Wargaming – On Campaigns – Part 3
4 Minute Read
Dec 9 2010
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Multi-Person Campaigns
A guest series by Feighan-Raask
In my last article I looked at the best ways of having a campaign for between you and a mate. But what happens if it’s a whole group of you who want to play a campaign?
Have you come up with a backstory which upon hearing, everyone has clamoured to be the opposition. Or is it simply as a collective you all feel that your weekly gaming needs spicing up. Well campaigns aren’t restricted to 1 v 1 as we enter the wonderful world of multi-person campaigns.
Again there are two types which can be applied but first I need to mention a very important role that has to be fulfilled in multi-person campaigning. That of the campaign master. For the 1 v 1 campaigns any hitch that arrives is easily solved by a discussion. But what happens when there are 18 people who have differing opinions on how something should be. Yes, democracy could work but that could take time plus if just over ½ vote for one thing, that’s just under ½ of the campaigners who will be unhappy with something in the campaign. Now a campaign master solves this problem by being the definitive answer on problems that arrive. It is best if he or she is the one who wrote the rules for the campaign in the first place or at least had a hand in coming up with them.
Now the obvious form of multi-person campaign is all on all. By this I mean everyone has one or several pieces of territory and the winner the army that conquers the most territory by the end. You play against you fellow campaigners in endless struggles, the victor getting dominion over the losers land. Now this idea is really appealing to some but I must warn you know there are some really nasty thorns that come with this rose. And all these thorns boil down to this one simple question….How do you determine who invades who? Well first you need the initive order and this is simply done. At the start of every turn dice off (rolling 5 dice and adding together saves time as you don’t have to do roll offs between everyone who got the same number first time round). Player x has got 30 and now gets to choose who he invades. Now can he invade anyone or does it have to be the person next to him. This will depend really on the gaming system you are playing. For example for a 40k campaign where each territory is a planet then only invading the planets next to you does seem a bit silly. But maybe there is a bonus to having a connected empire?
The second big question is that if player x invades player y’s territory, does player Y still get a chance to invade someone or can he rise to the defence of his realm only. Then what happens if players e,r and t want to invade player y or x. Can they no longer do so as the other person already has a game or well there be a 5 way battle? Finally we must consider the effects of spoils of war. Does a player have bonuses for winning so much territory in his empire? But will these bonuses cause a gulf between those who win their first 2 games and those that lost?
Now most of you probably think I’m picking holes left right and centre in the all vs. all style of multi-person campaigning. The technical answer is yes I am but there is good reason for this. Everything like this needs to be considered when coming up for the rules in how the system works or else you will one of your sessions will turn into a giant debate on a simple problem which you will be kicking yourself for by not defining it at the start. Spending 2-3 hours considering everything that could cause a problem and putting a rule which means there will be no arguing means that every campaign turn will go smoothly and the enjoyableness of your campaign will not be affected.
Now when you start this campaign make sure everyone is of the rules you have made (best way is to give a copy to everyone). Also consider that lots of rules can make something complex and as a rule of life, increasing complexity is proportional to increasing chances of going tits up. Now of course something will arise regardless of complexity because its sods law. This is where the role of campaign master is all important. Only they can add or alter rules and if a problem arises they can quickly resolve it so everyone can get back to conquering all! Now if you are the one who gets the honour of being the campaign master don’t think this means you can’t take part. That wouldn’t be fair. Just ensure that any rulings you make don’t favour any person just because you like them more/that person is you. Also remember someone’s going to have to get dumped with recording everything that happens and then informing every one of the change. Not always a fun task but one that needs to be done none the less.
I hope I haven’t sent you running to the hills with all the problems that can arise all vs. all multi-person campaigning. With a solid set of rules to base the campaign on they are really fun. The entire club can get involved and instead of one story being told, several stories will emerge as generals become heated rivals and hero’s gain reputations of being courageous or cowardly, lucky or unlucky, superior sorcerer or barbaric monster.
Bigred here again. Feighan-Raask speaks words of wisdom. As someone who has a *little* experience designing, writing and playing large multi-person campaigns such as this, this, and this, you need to have very strong and balanced campaign ruleset right off the bat. So who has taken part on one of these giant multi-player monsters and how did it turn out?
Author: Larry Vela
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