"Successful Solo Campaigns" Topic

What are the most successful solo campaigns you have run and solo campaign mechanisms that you have used?

Regards

A narrative campgain is dead easy to run solo.

Make up a starting story and forces. Fight the first game. Then use your noggin and a dice roll here and there to determine what happens next.

Game One: A patrol is ambushed on the frontier.

Between games: How many casualties are recovered? Is the attacker going to invade your territory are are you going to launch a punitive expedition into theirs…or both meeting on the border but with a greater force than before.

How many forces are readily available to both sides? Are they in position or will it take time to assemble them? These last two points are mainly for the player side to determine. Do you strike quickly with the forces at hand or hole up waiting for relief?

Game two is then either an enemy attack on your camp, you attacking an enemy camp, or both forces fighting on the border again.

Between games you decide if either side has capitulated or if the fighting moves deeper into either country…and so on.

The story can take on a life of its own after a bit.

I am working on a solo campaign right now.Basically its my version of Donald Featherstones matchbox.I have on of those little tool chests with the small drawers spray painted black.Each drawer is numbered.I will draw up a map with a numbered grid that corresponds with the drawers.The defending force will be divided up into several forces,and placed on several slips of folded paper,with a number of dummy slips to equal the number of drawers,and they will be randomly placed to fill the drawers up.As the invading force enters the numbered area,the slip is drawn to see if there is contact.The only thing I havent devised is what the defender reactions will be yet.

Don't know about the specific campaign. I have really enjoyed Two Hour War Games rules. I have played Pulp, RPG, Zombies and mixtures of the three. They are great rules and provide every thing I need. I should note the rules to date, don't know about the future releases, are more narrative than map driven.

Like Tuudawgs I like THW for solo campaigns and my zombie blog, run solo, has been pretty fun and popular with readers.

I find the basic juggle between Patrol, Attack and Defend of THW Chain Reaction works great for solo campaign. You only need two sides, and may be some extra.

I play a game now and then, and it's really easy to do even if sometimes the gap between games can be several weeks.

I haven't run many, but have thought of them periodically.

Ran a short episode where a down on his luck sailor in Jamaica, in 1715 was looking for work. Queen Anne's War had recently ended, so a lot of sailors were unemployed. A Spanish treasure fleet had reportedly been wrecked by a strong hurricane, and many men were putting out to sea to seek their fortunes along the Florida coast, hoping to be able to recover some of the gold and jewels reported to have been lost.

The main character has to find a privateer to sign on to, since he's run out of money, and is sleeping in back alleys on the islands.

Took him a few attempts, but he finally finds a ship that will take him.

He and the crew then go cruising off of Cuba for Spanish vessels, since the captain wants payback for being attacked previously by the Spanish Guarda Costa.

The transit to the Windward Passage is relatively uneventful, and our hero, the poor, destitute sailor recently hired on just happens to be on watch, and sights a French cargo ship illegally offloading goods along the southern Cuban coast (the Spanish have forbidden all trade by non-Spanish companies with their citizens).

This just happened to be his lucky day, since it happened randomly, while he was on watch rotation.

The privateer is able to seize the vessel without a fight, since most of its crew are on shore, delivering goods to the Spanish.

Due to the value of the vessel, the privateer decides to escort it back to Port Royal, instead of just putting a prize crew on board to do that, since they're concerned a Spanish patrol might retake the ship.

They run across a friendly trading vessel on their way back who confirms that Spanish patrols are operating off the north shore of Jamaica. However, they don't encounter them along their way back, afterall.

They are lucky to get back to port with their prize safely though, since another hurricane is brewing in the area, and the winds and seas are picking up considerably.

The value of the vessel and its cargo is yet to be determined, but our ship's mate will be getting a nice bonus for being the first person to spy the anchored vessel, along the Cuban shores.

Most of the above was created using home-brew rules, and some basic encounter charts. There are a number of rules sets that will permit you to do the same thing.

I supplemented some decisions with the Mythic system, when needed, or made up charts on the fly.

Looking forward to the next cruise.

Hi,

What i did is not truly solo but works very well: take two friends which are wargamers but live to far away or a somebody who is interested in History but not a wargamer. Give everyone a briefing of the campaign and forces at their disposition in realistic terms (not game values) and demand from them written order on
Strategic level
Operation level
And tactical level….

Subdivide the orders than in days/months and turns and give them news and update them. In case of a battle sent then a historical map and or a foto of your battlefield / table and ask real orders (again no game orders but real stuff)

Just play all this out with your rules and give them a written feedback like their subordinate would… Only following their orders!

This is reat fun. We did this years ago with battle of the bugle with nealy 20 battles sending back briefings the OKH and HQ and i did the same thing for the russo -japanese war sending updates to the zar and the teno. Great fun….

I have used NUTS and Colonial adventures from 2 Hour Wargames. They are very friendly for Solo gamers to use. Random encounters and play that is not complex.

In my 1935 / 65 two pages aerial rules, there are instructions for campaigns at squadron level. Basically it is a series of games played in succession, with pilots gaining experience, surviving or being substituted by less experienced pilots. The simple set has solo rules too. I played a couple of fun one-evening solo campaigns set in 1948-49 (Israeli vs Egyptians)-

if you want to give a look to the rules this is the site

panzer8.weebly.com

My best campaign game involved creating encounters for the US Cavalry during the American Indian Wars of 1866-1876. We had a campaign map with map pins etc. and ran the game solo multiplayer on a yahoo group. I am including the link if anyone wants all the mechanics (too much to type here).

link

Without sounding too much like Old School, I would indeed suggest reading the Don Featherstone/Tony Bath/etc. books for inspiration. The simplest systems are often the best: e.g. the popularity of SAGA. Wargaming is not about complicated (rules) systems but how one deals with a combat situation (be it solo or with opponents) and how one outsmarts the other side with the forces at hand.

I would love to run a solo Napoleonic campaign but wouldn't know where to start I'm afraid.

I have found the linear campaign format to be well suited to solo play – a simple example can be found here: link

I'm sure it could be used for other than DBx systems. It has many similarities to the narrative campaign idea M C LeSingeDew mentions above.

Another example (described as a piston campaign) here: PDF link

I did a solo science fiction campaign using the Full Thrust rules. I generally determined the short term and long term consequences as a result of the battle. I also included any crew casualties in major starships.

The idea I liked most was in a Persian/Indian ancients campaign.
A border officer was sent to patrol the border regions, much like the 7th cavalry, scouting, and dispensing justice to the hill tribes. March rate was variable as was the reaction to his arrival and the justice meted out.
He missed the Indian invasion by 2 days but had a lot of scrapes in his 3 week tour.
The Indians won back a province in the end.

A long time ago, I ran a pretty successful solo campaign based on the ECW. Hal Thinglum was kind enough to publish the results in MWAN. (I told you this was a long time ago!)

I had weather, supplies, politics, and some, but not too much paperwork. (At least in my view. Personal tastes will vary, of course.) I used ARMATI rules and was able to get some good games – some meaningful games – out of the fictional set up.

Chris

For WWII, I suggest Platoon Forward (land) or Squadron Forward (air) by Too Fat Lardies. Both generate very interesting scenarios and generate events "back at base" so to speak after the battle. inexpensive also

I've used a very simple system to create a series of linked HOTT games. You play one force as the player, but run the opponents too (HOTT is suited to this 'play both sides fairly' style of doing things).

Post-Roman Britain (would work with DBA)

link

Epic 40K Space Marines

link

I've run a variant of the latter campaign using Orks seeking loot, and am working on one where you play a Tyranid Hive Fleet.

Alan L. I had not seen that article before, but suggested basically the same thing on the forum for the "Maurice"rules. They have minor/ major victories, unit upgrades and replacements and terrain cards for random battlefields. A minor victory pushes the losers back one box, a major one two boxes. Pretty simple. I enjoyed the one I did with 2 "fantasy" WSS armies "recruited" in a civil war in Michigan. (Yes, yes, let's get the jokes about why you would want to fight over Michigan!) :-))

Currently working on a WWII solo aerial 30 day campaign. The active player takes the role of a Japanese squadron commander attempting to counter US B-29 raids.

Regards,

J. P. Kelly

Never understood this part.

Why do you need rules to do whatever you wish? You're exactly the same as an author- figure out what you'd like to do and make the story that brings you from the last point of the campaign to where you want to go.

So you can't do whatever you wish; so the active player is under the approximate constraints faced by the actual participants.

Regards,

J. P. Kelly