Map-based campaigns

[Joe Cool]

For the past few months I've been trying to organize a map-based campaign. Nothing fancy, probably just Border Princes first, to try out the rules. Most people have been quite enthusiastic about this. However, getting as few as six players to gather once a week to play the map turns has proven to be next to impossible. Sure, it depends on the players themselves, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much choices around here nowadays.

Anyway, this got me thinking of a different type of campaign. Preferably map based, with a few different factions, to which any player could join for even a single battle. This way missing a player for a week would not ruin one's game and give huge advantages for others. Most people in my area appear for our gaming nights quite irregularly, maybe once in a month or so. It would be great to include these people to a campaign in a way that the flow of the campaign and/or the interest of the players isn't damaged.

I'm quite sure someone has tried something like this before, as most campaigns seem to be lacking committed players. Any comments and ideas are welcome.

[Quetzl]

Map Campaigns are normally very hard unless you have a group of dedicated gamers which will spend their weekends playing. From expierence *I.E. Me and my mates liked the idea of a map campaign quite a lot aswell * Map Campaigns really do end up being another game inside the actual Warhammer game, and because of this they need to be simple and fair...

But in terms of allowing random people to pop in and out of the campaign map etc. You could do a map/story campaign, so for example using a map to represent the area, and then whatever players turn up you write up some games, add a story to it and play. This means that people who regularly turn up could be your centrepiece and other less regular players could be the wildcards.

For example, if I had an Empire player and a Dwarfs player who regularly appeared and played then you could base your story around that. So for example you might do a few battles with the Dwarfs against a small horde of Skaven for one game, which escalates and escalates into a fully fledged game. Of course any army could be the centrepiece but some are better suited.

Obviously you could use a map to represent this, a couple of Dwarfen holds and some Empire cities. Allowing the players to go and search for the baddies... *Use your imagination *. But all in all, Map Campaigns are difficult to work if they are like a board game. You need consistancy, time, trust and all that which comes with it. But I suppose adding a story or voiceover to the proceddings would stop people from doing what they want as much and more what you want them to do. Although it is an idea, it might come in useful to you.

[Griefbringer]

Remember to keep your map small, so that the players will quickly get to grips and the campaign will reach results within a reasonable time.

[Flypaper]

I'd say you need one player (preferrably a good one - someone whose army the playgroup respects!) to commit to showing up every week. That way, as Quetzl suggested, you can base the campaign somewhat around that player - make it about his "home turf" being invaded & divvied up between all comers.

This gives you some leeway when it comes to players showing or not showing up, but still makes the campaign reasonably story-driven as opposed to just being a league with a winners' board.

[Morph]

Map based campaigns can run into a lot of problems, including getting everyone involved.

From the sounds of it I think you'll have to drop having rigid rules, make the campaign flexible with you as organiser, deciding what happens as a result of each game. As suggested, I'd make sure there is some sort of narrative. Base this around the most frequent players (I assume you are one of them) with other players as allies to these.

Say you have three players who turn up every week, an Empire army, a Chaos army and a High Elf army. The main campaign could be a struggle for territory of the Border Princes, but has an overall objective - searching for a powerful magic item or something.

So the map is divided into three growing territoies. The other players are allocated to the main armies, and games they play contribute to that players territory. This can be straightforward, a High Elf army can help the High Elf player. But it could be more complex, a Dwarf army has been enslaved by the Chaos player, or a different Chaos army could be from a rival god and secretly aids the Elves.

This may bring a sense of team work, and may encourage people to turn up more often to help their team.

The important thing is that you shouldn't force people into playing games they don't want and games should be fair. It's no fun playing an unbalanced game. And you want people to have fun, because then they'll carry on playing.

[Avian]

Our current campaign rules: Lustria - Jungle Hell.

Campaign website: Trondhammer.

Current map:
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~tarjeia/tro.../06/round5.jpg
(the map is dynamic and works from reading a database, where results are entered)

This is our third campaign and it's coming to a close in a little under three weeks. In short, they work like this:

- There are six teams, each with two players (total of 12), each team starts with a choice of one of six homelands (7 territories), plus four other territories chosen from anywhere on the map (total of 11). All territories belong to someone at the start of the campaign, which means you can start whacking your opponents straight away.

- Every three weeks there is a war meeting where at least one player from each realm must show up. Each realm may then declare two invasions (one for each player) into any adjacent enemy territory. Each of the twelve invasions will result in a battle, which must be played before the next war meeting and the result will decide whether the territory is lost or not.

- Armies are not represented on the map as such, instead the campaign centres on the realm and the development of the General (there is an experience system similar to Mordheim). This means you don't have turns where armies chase each other around the map.

Next season we'll be digging for gold in southern Naggaroth - I hear it's such a nice place, and practically uninhabited too!

[Crazy Harborc]

Avian, sir...nice map!!

A large hex sheet can be mounted onto a piece of "board" (like a bulletin borad). A sheet of hard board or formcore board would work too.

Cover it with a clear thin plastic sheet. Then you can use different coloured markers......get the "washable" kind (wipes off much easier).

[Avian]

Thanks, the map is made from polystyrene tiles (getting them all to be the same size is a bloody pain) which have then been textured. Most are reusable and next season we'll make a heap with mountains on.

To compromise between ease of storage and ease of assembly, the hexes have been taped together in clusters of seven (plus a lot of free tiles). This means the map can be stored in a box but relatively easily assembled for the war meetings.

We use the old Mighty Empires markers for armies, fleets, outposts, stongholds and capitals. They look really nice.

The map was then photographed with a digicam and we have a script that draws in the circles and arrows by reading from the database (I have many 133t skillz ), so the map is automatically updated whenever a result is registered.

[Cpt. Drill]

HAHA Avian uses 1337!

I would naver have suspected!

[Joe Cool]

Thanks for all comments!

I came to the conclusion that a campaign with several (non-active) players shouldn't have a complex map turn, since this would only confuse random players. Even the Border Princes rules seem a bit unsuitable. However, Avian's campaign rules are quite complex. Have you had any problems with this? How do the less active players deal with it?

Also, I find the idea of a narrative campaign, as some suggested, a bit difficult. When you know the amount of participating players (and their armies) just moments before the turn is played, an interesting story is not easy to come up with - I'm not good at ad-libbing. To me, an ideal situation would be to get players' map turn orders a few days before actual battles are fought, in order to think of appropriate scenarios and to write a narrative. But this would be difficult in our situation...

But the idea with different team "master minds" seems interesting. Any experiences about this?

[mageith]

I've run lots of map campaigns but there's one style that always seems to appeal. The map is a large map surrounded by a sea. The sea allows every army to attack every other army. (If you want, I'll explain the four color map syndrome.)

Each land has a specific type of terrain that changes the defensive situations. This terrain is assigned but players get to pick their starting location, usually based on terrain that benefits them. Each terrain has benefits for defense. (Forest, hills, swamp, desert, jungle, etc.)

Everybody plays the same size army.

Armies that are behind get more defensive bonuses such as: choosing extra and/or type of terrain, moving first and getting walls. The further behind the more you get.

I keep track of wins/losses and Invasions. The guy with the FEWEST invasions chooses his enemy first. If there is a tie (and there almost always is), the guy with the MOST wins gets to invade. If still a tie, then we dice off. Only invaders gain points. They can also lose points. Defenders can either hold their own (draw) or lose points. Note, this means new players will always get to invade on their first day. Note, we only play one game per day.

If a person misses two sessions in a row without notification, his areas can be attacked and one of the players is randomly delegated to defend his territory. This is hardly ever done in my league.

Of course, there's more detail than this but this outline allows for players to come and go at will but also allows the campaign to go one without being bogged down by absentee generals. In one campaign I had 19 players, but no more than 12 ever showed up at once. I play as the oddman out, so I only get to play about half the time.

Special note: The outline is counter intuitive. The better a player does, the tougher it gets to win since the the worse a player does the more defensive bonuses he gets. The simulation reason for this is that the winner is tramping over the land and his supply lines are getting longer.

[adbower]

In the club I'm in (Iron Fist League), we did the Border Princes with different teams for each faction on the map. Each team had from 3 to 5 players. The only problem I found with this situation is that the teams "captains" would start to become ultra competitive. This lead to assigning games to different team members based on their strength. Some players began to complain to me that their captain wouldn't let them play a game they were available for since they thought it was too important of a battle to lose.

I guess just make sure that everyone gets a fair chance to play. If you try teams, maybe randomly assign games to individual players.

[Avian]

However, Avian's campaign rules are quite complex. Have you had any problems with this? How do the less active players deal with it?

I'm not sure what you mean by "less active" players. As for complexity: I like complex rules and so everybody else just has to cope if they want to play on our nice map with our nice campaign system.

Besides, they work and that justifies a little complexity.

Other than that the rules get slightly modified from each campaign to the next. We are currently on v3 and they are quite solid. v1 was not very good, but v2 was quite a bit better, mainly because it did away with neutral territories and reduced the amount of stuff people could build (book keeping was much too complicated back in v1).

v4 of the rules will have a bit more army-specific rules and less generic rules (if people continually forget something it usually means it's not worth including).

I guess just make sure that everyone gets a fair chance to play. If you try teams, maybe randomly assign games to individual players.

I think it's very important that the system allows for a lot of flexibility in terms of when a battle must be fought. Mine allows each player to attack one enemy realm, with the enemy nominating one defender and the two then having three weeks to play the battle. There are only five rounds to a campaign, but then a lot will happen during each round.
Some players have asked for a system for assigning defenders, but I don't think that works well, considering that players will usually have real world commitments now and then which will limit their gaming time.

[Joe Cool]

I'm not sure what you mean by "less active" players. As for complexity: I like complex rules and so everybody else just has to cope if they want to play on our nice map with our nice campaign system.

By less active players I mean those who do not play every turn. Are they still interested in the campaign itself, even if they basically just play a few battles here and there? Do they care about the bigger picture, i.e. winning the whole campaign? But maybe that's not even an issue to you, if your players are committed and interested. Unlike the sorry lot I have to deal with here (Ei millään pahalla, jos joku teistä sattuu lukemaan )

Complex rules would also be OK for me, but it demands even more activity from players. Iced Crow's campaign has very interesting rules that I would definitely like to try sometimes, but right now it wouldn't be a good idea. Maybe after we've had some experience on campaigning.

[Avian]

Everybody plays every turn. Technically you don't have to declare an invasions and so you could end up not fighting in a turn, but so far that's not happened. Most people seem to reckon they can manage one battle in three weeks.