Article: Thoughts on the Frostgrave Campaign System

[fastolfrus]

Seemed like the sensible option...

Jenkins limped off towards the south with a sack full of loot muttering "bugger this for a game of soldiers", covering his tracks by setting fire to the inn as he left.

[Lotan]

I'm actually writing up a scenario aimed at a risky raid on an enemy camp for underdogs (while their wizard is away on errands ofcourse). It's stealthy stealth while the defender recover, avoiding guard dogs and such, and is very narrative until the second phase hits, when they break the vault. They get 3 random treasures from the vault, the defenders wake up and rush to defend, and the attackers have 4 turns to get the treasure off their table edge. Any treasure not removed is abandoned and added back to the defenders vault.

The defending wizard returns to find the chaos, but may roll on the treasure table once to represent the lead he has be chasing coming to fruition.

[mweaver]

Interesting.  I am very interested in the campaign aspect of the game (really, it is one of the first things I look at with any rules).

I have not player Frostgrave yet, although I have ordered it.  Here is my experience with Mordheim, which seems relevant on some points.

Two-player campaigns often result with one warband pulling far ahead of the other fairly quickly.  There were some rules to adjust experience for the weaker warband, but they are of limited help.  Most competitive two-player campaigns I was in or friends played generally ended fairly quickly. 

Campaigns with with 3+ warbands where the warbands all played scenarios together tend to work much better, in that the show-off, early-shining warband can be dogpiled by the others.  These kinds of campaigns tended to be much longer lived (because of this balancing effect) and more fun (because of the diplomacy element).

The best campaigns did have a GM/referee.  Sometimes he or she played, sometimes not.

As time has gone on (we have played Mordheim from its first release to the present) increasingly we played collaborative games and campaigns - which largely removes all the problems associated with a campaign system where the bands progress.  Your friend's warband is twice as powerful as yours?  Good - his guys take point.

I am really looking forward to playing.

-Michael

[mellis1644]

I think at least an exp and treasure bonus for the weaker wizard going against a stronger one would be sensible and a help for unbalanced games and allow weaker players in a campaign to catch up.

So something like for every 5 levels difference between the wizards at the start of the game (rounded down) the lower wizard gets an extra 50 xp (maybe 100) and a roll on the treasure table. View this as the wizard watching and learning from the more experienced one. The treasure is harder to justify but maybe a gift from rival wizards for the work done against a rival.

P.S. I do think dropping the wizard death is a good option. I know people who would get very upset about that in a campaign game style system and would walk out of a campaign if that happened.

[Ddogwood]

I would suggest something like a bonus of 1 XP per level difference per round that the weaker wizard survives against the stronger wizard.  In a game where the wizards are only a level or two apart, this will probably give less than 10 XP, but simply lasting 3 rounds against a wizard who is 10 levels higher than you would net you 30 XP.

I think it also might be a good idea to make levels start costing more than 100 XP per level.  Maybe levels 1-9 cost 100 XP each, but levels 10-19 cost 200 each, 20-29 cost 300 each, and so on.  This would give weaker wizards a better chance to catch up, and it could even be a consolation for players whose wizards get killed.

[Harry]

Hows this?

Game Length:

Weather:

The weather around Frostgrave is 'changeable' to say the least. With heavy snow one minute and clear skies the next.
Each turm before initiative roll D20 on the following table to find out what the weather is doing.
Whilst you start out on a bright sunny morning you know from experience it is only a matter of time before the brief window of clear skies ends and the snow returns. Each game turn after the first minus one from this roll cumulatively until the Blizzard hits and the game ends.

1-2 Blizzard! This is essentially a white out with winds over 35 miles per hour and visibility reduced to zero you can hardly see never mind shot or fight. It effectively ends the game as all you can do is get to the nearest cover and wait out the storm until you can safely leave the city and investigate whatever treasure you had collected before the blizzard set in.
3-4 Heavy snow. Heavy and sustained snow fall with significant accumulation making movement very difficult. (-3 to movement -2 shooting)
5-6 Snow Squall. Brief but intense snow shower accompanied by strong gusting winds. (-2 to both movement and shooting)
7-8 Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It's snowing. Snow showers fall with varying intensity for brief periods and with varying accumulation of snow on the ground. (-1 to movement and shooting)
9-10 Flurry ... Theres them as do say "First sign of a flurry .... get out in a hurry" This is light snow falling for short durations. It is little more than a dusting on top of existing snow (It does not affect movement but does give a -1 to shooting due to reduced visibility).
10-20 I can see clearly now the snow has gone. it's gonna be a bright, bri-i-ight sunshiney day.

Killyness:

Reduce experience for killing to +10 for a soldier / +20 for an apprentice / +40 for a wizard.

(I can't bring myself to reduce it to zero ... there has to be some recognition for taking out the enemy ... especially the opposing wizard  .... in a game of battling wizards).

I will however be applying a degree of 'latitude' to the phrase "Personally takes out of the game" ...If an illusionist were to 'Transpose' an enemy apprentice into the middle of a group of hefty lads who them proceeded to pummle said apprentice to death .... I would be inclined to give the wizard the points for 'taking him out'.

I will also be adding experience for killing monsters. (Not quite sure how to allocate points to them yet ... but you can't get points for an enemy soldier and nothing for taking down a frost giant).

Treasure:

Just to slow things down a bit and keep all the wizards at a lower level a bit longer and to so that the accumulation off magical artifacts is left more to chnace more than just buying whatever you want I will reduce Gold Crowns in the Treasure Table to half the listed value.

I may also be reducing te sale price of magic items ... since treasure hunters have been banging away from dawn till dusk the bottom has really fallen out of the second hand magic item market.

Sorry mate. I got three better ones of those in stock and I can't shift them.
The best I can do for you is ....

 1       10% Purchae price
 2-3    20% Purchaase price
 4-6    30% Purchare price
7-10   40% Purchae price
10-17 50% Purchase price
18-19 60% Purchase price
20      70% Purchase price

[LordBrentlake]

The speed that you want the campaign to go at depends very much on the group and the environment in which it's playing. There have been a number of excellent suggestions so far on the thread about techniques that could be used. None of these, I hope, should be seen as fundamental criticisms of the work that has gone into the game.

The three things that I would seek to implement would be:

A. Limited game length - for which see numerous good ideas above.

B. Introducing maintenance costs. These would apply at least to the warband and be directly proportional to hiring costs, making a band of specialists more demanding to maintain than one of thugs. Costs would be incurred after every game, making it prudent to keep some reserves. Warband members that couldn't be paid would walk. Combined with a limited game length, there is more consequence to the decision of going for treasure or going for kills.

C. Once wizards pass level 10, apprentices should in theory be capable of stepping up to command. When one or more of the wizards in a game is above level 10 and there is a difference in level (possibly of a threshold value, e.g. 5) with the opposing wizard, roll a d20. If the number is equal to or less than the difference in level, the wizard has stayed at the base and the apprentice is in charge of the expedition. That leaves the higher-level group with one less member and only one spellcaster on the table. There are still mouths to be fed, so the apprentice will have their work cut out for them. Of course, should the apprentice die, a replacement of suitable level becomes increasingly expensive.

Increasing the gap between levels is a tried-and-tested mechanism, but may disadvantage some schools that build between games, e.g. using the Absorb Knowledge spell.

I really do like the idea of raiding between groups as well. It has more point when the groups have to be maintained actively.

The ideas need refining, but they're there as suggestions.

[Harry]

Ohhh .. I do like B. You are not going to be walking away with flippin great bags of cash and everyone not be expecting their cut having risked life and limb to get it.

10% of their hiring cost amd a 5% cut of the treasure sounds about right to me.
Although giving a soldier a magic item instead of their 5% cut also seems fair.

[joe5mc]

I've got to admit, the only reason upkeep costs aren't in the game is I didn't think most people would want the paperwork.  It actually makes more sense to include it.

[Major_Gilbear]

I found Calmdown's article quite informative and considered, and I have to admit that it aligned very closely with my own views on nearly every game campaign system I've tried to date.

I think that there are a few issues that never really really get addressed in most systems, and these are:

1) What happens if a player joins the campaign after it has started ?

2) What happens if a player loses very badly over a string of games, or they suffer a catastrophic loss in one game?

3) What happens if one or two players do spectacularly well early on and are then able to easily maintain that lead due to the big difference with the other players' gangs?

Some games advocate an underdog bonus for (1). I don't mind this, but it does have to scale with what's normally rewarded, and not just handed out as a flat bonus. This was an area where Necromunda handled the underdog bonus poorly for example.

For (2), some games advocate just starting a new gang and then using an underdog bonus to cycle them back up to a higher level. I feel that there is very little to get around this, but would consider what set of circumstances led to a player doing so badly that they feel compelled to start again mid-campaign; perhaps there is something that can avoid the situation in the first place.

For (3), some games offer a mediator-based solution (something like other players ganging up on them in a scenario or whatever), but this feels to me like punishing players who do well. Rather, I would again consider what set of circumstances led to a player doing so well that they can't be caught; perhaps there is something that can avoid the situation in the first place.

In addition, there are a whole slew of other secondary issues that skew the three main issues further. These usually relate to a game's economy, the availability of certain weapons/spells/skills/equipment/etc, and the details of the scenarios.

I really do like some of the suggestions in the thread (like guarding an absent base, or a random turn using a Peter Pig system, and the weather effects that can arise and screw with a game). In particular, the random count-down of a game could be something a Chronomancer might be able to influence a little too perhaps (they might have a spell that if successful allows them to alter the dice roll by 1 point either way, thus affecting the running total rolled as it creeps towards 21!).

I also had a few general suggestions of my own:

- Each item of magical equipment after the first costs as much again. So one dispell scroll might cost "x" gold, but the second costs "2x", the third costs "3x", etc. This encourages variety and makes stocking up on the best stuff all the time every time less appealing. It also reduces the chance for one player to steamroller another because they have a much bigger stash of a particularly handy magical item.

- Henchmen in a highly successful gang will require more money to hire and retain than in a starting gang. You know, because they see the wizard's riches and decide to try and charge whatever they can get away with!

- Levelling up could be used as a form of re-set system. So you might have something like this:

• 5 main levels, each of which is reached after a set number of games are played
• Each level bumps up the stats and knowledge of a wizard and their apprentice to a set level. The level jumps are fairly big.
• Experience gained during games advances gangs as normal, but at a much more modest scale than the level-ups. Thus as games are played, the winning gangs will pull ahead a little again before the next level-up is reached.
• All other items and money etc work exactly as they do now.

What this achieves is an easy way for players to be brought up to speed together as long as they all survive. Those that do well will still have the best equipment and the most gold regardless of the level, and in between levels all players can creep forward as well. It also makes it easier for a player to re-start or join a campaign in progress by simply giving them a correctly-levelled crew (although of course, they won't have the accumulation of equipment, follows, money, and trinkets). In this way, players can still get their wizards killed without falling out of the campaign altogether, and it helps to keep all players "in the game" until the conclusion of the campaign.

- Increasingly risky treasure/rewards. In combination with the level-up system, this can be introduced to represent the higher-level gangs competing with each other for the bigger (but more risky) rewards. Thus a gang has a chance to catch up with a big gold haul, or might have earlier success reduced by a magically-trapped chest.

- Level-linked scenarios. Again, to tie in with the idea of gang-levelling above, some scenarios could become (un)available as the gangs' levels progress. This could be a nice way to move a campaign along narratively too.

[Calmdown]

I've got to admit, the only reason upkeep costs aren't in the game is I didn't think most people would want the paperwork.  It actually makes more sense to include it.

Dave is going to be happy with this as I think this is something he wanted to expand on.

As to paperwork in general, I think paperwork in-game is something that people shy away from (as fluid is more fun - generally) but paperwork out of game is something that people tend to enjoy more; after all, the paperwork is your character defining stuff!

[Mr. Peabody]

Some very good ideas here! I'm liking the sound of the campaign potential more and more... 

[MacavityandMycroft]

So, I was thinking about the 'point' of rewards, both experience and money/treasure.

In a typical wargame, the rules are geared to get you to 'play properly'.  Having an appropriate ratio of specialists to regular troops, and command.  Poor games force you with percentage limits, good ones encourage it.

So, in my mind, Frostgrave is about story-telling, having a cinematic, fantasy epic flavour.

We have two things to reward to this end:

Treasure collecting,  to reward 'going for the goal' (game ends when all is claimed) and give our heroes a reason for being there.

Fighting, because we don't want people to 'game' the system and hide invulnerable wizards in the back, we want duels.  Creative, un-balanced, clever duels, but real fights.

I think the major issue with the rules as written is just too much emphasis on fighting.  When we launch our full campaign, we will take the simple route of:

Wizard takes out soldier: 5xp
Wizard takes out Apprentice: 20XP
Wizard takes out Wizard: 50XP

keeping treasures and spells the same, this should be enough to keep the focus on treasure, but have wizards peaking their noses out enough.

I should point out that we plan for regular 3 or 4 player games and might allow multiple warbands for folks who are likely to play more often, requesting that they (I) use their less experienced group when getting in "extra" games.  The extra bands might be transferrable as well, so anyone knocked out can grab someone's back-up, and the obsessed can start the new ones.

We'll see, I guess!

[Ddogwood]

An alternative to maintenance costs might be to replace the way warbands roll for treasure at the end of a game. Instead of rolling once for each treasure token after a game, you could have a matrix showing total # of treasure tokens captured, and cross-reference it with a total warband value (the sum of all your stuff & soldiers). The result would tell you how many rolls to make on the treasure table. Starting warbands would get around one roll per token, but higher level warbands might only get a couple of rolls even if they capture all 6 tokens. This would represent the increased maintenance cost of a powerful warband with a large base, and the increased risk that a soldier might run off with a newly-found magic item.

I also like the idea of scenarios where a wizard raids the base of another wizard; the more powerful wizard might have to roll above a certain number on a d20 for each member of his warband to show up at the start of each turn.

[Dakota Mike]

The skirmish game "This is Not a Test" has a bunch of thematic balance options for when one warband starts to pull ahead. 

I can't list them all, but they include cool ideas like the weaker player being able to spawn a random creature on the opponent's side not closer than 8" to a model and being able to control said creature for the first turn before normal creature rules apply.  Another one is giving the weaker warband unusually "good luck" for that game, and allowing them to re-roll of any one dice roll that game: either their own or their opponents.  One last one I'll mention, was forcing the stronger opponent to choose several models to enter the board on a later turn; representing the warband being caught off-guard.

If anyone has a copy of the TNT rules, they've got a lot of good ideas like these that vary depending upon the severity of the imbalance.  I believe the author, Joey McGuire, is a distant acquaintance of our own Joseph McCulloch.