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Author Topic: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign? - Map update P.6  (Read 16877 times)

Offline v_lazy_dragon

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #15 on: 13 June 2014, 01:33:34 PM »
Cool - what armies will you be bringing to the peaceful island paradise of utopia... lol
Xander
Army painters thread: leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=56540.msg671536#new
WinterApoc thread: leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=50815.0

Offline LordOdo

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #16 on: 13 June 2014, 01:39:33 PM »


A first draft.. any ideas?
''Its so much easier to build something new than work up the courage to actually paint some.'' -Wyrmalla (2015)


Offline v_lazy_dragon

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #17 on: 13 June 2014, 01:52:09 PM »
That looks good to me  :D

Offline Mitchelxen

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #18 on: 13 June 2014, 02:22:10 PM »
We will be running playtest games for our Universal Soldier Fantasy Battle system so we could run those games in.
We have a large contingent of Human Medieval types, we call Empire of Necropolis. We are also running some skeleton types. Don't know how that would fit in but would enjoy taking part!

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Offline v_lazy_dragon

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #19 on: 13 June 2014, 03:01:36 PM »
I guess the medieval humans could be a different part of  the same 'civilised' empire as my late romans? Certainly the undead could easily by the physical remains of the same undead tribe as my ghostly celts?

Offline LordOdo

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #20 on: 13 June 2014, 05:30:22 PM »
TEAMS:

Human: Invaders of Utopia, live nearby at another islands. Some islands are medieval some are in earlier ages
Forrest Folk: Inhabitants of Utopia. Dryads and other creatures from the forrests.
Dead stuff: Dead bodies of earlier invaders brought alive by mysterious necromancers.

Feel free to think of more teams ;)

Offline Red Orc

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #21 on: 13 June 2014, 10:05:34 PM »
Wow, y'all have been busy since yesterday!

LordOdo, I'm really liking that map! There is a problem with seeing this as 'teams against each other' though - the fact that a player in Australia can't very well play a game against a player in Scotland. I think we have to have a map of 'regions', with each group fighting in a specific region. In the VSF campaign, the BLAMers (Malamute, Jimbibbly, Bullshot etc) were given a region of the West Coast, so when they fought their battles against each other, all the action took place in one area; the Sacramento Gamers (Leadfool, Alfrik and their friends) fought their games on the South Coast, UShistoryProf and his son were fighting in the North East, etc. If each group is fighting in a region, then there's no reason to need people who are physically separated (and perhaps playing different games systems) to fight each other.

We picked Atlantis for the VSF campaign because we were stuck in the real world, and needed somewhere where it was just about possible for Britain, USA, Germany, France, Spain, Russia and Japan (our main participants I think) to send forces. China too, and the independent North African state of Khosind (a breakaway from French West Africa, supported by Prussia if I recall correctly), and the (undefeated) Confederate States of America, as well as an overfly by the Brazilian aeronef fleet. It didn't seem feasible to do that anywhere 'real' (and the presence of China and Japan in the vicinity of the Azores was a bit perplexing). So the best compromise was a 'new' territory (so it needed exploring) that didn't already have colonies and legations and entrepots and whatnot.

We don't have that problem here. We don't need to posit a central place that different factions arrive at: to take a 'real' example of how a multiplayer campaign like this can work, think of the Lord of the Rings, but remove the plot about the Fellowship. You have conflicts between the Southern Fiefs of Gondor and the Corsairs; the Rangers of Ithilien against Southrons and Mordor Orcs; Gondor's Northern Army against Easterlings and Orcs; the Rohirrim against Saruman's Uruks and Dunlendings; the Ents against Uruks; Lorien against the Orcs of Moria and attacks from Dol Guldur; the Elves of Mirkwood against Dol Guldur and northern Orcs; the Kingdom of Erebor (allied with the human realms of Dale and Esgaroth) against Easterlings and Orcs... so that's eight different warzones (I may have forgotten a few) that all make up one continent-wide war. This is what I mean about 'regional' conflicts. In the War of the Ring case, one group of players would be playing the coastal Lords of Gondor v the Corsairs of Umbar; another group would play Rohan versus Saruman's forces, etc. Unlike the War of the Ring in the books, this one would be decided on the basis of which armies won in which areas. Perhaps Lorien was destroyed by invading orcs? Perhaps Erebor was over-run, Saruman defeated Rohan, etc. Enough of those happening, and the war is won by the Dark Powers.

So, I think we need to do a count of who might be coming in and what armies they have. For example, VLD's dwarves (being a small contingent) might be mercenaries in the service of his Human Empire (Romano-British) troops. But if someone else has Dwarves as a main army, it might not make sense to have them rolled into another faction, or functioning through shorthand ('Dwarves are mercenaries') as a kind of non-faction. And in terms of armies, it may be that some people don't have Dryad/Fair Folk armies at all, which might make the idea of an 'invasion of Utopia' a bit difficult. What if they only have Orcs and Dwarves? Or two sorts of humans (they're players who generally play historicals, or have armies based on Westeros, or whatever?) Or Lizard Men and Skaven? How would they relate to the plot or forces as currently outlined? The suggestions I posted were merely that, hypothetical plots generated from the four (or five) forces that VLD mentioned.

Offline LordOdo

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #22 on: 14 June 2014, 08:40:10 AM »
Yup, You're right. That's actually why I made more islands on the map, so we can all have our own island

Offline Red Orc

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #23 on: 14 June 2014, 02:24:16 PM »
OK.

I think we're talking at cross purposes somewhat.

If each group has an island, then each island must potentially be able to provide an environment for any combination of armies. The way I assigned zones in Atlantis was by getting armies and terrain types from the participants. What you're doing seems to be creating the setting before we know who's playing in it or what sort of games they want to play. Are there any deserts in your archipelago, for example? The way the Atlantis game worked was that I found out what people had and wanted to do, and then to a large extent tried to create Atlantis around that. What you seem to be doing is creating Utopia and then expecting players (hopefully, more than 3) to fit into it.

Don't get me wrong, I like the map and I like the idea behind the campaign that you've come up with - but it's your campaign, it's not a collaborative campaign. Atlantis emerged over about 3 months before we started the campaign, as the result of interactions between maybe 15 of us - and even then, that was just the starting position, that Atlantis had come back into our time-stream and the nations of the world woul be competing over this new continent. In fact, the idea that we were going to run with was both Atlantis and Mu had re-appeared, but no-one volunteered to run the Mu continent so that was forgotten about. The players then gradually explored their sections of the continent (there still isn't a definitive map of Atlantis, mostly because I found digitising the maps at multiple scales that I had much more difficult than I first imagined).


I don't think we can begin to flesh out the background or location until we have a much better idea of who will be interested in playing.

Of course, I could be very wrong, and your idea may work fine.

Offline Red Orc

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #24 on: 14 June 2014, 05:03:36 PM »
My idea for how we could do this is closer to something like this:



Players then choose a grid-squre and give us an idea of what is in it. Say someone has Orcs & Dwarves and wants some mountains and forests.

So they pick a square (let's assume A1) and populate it with mountains and forests:




and the main map now looks like this:



Once all the players have picked their squares and asigned features the map will have taken shape. There may be some areas left to be filled - it shouln't be a problem to assign features to those areas if necessary. If many areas are taken, then the late-comers will have to adjust to the fact that (for example) a river flows out of C3 to the east; if you then take D3, you have to incorporate the river in your square.

It's not as pretty as your map certainly but I think it's more functional - at least, for how I saw things working.
« Last Edit: 12 April 2018, 07:31:23 PM by Red Orc »

Offline carlos13th

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #25 on: 14 June 2014, 06:01:45 PM »
If I actually ever played I would join in with this. Instead I will watch with curosity.

Offline Mitchelxen

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #26 on: 14 June 2014, 11:58:20 PM »
Red Orc and LorOdo,
I don't think you are talking about anything different.
If I have an Island (in LordOdo's map) or a region square (in Red Orc's) ie A1 I can populate that Island or square as I see fit, and use the terrrain that I have in my collection and the armies that I have in my collection. What I am saying is both systems look the same to me. IE an Island equals an A1 square.
Anyway, open to either system here.

Offline Vinlander

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #27 on: 15 June 2014, 02:10:02 AM »
I've always preferred actual maps over grid square maps for campaigns. I'm just not a "linear" guy...

@v_lazy_dragon: I have several armies for LOTRSBG, Some warhammer stuff and I've been working lately on some of Copplestone's Barbarica15mm for HOTT.

How about you?
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dates with Saxon barmaids, and is no more legitimate than any of the
other results." -- H. Beam Piper

Offline v_lazy_dragon

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #28 on: 15 June 2014, 08:01:59 AM »
@Vinlander - I do have some GW stuff still: Moria Goblins, Uruk Hai, Rohirrim, Gondorians/Men of the last alliance, Last alliance elves, the fellowship and Thorin's company.  There are also Warhammer high elves and undead. At one point I had thought about doing Barbarica, possibly using the 15mm bits or a mix of Copplestone sculpted ancient germans and 'grenadier' barbarians.  I ended up doing the second option, and rounded the figures into my Saxons.
Plus the Romano britons, saxons, etc I mentioned previously (plus some unpainted Picts and cavemen who would make other factions if I can get them finished)

Offline Red Orc

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Re: Would anyone be interested in a collaborative campaign?
« Reply #29 on: 15 June 2014, 11:05:11 AM »
@ Michelxen and Vinlander - I think the point is flexibility. If someone wants an island, they can have one with the grid system. If someone wants a steppe for horse-nomads, or a desert, it's difficult to fit one in with the archipelago. With the grid system, LordOdo can still have his plot about invaders into the Fair Folk's forest - in his square. Anyone else who wants to use the same idea is free to do so. With the archipelago system, that has to be the plot, take it or leave it.

It's also about process. If this is a collaborative campaign, I don't think it makes much sense to fix the plot and setting when only three people have said they want to be involved, especially when the person fixing the plot and setting is also one of the players. How do we know that anyone else will have any 'Forest Folk' armies, for instance? It doesn't seem sensible to set in advance what armies people 'should' have to join in. Seems to me that this in 24 hours moved from being a suggestion for a collaborative campaign, to a thread about the campaign LordOdo wants to run. Which is fine, if LordOdo wants to run a campaign as well as play in it, then I'll be watching with interest, as campaigns are probably the thing I get most satisfaction from; it's always good to see a nice campaign thread.

It certainly isn't about aesthetics, LordOdo's map is much nicer than mine, and I like the theme of the campaign. As I say, I'll be watching to see how it develops.

 

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