Creating Wargame Campaigns

Greetings once again, everyone.  Today's post will deal with methodology once again, but this time we're going to focus on one of the integral pieces of the Wargate:  the wargame campaign.  We have more of these every year than any other event, and I wanted to share my process for creating new campaigns and how we can expand upon the conventions we use.  This is based entirely upon my own experience, and is not meant to be empirical in any way.  This is simply how our club gets it's regular influx of wargames campaigns and scenarios.


Preliminaries and Metadata

One of the things that has been driving our campaigns lately is time restraints.  The first thing that you should consider is the number of games that will be played.  This has been both a set number and a variable number for us in the past, depending on the individual campaign makeup.  For our purposes, the three month campaigns have a target of 24 recorded games, while the two month campaigns will require 16...which is actually a more frantic pace.  However, we have also had campaigns that have lasted nearly a year, with an unlimited number of games.  The possibilities are endless, but you should consider your club's available time.

Once you have chosen your time frame and target number of games, then you can choose a narrative.  In many cases this might actually come first if the dictates of a previous campaign or game would naturally set the stage.  We have several narratives to choose from, especially for the more popular games.  Take a look at the world and factions doing battle.  What might drive that conflict?  For example, our Warmachine narrative focuses on the area near Caspia and Sul, because Cygnar and the Protectorate are the center of the map for players in our group.  However, Warhammer 40,000 jumps around in the narrative, but focuses on the Mardannon Crusade and it's main enemies - Warmaster Laserwulf and Boss Nokk.

Now, you have a time frame and a narrative.  What do you do with them?  Well, what sort of campaign do you want to run?


Choose Design Type

There are so many types of campaign types that I can't really be bothered to even uncover them all.  There are as many campaign types as there are campaign designers, and I don't pretend this entry to be the end-all-be-all of this discourse.  However, I can designate four main types of campaign that the Wargate uses:  League, Ladder, Map and Gamemastered.

Now, I am going to give a brief description of the types of campaigns I mentioned and the basic conventions that we use in each.  Of course each individual campaign is unique and has it's own quirks, so I this will stick to just the basics.  Really, I could write a whole series of Bone Method entries on each one.  Hmmm...

A League Campaign.

Ladder campaigns are traditionally played when there are only two sides to the battle.  Start with an opening scenario with two outcomes, one for each faction.  The whole diagram looks like a wedge with multiple nodes on it.  We haven't done one of these sorts of games in a loooong time, so regrettably I do not have an image to share.  It's hard to explain without a diagram, but basically it goes like this:  the number of tiers equal the number of games you want played.  Each team has one side of the diagram.  For example, Team 1 is Left and Team 2 is Right.  If Team 2 wins, the scenario played next time is one tier down (or up, depending on how you set your diagram) and to the right.  If Team 1 wins, the scenario played is one tier down and to the left.  The further the scenario map goes to one side, the more favorable for that team the battle will be.  At the bottom of the pyramid will be an extra set of nodes that denote campaign standing, which is reached exactly like all the other nodes.  The further to one side the final node, the more crushing that faction's victory is over the other.

A Multiplayer Ladder.

There are other sorts of campaigns that I term "ladder" that aren't actually set up like the traditional ladder above.  In this model, the number of games are represented by a sort of "sliding graph" meter.  As progress is made by one faction, that progress is represented on the meter.  I liken this to a ladder campaign since the rounds are measured out and once a scenario is played those points are lost.  This is best used when there are multiple factions or sub-factions to a fighting force.

A Map Campaign.

Map campaigns revolve around a campaign map that is manipulated for strategic advantage above and beyond the actual game being played.  In fact, this map wrangling can constitute a "game" in and of itself depending on how involved its ruleset is.  A map campaign often involves moving armies and resources around on the map and attempts to get an optimum position throughout the campaign.  Any number of factions can be represented on a map, and these are often the most looked for sorts of games around here.

Gamemastered campaigns are the odd bird.  This must involve at least two factions and an impartial, neutral gamemaster.  The gamemaster sets the scenario, delineates any armies or special units used, and has carte blanche to run the game as he likes to.  This is the old sort of gaming - back in the day, this was actually the norm for wargaming, where as today we prefer rather hard cut scenarios, special rules and victory conditions.  However, these campaigns are very rewarding for gamemasters who are fair and consistent.

It's now that you'll decide on what scenarios will be used in the campaign, and what special conditions affect which scenarios are played.  For League games, a set of random scenarios will suffice (perhaps linked with the narrative).  For Ladder games, each node is a scenario (remember to weigh them to the side that's winning in that node).  For Map campaigns, you can go crazy:  each type of terrain or special location can have it's own special scenario or set of scenarios.  In Gamemastered campaigns, anything is possible.


Determine Victory Conditions

Most of our campaigns use the same conventions time after time.  The main two of these are Campaign Points and Influence.  These two conditions are the deciding factor in every campaign.  Either one or both of them will be used, and this section explains how and why.

Campaign Points are used in games where multiple sides or players makes it useful to have multiple diverging scores.  A side can accrue Campaign Points in a number of manners, but playing games is the most common.  For a win, 3 points are awarded.  For a draw, 2.  For a loss, hey you still played so you get 1 point.  Sometimes, Campaign Points are the only thing necessary for determining campaign victory, especially where there are a set number of games.

Influence is your ratio of victory to loss.  The more you win, the higher your Influence score.  We began using this a while back, and though it can be used on it's own to determine campaign it's got a better use than that.  Influence can be applied to Campaign Points as a multiplier in games where there are many factions or sub-factions.  Thus you have the magic equation:  Campaign Points x Influence = Total Score.

One other convention we have used is called Battle Magnitude.  This imposes an Influence penalty on factions that don't achieve the requisite number of games.  Basically, the faction that has played the most games produces the Battle Magnitude, which is simply the number of games they have played.  All factions that do not meet this number of games suffers a penalty to Influence commensurate with the number of games they are behind.  Thus, you cannot win one game, get 100% influence and win the campaign - you have to worry about Campaign Points and Battle Magnitude.

Whatever the Victory Conditions for the campaign, you should definitely consider them before any other additions are made.  There are many extra ways to earn Campaign Points, through special events and conditions or other achievements.  However, playing and winning games is still the focus of most campaigns.


Designing Events and Conditions

It's perfectly fine to design a campaign without any bells and whistles.  In fact, it can be quite enjoyable, especially after just crawling through a long map campaign with all sorts of special conditions.  However, you may want to add in all sorts of changes to make the battles more characterful and in line with your narrative.

Events and conditions are really anything you want them to be, but for the purposes of our discourse an event is something that happens unexpectedly and affects your campaign progress; a condition is the effect of an action that affects your actual play in the game.  For example, in The Brightflow Gap, your forces can get a Spark of Hope at the beginning of your campaign turn.  This affects your campaign progress by adding a bonus to your Influence score.  Your characters can also find magical items to swap out, changing their condition - you might might have paid for a +1 Attack, but your new magic weapon gives you +3 Strength.  Nice upgrade.

One of the most heavily used conditions here at the Wargate is that of Experience Points.  When a unit gains an Experience Point (XP), then some modification occurs to the unit / hero and usually lasts until that unit is destroyed in the game.  For example, 1 XP translates to a roll on an upgrade chart in Brightflow Gap.  Results like +1 Weapon Skill (making this regiment better trained in hand to hand combat) or +1 Leadership (making these troops morale stronger).  The specific requirements to gaining XP is different for every game, but it's usually the result of a battle.  Warriors do not gain Experience Points if they do not gain experience. Not all games use XP, but the ones that do require a lot more paperwork.

Remember to keep everything fair and balanced.  Make sure the chances of something bad happening apply equally to everyone, and likewise the chance of anything good happening must apply to everyone equally - more or less.  Campaign conditions can dictate otherwise, but try to keep the metagame mechanics from unevenly  upsetting the balance of the campaign - unless the randomness part is one of the 'features' your campaign is focused on.

Keep things fair, but shake it up a bit - especially for large, complex campaigns.  Some locations might be worth more than others, or demand a certain army build or scenario.  Vary things from the tournament standard - but keep it entirely fair.  Try not to stack circumstances against anyone - a good rule of thumb is that only one event / condition should apply to any faction at one time (except XP), unless they have had to sacrifice some other advantage for the edge.  Likewise, that condition should have an equal chance of being good or bad, unless (as above) that faction (or their opponent) has somehow engineered it to be one way or the other by performing in another area.

If you played the same scenario with the same armies over and over it would get boring pretty quick.  Keep enough variables in the campaign that it will remain interesting, but not so many that it will overwhelm your players.  In each game there are a great many conventions that can be tweaked to produce a unique and interesting scenario for your battles - every single time.

Crowning the Victor

We have a big tradition here at the Wargate, and that's the Accolades.  At the end of every campaign, we award a prize to the victorious army, and chide the vanquished for how disturbing we find their lack of faith.  It's all in good fun, and one of the highlights of the season.  The victorious player wins a title, which he holds until the next year's campaign.  The title itself becomes something of a prize, but hey - we've given out real prizes too!

Dirty Greg won the first real prize we ever actually handed out.

It can be hard for smaller clubs to actually hand out any prizes without 'support'.  Most clubs or game stores run tournaments with prize support from a publisher, but you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get the swag.  Too many - one major caveat being you must be a retailer.  That's sort of a bad rule, truly - I think a lot of commerce goes through the club these days.  We don't really have the option of going to the game store for our gaming, anyway.

So what to do?  Give prizes or not?  As a small club, we actually have a few options.  I've actually had people I've invited to the Wargate tell me "but you guys don't have prizes.  I've made actual money at these tournaments!" and then they told me they didn't want to come over.  Whatever, I could care less - the club is invite only, and nobody wanted Fat Mike to come over anyway.  It was that the other statement, that he had made money, was a qualifier for his enjoyment of the campaign.  For real?  You'd rather get another box set than have months of ongoing games?

Well, personally I like both.  It's easy to take a collection for the prize pool at the start of the campaign, and you can get as lavish as you like.  We're not a store, and run entirely on donations to the club which are frequent and often lavish.  The most money the club has ever "made" has been on Magic: the Gathering drafts - and we haven't done one of those almost two years.  However, the club gives back a lot too, and all of that money goes back into the club in the form of supplies and new accoutrements and in few rare cases for Prize Support.  So for the best prize pools these days, our best option is the campaign "ante-up".  For $5-20 per player (depending on how jiggy you want to get with the prizes) this is cost effective and makes for even more memorable Accolades!

At the end of each campaign we publish the campaign log from the state of play on the main site, along with the names of the victors / vanquished.  There's a short story blurb as we tie in the narrative, all the fallout from the battles is discussed.  These have been getting longer and longer - wait until you see the log from Brightflow Gap!  The campaign log is the record of our campaign, not only for our imaginary armies but to keep some great memories for ourselves as well.

Well that's enough out of me now.  I wanted to go over some of the basic considerations we make for each campaign, and I'm pretty sure I hit on most of the major points.  Let me know if you have any questions, and we always like comments here on the site!  See you on Game Day!