VSF world campaign

[Ray Rivers]

So... for the uninitiated and ignorant...   

Is this basically all nations against all nations or are there some alliances?  If so... who is allied with whom?

Also, would be interested if there was a Venusian side show, though my buildup of forces is still inadequate to initiate warfare there.

[answer_is_42]

I'd go for British/Germans VS French/Russians. I don't know enough about Japanese etc history to comment on the others.

[Fuzzywuzzieswiflasers]

I don't think we need alliances really. We can have separate factions for the major powers i.e. British, Prussian, Russian, French, US, Japanese. For some of the smaller players like Boxer chinese, belgium or mad scientists etc we could have some sort of confederation faction to encompass that. If you have an army for some other country e.g papal states you can specify which faction you want to join.

If we set the campaign in the 1880's we have Prussia in ascendance. Britain and Russia are playing out the "great game". France is working towards countering the British navy and the upcoming powers of the Japanese and US are starting to flex their muscle on the world stage.

Add a couple of angry martians, venusians and moon men and you have a cracking world campaign.

I personally think a lost continent like Atlantis (or maybe Africa) would be the best venue for the campaign. We can create provinces for each gaming group around the world and place them on the map close to their other nearby groups. 

For example in Australia I know of two groups that play VSF. My group in Melbourne and Jammed Gatling's group in Perth. We would each occupy one province, maybe next to each other.

We can have an overarching background to the campaign with rough objectives to each faction but the back story of each province would be run by each gaming group that would submit game reports and pictures in a story/war correspondent style.

Cheers
Fuzzy.

[HerbyF]

As I said before the way many colonial campaigns went, sometimes expeditions from the same power were working a cross perpose to each other. Often didn't even know where other units where or what they were doing. I think each club or group should be free to send in their battle accounts & the results of their campaigns where ever they happen. They could be Mars, Venus, The Lost Continant, where ever. These campaigns are all going on at the same time. Just like real historical colonial campaigns. Lets everone imagination go where it takes them. No need to restrict everyone to a narrow campaign.

[Red Orc]

I've been thinking about this a lot, I have to admit.

I'd say it would be better to have a fixed background and location. Partly, that's because otherwise it could be too confusing - which could be like the real 1880s, but the problem arises that perhaps the Prussians invade England and capture Queen Victoria, while for another group, Queen Vicoria is leading an expedition to Mars, and for another, an attempted Prussian invasion is beaten off by the sudden appearance of Aeronef pirates over the North Sea.

If the organisation of the campaign is by provinces of Atlantis (Mu; a previously undiscovered planet, perhaps on the far side of the Sun; a primal continent accessable through a recently discovered scientific technique, possibly involving time-travel, etc) then there's no 'crossing of time lines', no Paris being destroyed by the Venusians in one 'history', and becoming the capital of l'Empire Mondiale in another.

If that does happen, then there's no meaningful way that it's a world campaign at all, it's just groups putting up battle reports and hoping no-one notices they don't fit together. To have a common frame of reference is to accept some loss of creativity, because the other options are to have no meaningful effect on narrative (what does it matter if you fight to save Constantinople from the Russians, if in someone else's version the Russians and the Ottomans are allies?); or to have a central power checking what is 'possible' in relation to everyone else - no that group in NSW can't use the Gordon Highlanders in their defence of Zanzibar, because at the same time the London group's Gordon Highlanders are on Mars battling lizards; no that Japanese battleship wasn't sunk at the Battle of easter Island, because a week later someone else used it to attack Vladivostok.

So both in terms of straight organising, and for story-telling purposes, I think a controlled setting would be better. I still think Atlantis (or any other lost continent) could easily provide a host of different game settings - deserts, jungles, forests, mountains, cities, grasslands etc, and a lot of different scenario ideas (straight fights, assassinations, desperate attacks and defences, rescues, treasure hunts), as well as a variety of 'scales' to play at - RPG 'party' style, skirmish/squad level, company level, naval and aeronef/airship...

[leadfool]

I still like the Turtledove alt history world, with the Prusians allied to the American north and the British empire and France allied to the Confederate south.  Cuba and Mexico goes confederates, Spain to Prussia/Union.  Russia and Japan to Britain but Turkey to Prussia. 
I don't know what to do about Venus or Mars or Atlantis.

But I agree with red Orc that some sort of national side designations are needed.  I don't care which, as I own lots of representative troops, and everybody wore pith helmets anyway.

[answer_is_42]

How about having something like the Fashoda Incident as our starting point?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashoda_Incident
But ten or so years earlier, so redcoats aren't a problem*...


*They may be driving steam tanks and aeronefs, but I'll be damned if their uniforms aren't the right shade!

[Sinewgrab]

I think a common point of reference would be good - I am not going to be able to get very many games in - right now, my best shot is going to be my Norwegians against Martians game that I will be running with a local group here, as an intro to VSF, as they are all pretty focused on historicals. I have not yet decided who I will build next, but it will probably be either British or American forces...

[leadfool]

I just ran a largeish Russian civil war game that had a VSF aspect.  First I used the Valor Steel and Flesh rules.  Second the armored cars were not all conventional and I slightly suspended history by having all the forces that fought in the Russian civil war (that I have painted) in the same battle, ie Japanese and French (including FFL) and Americans and Serbs and Reds and Whites and Germans and Finns, and the Czech legion and British (including Sikhs, Scots and Gurkhas).  It was a lot of fun.  It was a 3 way fight Allies/whites in the north, the Germans/Finns in the west and the Reds in the south. 
Naturally we forgot a camera.

[Red Orc]

Well, I think I'm going to conduct a bit of threadomancy and say... is anyone else really interested in this, or am I going to admit defeat and let it die a death?

For the record, my favoured way of running it would be:
1 - local groups play whatever battles they like with whatever forces and local alliances they like;
2 - in a group-specific setting/background provided by the world-wide moderators;
3 - that is based on some version of the Atlantis background I outlined earlier (itself a mish-mash of various ideas kicking around on this forum, with my own RPG Atlantis campaign filling in some gaps);
4 - providing battle reports and whatnot to the moderators for inclusion on one or more threads in LAF to detail what's happening where.

The different areas that groups were playing in would be different regions of Atlantis (or whatever other setting is chosen); each group's battles would correspond to a particular region, so there would be little (or no) interference from outside (unless players travelled to another country taking their armies with them... no, silly idea); and the overall campaign-winning faction would be decided by the mods on the basis of the battle reports (probably through some points system).

If anyone thinks something like that is do-able, please say so! And I promise that if no-one else does I'll shut up about this for at least 4 months.

[warrenpeace]

Not here to chime in on the heart of the VSF campaign issues, but just want to mention that I saw some Serbs, Bulgarians, and Greeks for the Balkan Wars (1912) at Tiger Miniatures.  If anybody is looking for some odd and different factions, then perhaps those would be useful. Perhaps one of those smaller nations could be the first to develop interplanetary travel, or perhaps they have to migrate to Mars or Venus after being conquered by a larger neighbor.

[Fuzzywuzzieswiflasers]

I would love to see a world campaign kick off next year, but to date I have only received email's from about 5 people expressing an interest in taking part.

I could take the fields of dreams mentality of "If you build it they will come" but don't really have the time to invest in setting it up for it to die a premature death.

Cheers
Fuzzy.

[HerbyF]

Hey Fuzzy, Why not just set up 2 threads. One to receive battle reports, hopefully with pictures. And one to run a scoring system like the LPL painting contests. Members could vote on the value of each report to receive. Large scale battles say 25 points miner skirmishes 5 points with a sliding scale for every thing in between. Then assign the points based on the margine of victory. Overwelming all but 1 point to the victor, major win most of the point, minor win over half, a wash an even split, etc. In a muti-sided battle points could be divided accordingly. So say in the 1st week you get 3 battle reports. 1) British w/Parrotmen allies VS french w/Lizardmen on Venus. 2)Russians & Japanese both land small parties on MU. 3) The British & French both have reports on each others bases on Mars & decide to try to take the other out. 1) is a large raid votes give it 14 points. 2) is a minor skirmish 5 points  3) large battle, but wait a minute just as the French & British & their Martian sepoys join battle a large martian resistance force shows up supported by an Imperial Chinese force"where did these guys come from?". It's now a major battle with 3 sides, 25 points. 1) an inconclucive fight with the British getting the upper hand, 8 points BR, 6 points FR. 2) the Japanese all but wipe out the Russians, 4 points JP, 1 point RS. 3) The British & French both get beaten back by the Chinese/Martian alliance, the French marginally but the British get trounced but do hold on to their Mars base. So we give the Chinese 15 points the French 7 & the British 3. At the end of the first week the BR 8+3=11, FR 6+7=13, RS 1, JP 4 And the CH 15. No body else was involved in a battle so no one scored points. No major alliances needed players can play in whatever theater they want, with any armies they have.   

[HerbyF]

To encourage photo reports maybe double the points for battles or some kind of bonus for pictures.

[Christian]

Apologies for any doubling up of opinions here, but here's what would make it work:

- Clearly defined teams that can be awarded points: "Good" Human Empire, "Bad" Human Empire, Good Alien Empire, Bad Alien Empire (possibly collapse the Good and Evil sides)... let's face it, the Prussians are going to be the bad guys Alternatively, just go for country by country... although by the looks of things, participation might not be overwhelming?

- A clearly defined setting: Maps like the RISK board games - a very generalised Earth Territories map, and at least one Alien planet... however, the alien planet could be as complex as the Earth one, hence why you would need to keep the factions simple.

- Player commitment: Make it easy to get involved. Essentially it's up to each player's time and playing capacity, so options for solo play are great.

Despite what you might think about GW, their worldwide campaigns work because they are essentially very simple: players just have to fight battles, and a hub decides what these results mean.

So, if you want to increase player participation, provide a list of battles by name... Battle for Territory X, for example... and let the players decide what storyline they wish to follow to accomplish that objective. Essentially, the result will be the same, and you can collate that and keep track of who is winning.

Maybe you could provide some styles of missions: Supply Dump Raid, Pitched Battle, Infiltration etc.

If you want to expand on the first point, players can decide what faction they want to join in terms of Good and Evil. If you think about how WW2 is portrayed, the Axis forces were generally accepted to be evil, and the Allies were generally accepted to be good: it is obviously not that simple, but it may have to be for the sake of the campaign to work. So, you could field some bizarre force as long as their points went to the respective good/evil side.

This is a great idea, it doesn't surprise me that a fellow Aussie came up with it 

Anyone willing to play in Sydney? I don't really have anything but some WGF Colonial Brits so I know what I'll be playing

EDIT: After reading Red Orc suggestion, I think playing on a planet of your own devising may be the way to go in order to simplify the game... but I would love to see some really landmark battles happen on Earth, too. The quasi-historical nature of these games is what make them appealing, to me at least.