Game Boards (physical) for League Campaigns

[The_Beast]

    
I asked this a few days ago on Future Wars, got a single response. Just curious if it's done more in Fantasy.

Thanks for your kind(or unkind, if you wish) notice!

Doug

While I've seen Mighty and Planetary Empires used for battle campaigns for Evil Empire (tm) FB and 40K, respectively, I was wondering what folk are using for other systems (or, alternately for GW games.)

Our store has used Risk-style boards of North Africa for FoW, local neighborhood maps of the city for Battletech (long ago), and I even tried to flog the Jurassic Park boardgame map as WHFB Lemuria (not enough Lizardmen players.)

I even modified a Buck Rogers: Battle for the 25th Century map for Full Thrust 'system' campaigns. Had interest, but never got it going.

Anyone have groups big enough and long term enough to try similar? What did you use?

Thanks!

Doug

[number9]

I'm not stalking you, I promise 

Being the lone response in the other thread, I'll post here too. There just aren't a ton of pre-made inexpensive games out there that I have found with nice boards that will work in any given game world without heavy modification. Small World might work. Maybe Runebound. It has almost always been cheaper, easier, and more relevant to just make a campaign board from scratch.

Our latest linked here: http://fariscoombe.tumblr.com/image/18953012400

I also think complex or extensive map/board-based campaigns are a bit of a white whale for most gaming groups. One or two dedicated players will pursue the notion of grand mighty-empires style campaigns involving a half dozen participants over a few months, but when it comes to actually doing the thing they fail more often than succeed. These failures make the next effort that much harder to get going.

My group has perhaps the ideal superficial make-up for campaign gaming: 6 adult friends with reasonable disposable income, able to meet and play weekly in a nice basement dedicated to the purpose with 4X10 and 4X6 tables littered with diverse, decent terrain. Yet every map/board-based campaign we've tried to do has failed to varying degrees.

My point here is this: the board/map/rules/mechanics have not proven to be the problem for a successful campaign for me. The problem is the commitment by the participants, and the required enthusiasm over a period of time one must maintain, win or lose, in order to keep enough momentum of interest and "fun" for every other participant and organizer to see it through to the last turn. The moment one player suffers a string of bad losses, and starts to complain about the reasons why they happened, is the moment that things will immediately fall apart if that person can't be quickly re-energized. You *must* keep playing and keep trying to bring sincere enthusiasm to the map rules and tabletop rules despite a worsening strategic position in the campaign overall. The bad feelings are contagious, and will kill a campaign dead dead dead far worse than a hand drawn map on a used napkin.

[The_Beast]

Fair dinkum, though I've oft wondered if a few 'empire builders' could head teams of 'officer corps'. I'm sure every group have their share, though might have to check out the board gamers. Let the whining begin!

The point about a posh display map and regular play may be of more interest to stores and established clubs trying to broaden interest. Even regular play in public (library, mall, whathaveyou) might be more interesting viewing with a continuing story.

Agreed, most players don't need same.

As for maps,not sure I quite agree. I do see a fair number of incomplete Lord of the Rings Risk games at thrift stores for relatively cheap. I know War of the Rings is more popular than locally to me, and LotR R maps seem a natural.

Old copies of Barbarian Kings must be floating about, as well as some old chestnuts like Avalon Hill Wizard's Quest and SPI Sorcerer (okay, not a 'slick' map). Still, your example proves one can make a quite serviceable map on your own!

Doug

[Doomhippie]

I tend to agree with no.9... It's the dedication that counts. I know I myself don't have the commitment to this kind of gaming. I've seen people trying to play FoW using the Mighty Empire tiles but I doubt they ever went beyond the second week of gaming. It's just too much of a hassle to keep everybody coming back for gaming on a semi-regular scale.

I love the idea in theory but haven't seen it done yet.

[Christian]

Unless I've got the wrong idea, Dux Brit attempts this in the campaign rules across Dark Age Britain.

[The_Beast]

I tend to agree with no.9... It's the dedication that counts. I know I myself don't have the commitment to this kind of gaming. I've seen people trying to play FoW using the Mighty Empire tiles but I doubt they ever went beyond the second week of gaming. It's just too much of a hassle to keep everybody coming back for gaming on a semi-regular scale.

I love the idea in theory but haven't seen it done yet.

Ergo, the fair dinkum part, but we've had several such at the store. One thing that helps is not everyone has to be dedicated to showing up at the same time; games are scheduled between participants. That has its own headaches, but most of our players are, at least, THAT dedicated. *shurg*

Serious kudos to the folks that have run them, to be fair. Collecting and posting results, being chearleaders for occasional flagging interest and real world intrusions. But, I've seen it work for more than a couple weeks.

Not aware of Dux Brit; to the Google!

Doug

[Red Orc]

It only lasted in its main phase for a couple of months but the Atlantis VSF was something like what you're suggesting, I think. Certainly the way I saw it working (even though it didn't really work that way) there'd be 'general staff' - I assumed the players playing the British in the South-East would be communicating with the British in the West. There were a couple of maps I painstakingly digitised, and tried to do some week-by-week additions for territory lost and gained, that sort of thing, but it was actually pretty hard (perhaps because the software I was using wasn't exactly ideal) and I didn't have an overall map prepared in time to be any use. Christian did the best maps for the campaign in fact, one based on 'Harn' and one based on Bryan Lumley's Ur-continent of 'Theem'hdra'.

The whole thing was based on my old D&D campaign. The problems I found were that converting dozens of old maps (in different scales) without a decent graphics package and regular access to a scanner was actually quite difficult (got a great one now, doesn't matter because the next campaign - Return to Zenda - is already better mapped and planned than the Atlantis campaign and I don't intend to run it for another 18 months...); and that things that were really important in a D&D game were absolutely irrelevant in a series of VSF battles, and vice versa. I really wasn't prepared for people to start building railways and opening silver mines...