Fantasy Wargame Campaign Building

[horridperson]

For the past couple weeks I'd been discussing the possibility of building a wargaming campaign in a DIY fantasy world.  I ended up reading about Tony Bath's Hyperborea campaign and found the ideas a great inspiration even if the implementation felt somewhat dated.   I'm early to task and just drafted a design/style guide for myself to get me  through the early stages of "construction'.  This leaves me with a collection of "big ideas" as a framework but, quite a lot of holes to fill.  I have  Tony Bath's, Setting Up a Wargames Campaign for guidance and was wondering if anyone might have any insights from their own experiences or recommendations for further reading on the subject that might be helpful.  The subject is a departure from what I typically blog about but it's of interest to me so I thought I would gather the information HERE.

[Oldben1]

Will you be playing solo?  Are you interested in an rpg feel?

[lethallee61]

Coming from a strong RPG design background myself, I’m interested to follow this thread and your continuing thought process through your blog.

You seem to be asking the right questions - historical or fantastical, magic heavy or light, non-human races or not and so on.

One other question I always ask myself is how technologically advanced is the setting? Are we talking Bronze Age, dark ages, medieval or late medieval? Has blackpowder been discovered etc?

Apart from that, and this follows on from Oldben1’s question, who is the setting designed for? If it’s for a group of players, then you may also have to consider their own preferences. No point building it if they aren’t going to come. I once spent many weeks designing a wargame setting (including creating fake newspapers to set the mood), only to find that the various players likely to be involved didn’t even bother to read them.

You may also need to consider miniature choices available, terrain requirements and other practical elements.

In terms of further reading, there was a set of campaign rules published in the White Dwarf magazine about 20 years ago - for the life of me I can’t remember the name of the setting (it wasn’t the Albion or Storm of Chaos setting) but I’m sure it was based on a large island. Players all started with a number of territories and battle results determined bonuses or penalties as the campaign progressed. We modified them for games of 40K but I remember it worked pretty well.

I wish you luck. Happy to elaborate on anything as you progress. 

[dadlamassu]

We have run many campaigns in our fantasy world of Morval Earth morvalearth.co.UK and several other settings. We based our area on Middle Earth and a mixture of the Dark Ages and Medieval times.

Our maps are drawn using Campaign Cartographer software and the skills of John Mumford. We decided that the campaign map should reflect a version of real life reduced to ease table top creation.I

The states, realms and nations reflect our collection of figures and over the past 40 odd years we have added tribes, expanded the history as required.

We started off with one main state and its immediate neighbours in some detail. We chose the easy ones. The medieval and Tolkien based orcish opposition. Then we fleshed out the others - amazons, dwarves, elves, chaotics ext as required or as a new range added ideas from the figures.

John Mumford wrote up one of our campaigns and published it as th Dame Morgana Trilogy which included our rules and a lot of campaign background.

[Citizen Sade]

The White Dwarf campaign you mention sounds like the Thorkinson’s Island one. As it happens, the chaps behind the Sowing Dragons’ Teeth revisited it for this year’s BOYL. They kindly posted details here https://sowingdragonsteeth.com/draft-rules-wfb-campaign/

[lethallee61]

The White Dwarf campaign you mention sounds like the Thorkinson’s Island one. As it happens, the chaps behind the Sowing Dragons’ Teeth revisited it for this year’s BOYL. They kindly posted details here https://sowingdragonsteeth.com/draft-rules-wfb-campaign/

That's the one! Bless you my son. 

[horridperson]

@Oldben1

 Playing solo is always a possibility.  Along with Tony Bath's Campaign I've been delving into William Silvester's Solo Wargaming Guide.  Even if I don't go that route I think there are some valuable insights to be found there.  I came into wargaming by way of RPGs so there has always been that influence on my hobby.  My great pleasure is creating stories and characters so deliberately or subconsciously there is always going to be some measure of RPG in the mix.

@lethallee61

 Technology level is dependent on Culture and Age in the setting.  The primary accomplishment of extended play Bath commented on that appealed to me was the growth of the world over a succession of games.   My great ambition would be a world that could stand the test of time.  Once I have some of the principle top down material n order I'd like to commence with some skirmish games set in an early period; most likely dark age as the fall of Serrid is this world commencement into a Dark Age.  My intention would be to choose an area of coast far removed from center stage and play some relatively primitive skirmish games.  I was intrigued by the campaign system the Too Fat Lardies came up with for their Dux Britannarium and wondered if it could be partially adopted in a low fantasy setting.  The abstracted nature of the big picture is attractive because the book keeping is minimized while still suggesting the greater hand of history moving above the proceedings.  Bath's Hyperborean games took place in an age of Reason well after Conan's exploits where he extrapolated cultures.  Within my own construct if it could start small and early it might be possible to address different periods should the design take with a measure of historical precedent.

It's critical that potential players be able to design their own cultures.  When I commenced my principal gaming frenemy seemed skeptical but he may be warming to the idea.  By focusing on particular regions I think it would be possible to allow satisfying input while still working toward a cohesive world.  Larger numbers of players in the early stages would probably be significantly more challenging to accommodate and I doubt I am up to the task.  Once some precedents have been established and there are some emergent cultures I think the right kind of player; The kind of people I enjoy playing games with anyway ; Might find them self at home.

@dadlamassu

For starters I'm going to have to visit your site.  A 40 year legacy would be a wealth of information to explore.  At present I am gathering the resources to define the physical geography of the world.  On the RPG front I'm a huge fan of Expeditious Retreat Press.  I am approaching the build with A Magical Society:  Ecology and Culture.  I am also using map making software coupled with some tablet work.  I've captured a series of landforms from gmworldmap and am preparing to set them adrift.  Once I arrange the continents and plot plausible mountain chains I intend to redraw the map and transfer it to Dungeon Painter Studio.  I hope to build an attractive "look" map here.  I don't know how technical the campaign phases will become (I prefer abstraction) but if necessary I may have to lay out a, "proper" hex map on something like Hexographer but, that has yet to be determined.  Your "start with one state" plan sounds similar to what I have in mind so I'm more confident that I could be headed in the right direction.   

[Oldben1]

Ive recently began playing solo rpg with Maze Rats.  I was able to find a lot of rpgs with tables for campaigns and random events.  I’m also using the map from Barbarian Prince as a guide.

[Machinegunkelly]

Hi. I Think it is a great idea to build up your own setting and game World. As I´ve been RPGing and wargaming since my age was one digit I´ve had the time to build gaming World s in different kind of settings. From what I´ve read you are on a good way. On a grand generic scale there are two roads to choose when you design the World. Eather you start on a small scale and work your way out as your gamin progress. Begin sketching out a village, from that village there are Three roads, one to the closest city. Describe the city..... Or you start on low level large scale and work you way down. MAke a sketch of the World and make Three coutries. Describe the rulers of the country.....
Neither of the systems are right or wrong and you do not have to stick to your choice.

If you like some inspiration you should look up Jevenkas sword and sorcery thread and look at their world they´ve built up over lots of years. Or you could take a look at my threads on this page to see an example of the first world building system in work.

Have fun and keep us updated.

[horridperson]

I'm familiar with the top down and local worldbuilding and both starting points are valid.  For RPGs I've used limited top down for myself and shone a light down on where the players were by detailing the local.  For wargame I'm figuring the ideas are the same but the scale is different.  My World view is still there but the PCs/wargamers are countries or cultures rather than characters.  The little village becomes bordering neighbors and landforms.  The simpler I can kep it the better off I think it will work.  I'm going to have to have a look at Jevenka's thread.  Morval Earth proved to have lots of interesting ideas and I'm always on the lookout for some inspiration.  I've been playing around with the map a bit.  I made some initial landforms then transferred them to paint.net where "continental drifted" them around a bit then locked them in place once I like where they were.

[Machinegunkelly]

It´s looking good.

I´ve been thinking about the vision that the World should be "standing the test of time".
If I look at Tolkiens Middle Earth I think it stood its test of time because it´s because it´s so well written, it has become the McDonalds of wargaming/RPG. It doesn´t matter where or who IRL you game with, you know what you are going to get. On the other hand it has lost its flexibility. There is no plausible way a country made up of Satyrs and Centaurs will be battling the folks of Eriador. (Of course it could happen but it would not be Tolkiens Middle Earth any more).

If I look at WH; Old World on the other hand (during its hey days) I see a total different route. The flexibility for gaming and new races where high, and if you wanted Skaven to battle Lizardmen you just explained it with, the Skaven had dug a tunnle beneath the sea floor.  On the otherhand it was a world that suffered from ripoffs (lots of Tolkien names in it) and (in my point of view) in the last years it became too silly when they tried to push every idea into it. It lost its sense of a growing development in exchange for rather incoherent mutations.

These are the things I think it is worth thinking about. How much flexibility can you fit into the world before you loose control over the development and/or loose plausability? Also how much are you ready to go back and rewrite five years from now to adapt the world? One example is Tetshub and Jevenkas world who started out having magic but after a few years they wrote it out of their world. How will you retain a sense of development if a player want to make a country/ race that doesnt fit in the world at all?


MGK

[horridperson]

It's well written but, there is also the advantage of being completely self contained.  Writing is planned and driven by a singular plot while an RPG or Wargame lack that luxury.  Even with the passing of J.R.R. Tolkien his son, Christopher oversaw Middle Earth and protected it's integrity even as it became a global IP.  The principle of maintaining internal consistency is key to making a plausible, if fantastical world.  Satyrs and Centaurs and completely acceptable in C.S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicle.

GWs' Old World and AoS are driven by profit, not plot.  As a business they can't be faulted for keeping the lights on.  The ensemble cast of creators and contributors over the years is just as much a continuity nightmare as the former.  Having said that there is something to take away from their design process.  I look at GW planning as islands in an uncharted ocean.  You have small areas that are defined with clarity along with terra obscuris regions that give each creator their own space and allow for the introduction of more product.  I've got nothing to sell you but those unknown spaces are great places to bring other players into.

You lose as much control as you are willing to relinquish.  Tolkien and GW have different philosophies governed by different motivations.  For my part I hope I can develop a world that pleases a few friends and I.  The planning I've done so far has been to examine what I like like about fantasy worlds, and from the ideas I held on to from past projects over the years.  No way in hell it's perfect or that there won't be revisions moving forward but, change isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Being too rigid about shared worldbuilding isn't conducive to sharing it with others, and being afraid to change something you don't feel is working (Why else do it?) doesn't make any sense.  If I saw this one through for five years and made some changes I think I'd be happy and think, "My world is growing".  While it's never been committed to anything more than a folder loaded with scraps of paper my world has been changing and growing for more than 20 years.  That's part of the fun of it.  If I just kept throwing more paper on the pile and crossing a line through a discarded I think it would continue to give me pleasure even if I never got around to playing a wargame in it.

The last question seems easy.  Lets say you have a pool of players in the world you built.  You all have a "bible" that describes the world and how stuff works there.  A potential player comes along and wants to do something differently.  I doubt I would change a world for one player.  It negates the work I've done and that of everyone else who, "played by the rule".  On the other hand what if it was a really cool idea that did something different rather than better?  What if the thread could be woven into the fabric of the rest of the world without disrupting what everything had done?  If someone comes to me with a great idea I'm not going to turn them away just because I couldn't think of it first.  In the case of a wargame balance is going to be an issue that needs to be considered and from a story perspective things should fall within the style of the "bib'e". 

[horridperson]

I had some more time to play with the map images.  Paint.net is more a photo imaging program than a design suite but it's what I'm most accustomed to so I played around with it.  I just dropped some colour and worked quick rather than nice to see what could be accomplished with the program.  I think I'd have to move it to GIMP if I wanted to add in trees and mountain brushes but I shudder at the thought of teaching myself how to use it again.

[Pendrake]

How did the flat map become a globe? 
Does paint.net do that?

[horridperson]

Yes it does with a 3d shape rendering plug in.  I can't remember the exact dimensions of a project off the top of my head but, if your map canvas is sized right it will wrap around a sphere seamlessly.