"Using Multiple Rulesets in a Single Campaign" Topic
12 Posts
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Whirlwind | 15 Aug 2013 7:18 p.m. PST |
Many rules work best at quite a defined level – i.e. where the player is a Brigade Commander, or a Corps Commander or whatever. In campaign games, it is better to use the same ruleset for every game regardless of size (even if that means certain battles are fought on paper) or to use different rules for different size games, as one might when playing standalone games? Regards |
chuck05 | 15 Aug 2013 7:53 p.m. PST |
Some time back we used one set of rule s for big set piece battles in a friends campaign. The outcome of one of the battles had one of the army heroes captured by the enemy. We decided to play out a rescue game using a skirmish set of rules. It worked out great. |
Mako11 | 15 Aug 2013 11:08 p.m. PST |
I've mixed in different air and sea rules for some games, and it worked well. |
Pedrobear | 16 Aug 2013 5:06 a.m. PST |
That should be the way, really. For sci-fi it is possible to play a whole plenatary invasion from the fleet action to the landing action to themass battle to the skirmish, like this: link |
Joes Shop | 16 Aug 2013 5:43 a.m. PST |
Did the same for air/sea games too. Regards, J. P. Kelly |
pigbear | 16 Aug 2013 8:57 a.m. PST |
I'm a big fan of the Spanish Fury series of rules by the Perfect Captain. Campaign! can be used on its own with other rules for battles or you can use Battle! and Actions! for large and small battles plus Siege! for obvious purposes. Again, there's no reason why you can't substitute other rules when you want to and of course you'll need to find something else if you want to do skirmishes. If you toss in your own favorite battle rules you'll want to do some tinkering of unit definitions and troop types to make sure all of the rules work together. One of my long planned but not yet seen the light of day projects has been to use the Spanish Fury rules for the TYW post-Breitenfeld as the Swedes rampaged through Southern Germany. This has required significant modding of Campaign!, Siege!, and Actions! (all works in progress) both to reflect the period and for them to be compatible with my own version of the old free Father Tilly rules for use in the bigger engagements (another work in progress). I might end up using a homebrew version of the TYW variant of Ga Pa instead, who knows? The fun is in the tinkering and these kinds of projects have a lot of that. I'd almost suggest combining rules for that reason alone but of course it isn't to everyone's tastes. |
ancientsgamer | 16 Aug 2013 9:01 a.m. PST |
Open battle vs. siege comes to mind as well. Most battlefield rules do not have a very robust set of siege rules. Also, I can see taking a higher level set of rules in a campaign and devolving down to a more granular set when it comes to pitched battles. So, say something Risk like for the campaign map and engagements where the outcome will be clear. And another set of rules where battles need to be fought. |
Frederick | 16 Aug 2013 10:44 a.m. PST |
For out latest campaign we use the Volley & Bayonet campaign rules, the House Divided campaign map, Fire & Fury for the table top battles except for one huge battle where we used the Volley & Bayonet rules |
wminsing | 16 Aug 2013 1:08 p.m. PST |
Yep, Spanish Fury embraces this idea and is pretty cool. Whether it makes sense for a general case or not depends on the scale of the campaign and how big/small your armies can be. If your basic maneuver unit is a brigade then you will probably not see forces so small that you'd need a company level rules set, but you might need one that will deal with several regiments a side (or several corps a side in the other direction). Is this 'the best'? Well, if your players are sticklers for consistency probably not, since switching up the game scale will involve some hand-waving in terms of translating the results. For example, if I'm using Fire and Fury for most of my battles but we end up with a small battle and want to use Fire and Fire: Regimental, how do we break the brigades up into individual regiments and then translate the losses back out? Of course, if you decide ahead of time you're going to this you could whip up some rules specifically to cover this case. It would be an interesting system. Another concept for campaigns that I've been developing side steps this issue entirely by gaming out only the 'decisive' part of the battle, or the 'pivot point'. So even if you're moving brigades or divisions around on the map, your tactical games might always be regimental level, representing the turning point of that engagement. You could keep the overall situation and force ratios similar, or you could create a more 'balanced' tactical scenario. My preferred concept in the case is to create a roughly balanced tactical scenario (as this avoids the 'who wants to play a game where you're outnumbered 10 to 1' problem) but not base the entire result of the overall battle on the tactical game; the tactical winner gets a bonus but doesn't automatically win. This actually works best if you're adapting some rules that already have an abstract way to resolve combat, like a boardgame. For example, let's say you're playing WWII and pushing around Brigades. You have an armored brigade with a couple of supporting infantry brigades attack some enemy infantry brigades. The tactical scenario could be played in Flames of War (or what have you) at the company level, representing the point of a possible breakthrough. If you win the FoW game you get a bonus on the die roll to determine the overall winner of that battle; you broke through and have a better chance of winning the fight, but it doesn't mean you have definitely won the fight. That's the basic idea. One of my 'dream' campaigns would be to run a WWII-ish campaign using the 'Victory: The Blocks of War' boardgame as the campaign engine and fighting out the land, sea and air engagements on the tabletop, using the something based on the 'pivot point' idea above. -Will |
arthur1815 | 16 Aug 2013 1:49 p.m. PST |
I like the idea of using different rules to wargame different size/level actions, and have used the Generalship Game in Paddy Griffith's Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun to control a campaign and generate tabletop battles. I also have no objection to fighting the various battles with different rules – partly as an entertaining way of experimenting/trying out the rules; and partly simply to add variety to the gaming experience or suit my mood. For example, if I have plenty of time, friends available to play &c., I can use a more detailed ruleset; if I'm tired, on my own and just need a quick game to lift my spirits, then something much simpler. Why not? |
pigbear | 18 Aug 2013 7:45 a.m. PST |
I don't have the old issues anymore but a bunch of years back the Courier had a multipart series about a Peninsular War campaign (or maybe it was just one article, I really don't remember). From what I recall there was some discussion about combining rules and deciding on when to game the smaller engagements on the tabletop, what the consequences would be in terms of the campaign, etc. I don't think it went into a lot of details but it was certainly food for thought. Even earlier than that I remember reading about Tony Bath's Hyborian campaign in Battle for Wargamers/Military Modeling. That was another source of inspiration. I never got my hands on the old Tony Bath book auction but I assume that's full of good info too. |
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