VSF world campaign

[Red Orc]

OK, I'll bite.

There isn't enough interest, as far as I can see, for this to work. I badgered Fuzziewuzzies a lot, saying 'yeah, let's just do it anyway, don't worry, we'll get people' and it seems I was wrong (and he was right). To my knowledge, there are seven people interested in the idea of a world campaign, and I think only one of those has expressed the belief that they can get a group involved. You're number seven by the way, and three of the others are Fuzzywuzzies himself, me, and HerbyF.

I think most of your suggestions are good, personally, though I'm not happy about the idea of picking 'good guys' and 'bad guys'... what if a group only has forces (eg British and French) that are labelled 'good'? Or let's say Russian and Prussian that get labelled 'bad'? The idea I was suggesting relies on national armies all fighting their own corner with temporary alliances but no overall stacking of sides, because it causes problems with no gain for playability or simplicity as far as I can see.

The idea of setting it on another planet is a bit iffy I think, that's fine for people who have Prussians in gasmasks, Aetherships, and a lot of alienesque terrain (of course, the campaign might be on Mars while I have Venusian terrain - d'oh!) but for others of us, not so good. That's why I'm advocating Atlantis (or Mu or Lemuria or some other varient of the 'Lost Continent' idea) - anything from dinosaurs to aliens, stone tools to lasers, caves to crystal palaces, mud huts to fantastic temples is possible with Atlantis.

But the idea of letting groups fight their battles after saying 'okay, you're fighting out the Conquest of Territory X' is what I've been advocating, and my understanding of Herby's posts is that this is close to his position too. I think the difference between me and Herby on this is that I think it's better to set things going by providing some background, eg giving each group control of let's say a province of Atlantis. I think it is the only way to go, if this ever gets off the ground. But sadly as I say there don't seem to be enough people interested to get it to work.

[answer_is_42]

You guys put up a thread, and I'll post some games. It'll be fun to have an aim to play towards. As long as people don't have to 'do' anything beyond post pictures, I expect you'll get a fair turnout.

[Red Orc]

As far as I'm aware, answer_is_42, they do have to 'do' something else - say they want to be in! And we may just have hit 8 people (not sure if you already PMed Fuzzy to be honest, so I don't know if you're already on the list)! It is good to know that there are at least some people interested (I did feel for a while it was really just Fuzzy, Herby and me pushing this). Woo-hoo! Let's hope we get a few more over the weekend!

I knew I wasn't going to be able to shut up about this until March 16th.

[Christian]

Interesting point... play the games and worry about recording the info on a map later. Might work that way too!

[Red Orc]

I'd say that would be up to the local group, to be honest. The way I see it working, you could have groups who do things totally differently.

Let's say we have Group A (in Australia) who want a map-based campaign; they have British, French, Martians and Venusians, and are taking the South East Province of Atlantis. They use the map of the province to plot their campaign moves up the Valley of the Dawn into the Moonshadow Mountains, past the vast inland Sea of Unnumbered Rivers; and they keep the rest of us informed as to what's going on.

Group B (in Belgium) want a league-based campaign. They're fighting over the Northern Province of Atlantis, and have Prussians, French, Dutch, Spanish, Russians and a random fantasy army... let's say Elves... as Atlanteans. They run their league, everyone plays everyone twice, they regularly post game reports so we know how the fighting in the Northern Province is going. No map necessary, though we all know it's 'north'.

Meanwhile a group in Canada (Group C of course) is playing a scenario-driven campaign where British, French, Spanish and Americans are fighting it out in the Western Province. The first battle - all the armies trying to capture the Citadel of Storms (a vital harbour location) - leades on to the second - the Race to the Forbidden Tower - where one side must rescue a powerful local leader from one of the other factions... here the 'map' only exists as series of locations linked by a narrative. It doesn't really matter if the Forbidden Tower is north or east of the Citadel of Storms, 20 miles away or 200... it's the story that's important.

All of these styles and more could be incorporated into the campaign depending on the local groups. I'm pretty certain that I'd want to encourage all of them.

[former user]

if I may throw in my 50c...
for this to work it has to be simple

- collect forces from players
- define a very rough starting plot (no historical/major personalities involved)
- players game whatever they want, post the game with rough background etc.
- when moderators decide there is enough background story for the next turn, they post a "the story so far" plot, that can be briefly discussed and  altered to suit the players involved
- players can decide to ally, they communicate covert and inform the mods, these keep track and reveal what is necessary
- the next turn commences
etc

this way it can work - only rule is that the mods have total control of the main development
but they have to be motivated enough to tell the narrative campaign
I've done this before and it works - but You have to be patient.
Otherwise it works like RPG

[Red Orc]

Been reviewing this thread, and I've noticed a couple of things;

1 - there are 15 people who have said they are up for this, and three more possibles if they can. That's Fuzzies, Doc Twilight, Bako, Jimbibbly, Answer_is_42, Rabbitz, Gluteaus Max, Ruarigh, Gamer Mac, Malamute, Thunderchicken, Mors, Leadfool, Christian and me for definite; and Sinewgrab, Tommy 20 and Ray Rivers if certain problems are overcome. I think (even if some now drop out that this must be do-able with that many, especially as some of those have already offered to help with co-ordination.

2 - Atlantis is the front runner in terms of location, but other people seem less keen; so I suggest that anyone who is less keen says whether they don't want Atlantis at all in the background, or if they're happy for Atlantis to be used, but want their battles to be elsewhere. If it's the latter, that shouldn't be a problem. If it's the former, we need to think hard about how we do background at all.

I'm now quite hopeful that this might actually happen. I also think we should perhaps have two threads for this, one for discussing background, on for discussing co-ordiantion in terms of groups, results, battle reports, interventions from co-ordinators etc.

[answer_is_42]

Well, I can fight in plains of Africa or the green fields of Europe (in 28mm/2mm respectively). I’m ok if you want to put Atlantis in, as long as it’s not overbearing on the rest of the campaign.

[Sinewgrab]

My main problem is opponents - but I am slowly overcoming that. And I have a few Atlantis ideas I could abuse...er, use. Maybe a portal in a lost Martian city opens to Atlantis, and now we Red Men and Green Martians are trying to invade with Norwegian allies...

[warrenpeace]

My main problem is opponents - but I am slowly overcoming that. And I have a few Atlantis ideas I could abuse...er, use. Maybe a portal in a lost Martian city opens to Atlantis, and now we Red Men and Green Martians are trying to invade with Norwegian allies...

I don't think there is so much of a problem there, Sinewgrab.  There's so much crossover to colonials with VSF that all we would have to deal with is a few extra gadgets.  I've got the ~50 British in Kahki.  Ian C has small contingents of British, Spanish, Italians, Germans and Americans, and lots of French Foreign Legion and a few French marines and sailors.  He also has hordes of Arabs and Berbers, which could stand in for some factions of Martians.  His hordes of Black Africans could stand in for impoverished shattered remnants of the Martian black race driven out of their south polar lair by John Carter.  Jeff C and Loren W might purchase a few Bronze Age minis and make some technical goodies like flyers.  There's plenty of players here, and plenty of already painted colonials.

[Mors]

Im still keen  providing 'Billy No Mates'  like me can participate, I got a feeling there are a few others that would solo game too.It really depends on how inclusive or exclusive you want the campaign to be.

If you ask 20 gamers a question you will get 20 different answers , my tuppenceworth is that I think it should be set worldwide , including lost continents , and on other planets too. I generally agree with former user , let the local players/groups play the games to there own settings , rules, scales etc. Then for a moderator (or two) to run the campaign allocate points etc. I have been thinking about how it would work as a campaign quite a bit and would be happy to put up some ideas if people are interested.

It does need to be kept as simple as possible for the moderators sakes and also to encourage people to participate.

It was this thread that got me painting VSF figures instead of just buying the bloody things...however I seem to have slipped off too darkest Africa at the moment , still useful for Askaris seeing service on the Red Planet though.

Cheeers Mors

[warrenpeace]

Let me make a suggestion from the viewpoint of a colonial miniatures wargamer and formerly avid cardboard wargamer.  For a strategic format it would be possible to use the old Victory Games cardboard game Pax Britannica.  That game was published in 1985, and has a beautiful map.  In that game there are 7 playable colonial powers, ranked: Great Britain, France, Germany, the United States of America, Japan, Russia, and Italy.  Three other minor colonial powers make moves per a random chart: Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal.  Imperial China and the Ottoman Empire do not expand, but may fight against the colonial powers.  The game starts in 1880, although the setup is not exactly historically correct, and areas are rated in a somewhat weird way.  Turns reflect four years of actualy time, with colonial powers placing various markers representing levels of involvement: "interest" "influence" "protectorate" "possession" "dominion" (GB) or "state" (USA).

It probably wouldn't be too hard to come up with maps of Venus and Mars to add to the Pax Brit map of the world.  Powers could compete for colonies on earth while at the same time competing for colonies on Venus and Mars.  Wars to establish protectorates or possessions vs indigenous people or nations could be resolved by some sort of decisive miniatures battle or series of battles.  Colonial powers at war with each other would be harder to resolve. But one of the goals of Pax Britannica is actually to AVOID triggering the Great War. So diplomacy resolves most conflicts between colonial powers.

[HerbyF]

I'm game, having Brits w/ some Indians & Gurkas, some French, and some Russians. I also have a Steam walker that looks very nice w/ the Russians and my steam elephant goes nicely w/ the Indian troops. I also have some Martians both red & yellow, & lots of lizard men for Venus. And of course my favorite a large Boxer & Imperial Chinese army. I'll try & stir up some interest here in the Seattle/Tacoma area.

[Christian]

Good to see this idea is still up and... well, running isn't the word I'd use! But it's getting there.

I think you should start setting up groups per country/state/territory. Even if it's just by name and one person to contact.

Then you could have your thread/sticky with admin talk.

[Red Orc]

Right then - I'll step up to the plate and say that, as we're all into the idea of having a campaign, but it'll take several mods probably to do it, and we want it to happen on Earth, with and without Atlantis and/or Mu, and on Mars and Venus, I'll volunteer to mod the Atlantis bit of the campaign.

If other mods want to volunteer to run a Mars campaign, a Mu campaign, or whatever, that's great. Hopefully we will be able to integrate them.

What I'll need from interested players wanting to take part in the Atlantis section is as follows:
1 - whether you're joining as an individual or representing a group, and where you're based;
2 - what faction(s) you're representing;
3 - what 'scale(s)' of games you'll be playing (I don't mean 1:72 or 32mm, I mean company-level, squad-level, fleet-level, party-level or whatever).

I'll then assign you a province of Atlantis to game in, and provide some background.

I'm opening a new topic for anyone who wants to go for the Atlantis setting here - please go to it and register and we'll get this mad contraption off the ground.

I'd suggest that anyone wanting to mod a different setting posts here in similar fashion to this, and then sets up a new thread linked like this one.

See you all on the lost shores of the Primal Continent!