"Convention campaign game" Topic

I was thinking about running a campaign game at Cold Wars, setting out a block of 8-12 hours to do a series of games to see who would end up being the king of the world or some such.

There are several things that are obstacles/questions to/ about this:

1) Would people want to dedicate that much time to a single event?

2) What if it goes pear shaped after the first game?

3) would it be better to have it be an all day event or two 6 hour sessions?

The first one is really up to others. The campaign I was thinking about running would use Black Powder for the rules and I'd either do the Carlist Wars or the Sudan leaning more towards the former.

If I made it clear in the game description that we would play for most of the time even if things did fail spectacularly after the first game that might aleviate number 2 above to some degree. I'd plan for each game to take about 2 hours or there abouts with half an hour or so in-between games. It would almost be like a tournament in that sense.

So what do you guys think? Is this something you would do? How would you like to do it? All day Friday or Friday night and Saturday night?

3) Would

I'd be wary of that long of a time commitment at a convention. I have seen pseudo campaigns at cons where the results of an morning game session influenced or became the setup for the afternoon game session.

I wouldn't dedicate that much time to one game at a convention (I go to play LOTS of games). That being said…I would play in at least one of them. So I agree with tima113, have the games linked in some way – a victory in game 1 gives a deployment advantage in game 2 (but have that offset by more reinforcements for the game 1 loser). Or just for fun…have a game 1 victory lead to a game 2 disadvantage (you achieved a stunning victory…and outstripped your supply chain…oops).

I have played in such a game at a Con, using Kingmaker as the campaign and DBA as the tactical portion. It allowed for multiple tactical games to be run simultaneously for every camaign turn…

If the campaign system allows for logistics, force replenishment, and the potential for strategic victory despite tactical defeats, it doesn't really matter who plays in the tactical games. Then people can come and go, only the Strategic Leadership needs to be constant.

Brian

It was going to be more of a choose your own adventure type campaign without much in the way of strategic maneuvers. So if A wins then 2, if B wins then 3. If A and B decide not to fight now then go back to 1 with this mod.

My first reaction was to say it is too big of a commitment of time, but then I thought about tournament games and it is no more of a time allocation than they are and pletny of people still play tournaments.

Allen

What might be better is a series of linked games where the outcome of the first game affects the forces, terrain, etc., of the second. That way, people don't have to make a day long commitment but can still play in the campaign and make a contribution.

Some people like these, and I would be willing to participate in one myself, since campaigns are always more interesting.

You'd need to take great care to ensure it doesn't end in the first few hours though, and/or to keep the losing side from being so weakened early on that they're at a disadvantage for the rest of the day.

Linked scenarios would probably be best.

Of course, as the GM, if you play it right, you can probably control things/outcomes to keep it interesting for both sides. Die rolls where the players don't know the rules, or what they need to roll might be best, in order to help keep the game a bit in balance, in case one side turns out to be incredibly lucky.

Personally, I think I'd go with 3 x 4 hour sessions, or at least have a 30 minute break every 3 – 4 hours for people.

Seems to me that other long term games have been designed to allow for different "shifts" of players. Some players may continue through, but they don't rely on that. Then again, Black Powder seems to be a hot system right now, and there could be enough interest to sustain a mini campaign at a convention. Depends on how many players you are drpendent upon to make it viable.

Just some thoughts…whatever you do, don't let it get in the way of finishing my 25mm pikes! :)

Best,
Ed M

Some of your pikemen and the command are already finished.

There seems to be some pretty sage advice here. It seems like the majority of gamers would like several games over several days vs. one big long session. The problem with that for me is that with my responsibilities in the dealer hall that might pooch several days for me. That and the set up tear down adds an extra hour and a half per gaming session about.

I will have to look at things again and see if I can work that out though as most people seem to like that better.

One thing I could do is try it and see what people do, I only really need two people to have a successful game of it. If it doesn't work like that try it a different way the next time.

I also suggest 3 linked scenarios. People like to take breaks to shop, eat, drink, look at other games, shop, visit with old friends, visit the restroom, eat, etc. (did I mention shopping?).

You might get some players who would stay for all rounds, but I wouldn't count on a full table doing so.

Remember also that you will need time between scenarios to reset the scenery, organize figures, etc.

Remember also to have plenty of player aids such as QRSs, measuring sticks, dice, etc. . . . and bring more of all of these than you'll think you will need. Some may wander off.

Finally, be sure to playtest BEFORE you take it to the convention . . . and above all, remember to keep the mood light, people are there to have fun . . . if you get too serious, you'll lose players . . . in the final analysis it is just a game after all.

-- Jeff

I ran a Trenton, 1776 campaign about 10 years ago using the carnage and glory campaign system, which was linked to the tactical rules. While you could run a campaign without the computer and the interface between the strategic and tactical elements, the ability to download OB's, run a battle and enter the return into the campaign after the battle, complete with fatigue, morale loss, etc. made it much easier. Unfortunately since the CG tactical rules migrated to a windows based system we've temporarily lost the campaign system…but based on my experience you have the following challenges in running a convention campaigh:

Size: smaller the better…you've only got three or four games tops if you do it right. Limit the core players, particularly for high level commands…it is easier to keep a small core of players engaged throughout a weekend. They are the ones who make the strategic decisions, then open up the games to anyone…

Schedule games: it may seem artificial and sometimes hard to do, but schedule your tactical games, put them in the schedule just as you would a regular game and then run the campaign until you get a tactical encounter that is worth putting on the table.

Convention: Try and do it at Historicon, the extra day helps.

I've been on both sides of the time commitment issue at Con's. I've hosted games where players were interested, but my game conflicted with other games they wanted to participate in; as a player, I've been torn between events that conflicted by being run at the same time. My take on Con's is that I want to experience as much as I can of games which are outside my normal venues. Any game requiring that large of a time commitment, would have to be a game type that really piques my interest, and that would be, for me, a BattleSystem game, only. Anything else, and I would likely pass, or play in a couple of sessions only, as time permitted.

Bottom line is that you won't know until you try. It may be a resounding success, or failure, at any given Con. You have to host it, though, to find out. Cheers!

Hi

I have run a variety of "1-night" campaigns at our club and they are very popular. In each case the key was to make the strategic stuff very simple but with some feed-forward into future games. I have tried the following (all DBMM but that is largely irrelevant):

1. Series of battles
Allocate players into 2 teams, give each a small balanced force. Pair the players against each other (but always against the opposite team) as per a competition. Sum of final VP of all games determines campaign winner. I recorded the number of wins each player had to reflect their strategic initiative and the relative strategic initiative of a pairing determined a scenario (siege, raid, etc) Example rules: link

2. Limited strategic map to generate battles
Similar to the above but instead each side's CnC allocates armies to provinces each round. Each round there are key provinces that are worth more VP based on historical events, uneven battles generate sieges. See link

3. Linked scenarios
Still use teams and for ease of play determine the impacts of each round based on the sum of VP for each team in that round. Includes multi-player scenario battles. Builds in intensity, final round outcome alone decides the outcome of the campaign. See iworg.com/node/226

My basic advice is to keep things very simple and focused on the tactical battles as that is generally what people who sign up want to play.

rgds
rob

I did the linked scenarios version and it worked pretty well in the trial. We got the first two games played in about 4 hours with a break for strombolis. If we had the rest of the evening we could have easily managed the last game as well.