.

If all of the PCs are Nobility of the same Kingdom, there aren't perhaps very many circumstances for you all to come into conflict with each other. You all would have one definite and obvious foe that everyone would have pretty straightforward need to work together to keep the Conqueror out. That's a little too obvious. It's a more traditional rpg big picture. We want complexity, and many possible angles, to the same conflict. In Burning Wheel, while we want the PCs to ultimately work together, we want them to have subtle conflicts within that as well. We want that grist for the mill.

Let's look at maybe combining the Conqueror-angle with the Civil War/intrigue-angle?

Maybe for a long time - several generations, the "Horse Lords" (or whatever) have been divided, each sovereign over their own Domain. But recently a figurehead has emerged who claims that they want to re-unify the Lords, they want to become King of the "Horse Folk" like there was in the days of old, in the Glory Days of the Horse Folk, when Domain of the People as a whole was much further reaching, held over many foreign lands? Which would also mean a single sovereign... Most of the Noble Houses might understandably want to cling to their sovereignty, but many people - even many in high positions in the Houses maybe - could also yearn for the Glory Days, and would welcome a return to the Old Ways, to the One King? Whether for the greater glory of the People, or whatever. So there is a conqueror but there is also room for intrigue.
I like the idea of the wild card, but I think for the Big Picture, it is a looming thing in the background. And I think the plague idea mentioned already would fill this role. Maybe it's a true natural plague? Maybe its magical? Maybe some people believe its a curse, brought on by the disfavor of your Ancestors, for forgetting the Old Ways? Maybe it's only the first manifestation of something greater going on? We don't know, and that we don't state that in the Big Picture, it's the part that's out of the PCs control. For now.

So how about the Big Picture is something like (and we can come up with good names and terms later if we want):

"Civilization is waning, a plague has stricken the Fleets of the Horse Lords, and malice is growing in the shadows. A woman has emerged, claiming to be the rightful heir to the Unbridled Throne. The Queen of the Horse Folk, as she is called, is now riding on each of the Domains of the Horse Lords with her Thousand-Fold army, one-by-one, to either receive their fealty or take the heads of the Lord. And now she rides on Our Home."

Is that interesting to people?

It does seem like that but I didn't want to pull things away from the direction people were going in, on account of having just shown up!

The reason I differentiated the plague and the "3rd element" in my head was, the plague is an ongoing issue, whereas I figured something looming on the horizon might be nice. But of course, I was only spit-balling; I usually wouldn't even go around making suggestions beyond saying maybe it would be a good idea to think of something, but then I thought that seemed unhelpful.

I feel like the pitch you've got could certainly work for court intrigue if you kept that in mind, or you could get away from it (like we've been doing lol) if you're not careful.

In closing, interesting to me!

That's an appealing concept to me, especially if we play up the politics more than the warfare.

This would really be determined likely by how the Beliefs play out, but certainly with the setup we're looking at it seems like things should start with the politics.

An idea I had had was that the king had recently died and left no obvious heir. Now the horse lords are squabbling about who should be on the thrown while the self proclaimed Queen of the horse folk is making her way toward the capital.

As a side thought, does the Queen of the Horse Folk have to be a "person"? Could her followers claim (rightly or wrongly) that she's a Goddess, or a Faerie Queen, or whatever? Or, I suppose of course she doesn't, but is that a direction people would like to go in?

I think this would be something awesome to develop through Beliefs. And/or possibly the Starting Situation. Could be a portion of a sentence in the Big Picture, but certainly not stated conclusively one way or the other.

If everyone is okay with moving forward with the above B.P., let's start looking at a Starting Situation, AND Beliefs.

The Starting Situation is where we will be "zooming in" on the PCs and game world, in-character, for the first time. It needs to be an active conflict (physical, social, political, etc.) so that we ensure we all hit the ground running, AND it needs to point in the direction of some aspect of the Big Picture. It will likely be the first place where you should really start considering character concepts, and their Beliefs and Instincts. At least one Belief per PC should emerge through the development of the Starting Situation.

Does anyone, have anything they'd like to suggest? For characters and situations.

So as far as situation, if we want court intrigue, we need to be at court, am I right?

So am I right in thinking that we should also have something to create immediate forward momentum? A conflict or situation or something at court that kind of needs resolving?

Would it be smart to have that tension also play into the situation with the Queen? For example, a succession crisis in our clan, and one of the heirs is against her or says he's going to fight, with the other being more conciliatory?

Or... we could be at a hot-springs used by the Nobility, as certain members gather in conspiracy. Or... we could be at the first social gathering before official Court is held. Or... depending on who the PCs are to each other, it could be within the private chambers of a single House.

Plenty of Court politics goes on outside of Court. What sounds interesting to people?
Eh... so here is what I said about the point/goal of developing a Starting Situation immediately above your post...
Curious where you think the difference is between what I said and what you said? :P
I think this is an excellent idea, if people think it's most interesting to be acting from within the same House.

Any other thoughts out there?

Acting from within the same house sounds good. This also sets up all the other houses to try and gain as much influence as possible by meddling with succession.

You know what they say about assuming? Well I'm extra good at making one of myself so I didn't want to go too far afield

Apologies if it seemed like I was pushing a warfare angle with my thought splatterings. I was more putting forth example ideas wih how I usually organize my thoughts in worldbuilding - that being, it's easy to pull a million possible consequences from propping up two or three would-be tropes into play. Though I do like the Queen of the Horse Lords line coming out of brainstorming - it's cool.

Being from one house having its own internal issues seems like a good way to narrow in.

I somehow missed this post but I like it. But does that mean we should have characters (NPCs, presumably, but not necessarily) who act as kinda front-men for other, further-afield factions? Maybe envoys from other clans, and possibly an envoy from the Queen herself?

The only thing about acting as envoys is that we'd even more definitely need some form of incitement to act as something like allies, or at least some reasons to keep company.

This is what Beliefs are for/can do.

I mean at the same time Burning Wheel doesn't seem to shy that much away from adversarial play. I mean, The Sword is their demo adventure.