Weekender XLBS: Are Campaigns Better Than One-Off Games?
March 8, 2020 by dignity
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Happy Sunday!
Happy Sunday!
“No” is my simple answer to the question before hearing your discussion.
– What about organised play?
– What about the ability to organise a pick-up game at the last minute before club night?
No doubting that campaigns can be a lot of fun.
Happy Sunday mate
Be interesting to know your thoughts after watching 🙂
Oh, I’m all for campaign play whenever possible and extending the game beyond the tabletop session, but the question was “should we all ONLY play campaigns?” I was thinking of other games and systems that include an element of either resource management, or inter-battle manoeuvres and skirmishes that influence the upcoming battle (inc the element of surprise), or post battle impact on what follows meaning losing well is worthwhile striving for. Here’s a few… – Diplomacy boardgame for macro map play (simultaneous hidden orders and agreements). See Torros’ comment below about getting someone else to fight your battles for you!… Read more »
The English translation of the US term “quarterbacking” in co-OP gaming is “Alpha gaming” (not the same as “alpha striking”). It’s often a fine line between coaching new players how to play a game in terms of rules and mechanics, and telling them what decisions they should make.
Yup. I detest alpha-gaming. So many coop games I might as well just not play because someone else at the table is doing all the playing for the group…I have to make sure that folks really don’t do it when playing the likes of Pandemic etc
Happy Sunday!
I really love a good campaign! I think it helps bring narrative into the battles, prevents/diminishes just throwing troops away into meat-grinders and I really love the development part of campaigns as you build up skills and equipment.
Campaign style games can mean you have to take troops you might not normally take in one off games eg light scout cavalry. These would be the guys who would locate the enemy but also the ones who would protect your army if you were withdrawing from the field or harry the enemy and not allowing them to regroup if they were withdrawing If you look at Waterloo and the casualties for the allies which was 24000 men killed, missing or wounded (I think of which about 5000 were killed ) out of 118,000 and that is seen as an… Read more »
Great show guys.
If @avernos @warzan @dignity you guys want to try out a campaign then why not give Sharp Pradtice a go? Dawns and Departures is one of the best campaign systems out there and it’s very quick and easy. I’d be happy to GM the story for you over email/discord.
Lord of the Rings was built to be played as a campaign. All the early Sourcebooks and scenarios were linked and it took a few years before they started doing things like limiting allies and making proper points match style scenarions.
On your Siege of Jerusalem point yesterday @warzan first of all wow you are really doing some hardcore research well done. One small point. The number 185,000 dead is debated by religious scholars and now we think that the number 5180 is more accurate and there was a mix up with the numbers at some point. The bit about paying the bribe is also biblical as we read that the King of Israel emptied all the gold from the temples to pay the Assyrians and it wasn’t enough.
I would say most figures for casualties and army sizes should be viewed by a certain amount scepticism
In campaigns knowing when not to fight is just as important of when to fight. There are many examples in history of armies desperately trying not to get engaged with the enemy until they are ready to
On a silly note many years ago our club ran a 2 day Hordes of the things campaign. Our country as each country had 3 players managed to win fir wan of a better word the campaign by not having to fight an actual battle but by persuading others to fight our battles for us
so pretty much like the real world then … 😉
I love the idea of campaigns, unfortunately i only get a game in once every few months, so chances of getting a campaign going is basically impossible.
Is it with the same people every few months.
If so you could easily link those and use the time in between to do any book keeping and plan the next game.
If not then you probably are screwed
No, its just with who ever is free at the time.
Does Modiphius not have a special system for campaigns in Fallout?
I really like the idea of ransoming or prisoner exchange. How about if you fail to pay the ransom then the prisoners are executed and beheaded then the heads can be used as ammo and cause morale issues when hit. Terror? or hatred?
Have you tried Irregular miniatures for your 6mm WW2, they do Commandos and Germans
I’m pretty sure during the Weekender you said last weeks winner was revealed on the site. I’m not seeing the last 2 weeks worth of winners. Someone need to whip a whip’er. Or just send me the prizes 🙂 I’ve always loved the idea of a campaign with progression. The problem I alwasy come down to (Beyond player availability/consistency) is that the advantages end up going to the victor so if one player wins a few games they ten to end up unbeatable from then on. I like the idea of scenarios having separate objectives that do no contribute to… Read more »
On the subject of Coronavirus: “Nation turns to Warhammer players for advice on how to stay at home for two weeks”
https://newsthump.com/2020/03/04/nation-turns-to-warhammer-players-for-advice-on-how-to-stay-at-home-for-two-weeks/
Happy Sunday folks!
After the rigmarole I went through to solve #18, #19 was a doddle.
Does somebody have screenshots for #1-#15? I wanna go earn some sweet xp.
Would be nice to see Lloyd join the Clash crew, I have some Republican Romans that want to smash those Carthaginians. Feel my pilum, bitches! The chat about campaigns was interesting. Linked games don’t have to be played over weeks – the Kings of War International Campaign Day was great fun and something I would definitely want to take part in again. One thing the discussion did bring to mind is we don’t play enough asymmetric games, games were both forces have completely different objectives and scenario driven games. A ruleset you may want to have a read of is… Read more »
On the fleeing troops front, a game I’ve been looking at recently is Battle Valor Fantasy. In it there isn’t a moral break, but you can elect to have units flee if you think they’re in hot water, and as they do so the mechanics are such that a fleeing unit may slowly disintegrate as bases get left behind (in it to flee you roll a die for each base and for each success one base does a full double movement for its flee and each failure one base only does a regular movement so gets separated from the main… Read more »
Regarding capturing troops: something you could do is when a unit is cornered you could give peasant minis some sort of last stand bonus representing them fighting harder because they know if they get captured they’ll get executed while the nobs will get a comfy cell and be ransomed.
A fair few games are coming with campaign rules in the rulebook now I noticed.
Things like aeronautica and SPRQ.
I don’t mind pick-up games. But then again, we play so many different systems that it never gets boring. If you only play 1 or 2 (or 10) different systems then i could see it getting a bit stale. An idea for the “fighting a losing battle in a campaign”. Maybe you could abandon the scenario objective, thus losing the game, but get a secondary objective. Examples could be: Fighting Retreat. You can only move away from the enemy but any enemy killed count as double, which will hopefully put them off completely destroying your army. Minimise Losses. Again you… Read more »
The animal skin huts can be great for Zulu’s or Orks depending on the game your playing @avernos
If you’re into campaign games you could do this around a map so you can have a record of terrain an supply’s to dictate pro’s & con’s in following game’s.
I like the ‘resources on the tabletop’ that can be looted and that are the currency you spend between games.
Very nice. ??
Yay XLBS.
Happy Sunday all. 😀
Happy Sunday Jim, hope life’s treating you well
Thanks, @avernos . Sailing is smooth enough at the moment. 😀 Hope it’s the same with you.
not bad at all, staying well liquored up so I am immune to coronavirus. I’m pretty sure that’s what the medical advice said to do.
Like Churchill said (so the legend goes) before heading to Yalta in ’45…
“The Crimea? I believe I can bear it, provided an adequate supply of whiskey. Good for the digestion, and deadly on lice.”
Campaigns are great. If you’ve got time and space to play them. For me campaigns are nearly impossible to do (at this moment in my life) because I don’t get to play more than once a week simply because of time restraints. And since Star Wars: Legion hasn’t really implemented any long term campaigns (yet) I can’t really do it since I’d have to come up with some rules for it and I don’t really have time for that. That being said there are boardgames that work like a campaign in them selves (Like Mice & Mystic and Stuffed Fables)… Read more »
Years ago I played a Battle Fleet Gothic campaign and found that linking battles had completely the opposite effect to what was intended – i.e. ensuring players kept playing the game to the end. In a campaign game the minute a player started to loose the cost of continuing to fight was deemed too great so their forces disengaged so that their ships would not take any further damage. This was probably much worse in Battle Fleet Gothic where a spaceship could choose to leave the battle simply by passing a leadership test. However the underlying point is that in… Read more »