(Narrative) Games and Campaigns - Advanced Devils in Details

[ketoeloeh]

Hi guys, if I might I'd like to pick your collective brains, ideas and experience about the following.

- I like great stories, cool personalities and villainous bad guys.
- I like "gaming" stories, which is why I also like (story driven) RPG's (the role-play, not the roll-play variant).
- And I like - of course miniature (skirmish/war) games.

In the end, I've come to inderstand I personally like these games because I like see how stories unfold around The Individual Soldier Standing With His Boots In The Mud.

Anyhow, my question is this:

I'm looking for engines, ideas, story elements etc. that may add a deeper level of granularity, of individuality to my games. Ideas that I may add to my games to add more story and character to the narrative. Of course I've already played some narrative campaigns with linked battles where the outcomes influence each other, but maybe you know of cool published or homemade concepts that you'd like to share that drill down a bit deeper.

Important to add here is that I'm not really looking for a new/specific game engine that might serve my needs. I'm more on a quest for ideas/concepts that might be applied as a kind of "layer" over the games I play.
In addition, as these concepts will be used in games of narrative, friendly play, the idea of 'balance' is less important than the notion of added story and character your input might provide. So for this quest; CHARACTER trumps BALANCE.

Some examples of ideas that I've encountered in games and that I really liked:

1. The Old Warhammer 40K Vehicle Design Rules , which provided a rule set to create all kinds of vehicles to suit your games setting.

2. The White Dwarf article by Nigel Stillman, which listed
a. some Pre-Battle events you might add to your game detailing the evening before the battle (Call a Council of War, Equipment Inspection , Consult the Omens, Sacrifice to the Gods, Study the Maps, The Last Supper, Inspired Oration,...), and
b. a list of Personalities for your Sub-Leaders (they could be Treacherous, Incompetent,...) that added an additional, literally characterful layer of parameters to your game.

3. The Injury-tables for Necromunda and Mordheim, that detailed what might happen to troopers that ended up seriously harmed and possibly suffered the consequenses in the form of campaign spanning effects (gain more/less movement, become a better close combat fighter, gain a fear inspring appearance,...)

Sadly, so far I've only come across a few rulesets that listeds some of these concepts (and all of them were found in GW related publications).
Then again, I've probably looked in the wrong corners, so I'm happy to learn what your experiences are.

So feel free to add your ideas or refer to any publications you think I should delve in.
Thanks!

[grant]

7TV is exactly what you want. Do anything you want, design it build it play it.

http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk/wp/

[Momotaro]

Dux Britanniarum from Too Fat Lardies has many of the elements that you're looking for.  Pre-battle events, commander personality types, post-battle pursuit and resultant loot, and you can spend your new shinies to advance yourself within your community, but mercs and reinforce your defences.

The campaign system is very simple, and designed to play to a conclusion in fewer than 10 games.  Very little accounting involved.

TFL does a couple of decent campaign supplements for other games too - Dawns and Departures for Sharpe Practice (dashing Black Powder era adventures) and At the Sharp End for Chain of Command (WWII), both pretty cheap.  Worth a look, all their games are based on the the importance of leader characters who control the troops around them.

The updated version of the campaign and injury rules for Necromunda/Mordheim can be found in Legends of the Old West (sadly OOP) and the Battle Companies rules for small games of LotR. The nicest (and latest) version of these - right down to a Middle-Earth onomastikon! - are here:

http://jonathanrbaker.com/battle-companies/

[LeadAsbestos]

7th Voyage is good for fantasy tropes with all sorts of interesting twists. There is a new Frostgrave supplement coming with plot twists and secret missions. Giving the toy soldiers missions that don't involve just killing other guys seems to be the secret.

[ketoeloeh]

Thanks for the feedback, guys!
It seems I've some more research and reading to do .

If anyone else would like to chime in, please don't be shy!

[DS615]

I too enjoy a narrative game. Playing it is fun, but when the game develops a story over time, that's what I really enjoy.

I use my own rules for gaming, (the FiveCore game rules aren't detailed enough for me) but for that "layer" you're looking for I use the Five Parsecs From Home book.  The campaign/narrative stuff is really just fantastic. 
http://www.wargamevault.com/product/132176/Five-Parsecs-From-Home

That particular book is for small sci-fi groups, but I understand they have a Pulp version as well.
Really, it's the system that's excellent.  It consists of lots of charts basically, rolling up a background for the figures, what they do between missions, the missions themselves, and so on.
The Intent of what you're rolling on the chart is always very clear.  This means it's easy to make it fit into your game, regardless of the genre or rules you're using.  Ex: If the chart says your from a war-torn planet, you just change Planet to Country if you're not gaming sci-fi.

I've used it myself for a small sci-fi crew (as intended), but also for Westerns, Police games, and Fantasy. 

[Dan55]

You might want to check out how some games make use of cards as a way of inserting events into the adventures.

[Sir_Theo]

I like how narratives are built into games of Muskets and Tomahawks- motivations and side plots for characters and the events in the card deck.  Often throws up memorable occasions. 

[manatic]

A couple of my ponderings on narrative wargaming, or warpg's as I call them:

https://dawnofthelead.com/2009/08/07/warpgs/
https://dawnofthelead.com/2012/12/09/on-winning-warpgs-revisited/

[shandy]

Mikko, those are great posts. And I like the moniker Warpg, I might use that (with your permission of course).

Interestingly, Richard Clarke recently wrote that "Sharp Practice is not a wargame in the conventional sense, it is probably better described as an adventure game set in war" and explicitly compared it to D&D.

Mechanics-wise, what often works for us are secret objectives, so both (or only the attacking) players draw an objective from a set - the other person doesn't know what his or her adversary is up to. This adds to the tension and also makes keeping reserves much more important. Such objectives could be added to the normal scenario objectives.

The aforementioned Sharp Practice also has a nice little system of secondary objectives for certain individuals, so e.g. your Leader might be out to prove his worth and has to personally lead a cavalry charge at one point in the game, or kill a certain enemy officer in hand-to-hand combat etc.

[Momotaro]

Also worth adding is that all the Two Hour Wargames rulesets have extensive tables for campaign play. Legends of Araby is specifically designed as a kind of solo/same-side RPG with tabletop rules.  All Things Zombie is kind of the same, with the zombies as more of a programmed hazard on the tabletop.

The latest couple of their scifi sets are also going the same way.  Fringe Space is basically a Traveller game (very similar to Five Parsecs from Home, come to think of it), and Urban Renewal, IIRC, ditches the full tabletop game and replaces it with a 1ft x 1ft battle space (kind of appropriate for cramped encounters in city back streets).  Both are starting to ditch most of the reaction-intensive tables that make their games so innovative (or irritating, depending on your POV).

Another feature they have, come to think of it, is that all their games have decent solo/same-side rules for placing potential enemy forces on the table and determining whether they are friendly or not.  there are the reaction tables, and some rules for enemy disposition and tactics.  Along with the campaign rules, you could run a same-side game very easily.

Lat year, Gibby and I ran an Aliens game using the (free) core Chain Reaction rules and a simple set of encounter tables I knocked up in an evening.  As you made more noise exploring the deserted base, the Aliens' alert level went up from Green through Amber to Red, with different encounters for each level.  Add in a simple loot table, very individual characters and special events, and we had a blast.

[ketoeloeh]

Hi guys, thanks for adding your thoughts and referrals.

@Mikko: Yes! Your articles really captured the essence of what I'm after in a game, and why I'm on a hunt for inspiring stuff.
They're a great read, and I'll make sure to point them out to my friends and get them to read your posts when discussing some upcoming projects I've in the pipeline.

I'm looking forward to digging in the rules sets that were mentioned, as I feel that the "warpg" side of things is what I really like in the hobby.

@dan55: you mention some games that use cards. I suppose this includes 'mission' type orders like the mechanic in Risk?
Any specific system/rules set that you'd like to mention?

and

@all of you that have some experience with Warpg-ey gaming: what was your best/worst/other experience at introducing this kind of -at least- less competitive gaming in your group?
Any best practices, do's or don'ts?
(I must add that I'm part of a club where lots of different gaming styles are present, so I'm fairly confident that I should be able to draw at least some peeps in... but if you have any good/great/super ideas I'd be happy to play the copy cat )

[Momotaro]

We played a single-side game with the Mythic GM emulator a while back.  Basically, we used a table of odds for different outcomes to questions we put forward, and took an investigative/fighting game forward based on yes/no answers.

Simple setup - investigate the missing and murdered villagers, ghouls have been sighted in the ruined church in the woods.  Some intel talking to locals that something was amiss in the village.  So we went off to the woods to investigate, fought the ghouls and found out from a captured one that they were only really interested in dead bodies, not fresh ones.

Encounter on the way back - locals sent to stop us returning.  Another fight, prisoners told us they were part of a smuggler ring and where to find the missing villagers (hostages to keep locals quiet).  After rescuing the hostages from the old tower in the woods, we returned to the village and started questioning relatives.  

One old lady was willing to talk once we had returned her daughter, but took a knife in the back (bad roll!) and we chased the assassin.  Catching him, he revealed who was behind it all - return to the village for final showdown and victory.

Outcome - great fun, but exhausting to run a game like that, and we got a bit lost for instant inspiration with no plot ready prepared.  Too much randomness makes it really hard work, you will be better off starting with a simple linear plot or goal and a couple of twists, rather than pure randomness at every turn.  "Beat the clock" is another good one, to stop you doing visiting every location, interviewing every villager.

Hero of the game turned out to be the dwarf brewer who showed an unexpected knack for fighting while drunk!

We went with 4 locations, each on a 2x2ft board - village, fields, woods, ruined church, which formed a 2x8ft strip of gaming surface:





I would suggest getting some "Old-school" style D&D sandbox modules or adventures to provide a framework for the game.  An "events" pack of cards is a brilliant idea, but I'd expand it to encounters, protagonists, foes and even plots.  I would limit the number of possible plotlines.

Something like - Basic map, start here.  Team signs up as caravan guard to next city (possible motives there?), encounters (good, bad or indifferent), set up villain, side quest, arrive, city encounters, showdown with villain, fulfill your own quests.  

Next mission - something you found on the side-quest or in an encounter takes you to a new place on the map?  Now you have an enemy, reasons for going somewhere else, a grateful merchant, and possibly other encounters that you can meet again.

I would go easy on character death too, especially if it's one character per player.  Maybe have that character out of fights for a couple of event turns.  If all the characters are "killed", then they wake up injured and in chains in a slavers' encampment, or in an orc cooking pot... but with an opportunity to escape, maybe find their gear, and get back to the mission!  Make negative outcomes to encounters feed into another in-game opportunity  Unless it's a big showdown...

If you're playing the exploits of an entire Viking raiding party, then death, capture, promotion, escape or ransom, betrayal, revenge should all be part of the campaign - you may be surprised which mook gets a name, wealth, victory and finally the Jarldom!

I would look up RPG sites for advice running a "sandbox" style game.

Suggested Reading from DriveThruRPG:

Mythic GM Emulator for a Matrix-game style referee.  You choose the yes-no questions to ask it, determine the difficulty and roll for a definitely yes! - yes - no - Hell no! answer;

Any Two Hour Wargame but especially the ones marked as RPG-lite (possibly on Wargame Vault, I can't remember) for the kind of campaign and events random generator you want;

Both the following are statted for an old-style D&D game called Lamentations of the Flame Princess, so you should have no problem converting stats.

Scenic Dunnsmouth (randomised plotline horrific-village-in-a-swamp sandbox);

Vornheim - similar but in a city.

Some of the author's other stuff is a bit gonzo, and may or may not be to your taste.

[Hobgoblin]

@all of you that have some experience with Warpg-ey gaming: what was your best/worst/other experience at introducing this kind of -at least- less competitive gaming in your group?
Any best practices, do's or don'ts?
(I must add that I'm part of a club where lots of different gaming styles are present, so I'm fairly confident that I should be able to draw at least some peeps in... but if you have any good/great/super ideas I'd be happy to play the copy cat )

One thing that works really well in skirmish games (whether small-scale like Song of Blades or relatively large like Lion/Dragon Rampant) is having wandering monsters. In Song of Blades, we often play it so that a die is rolled at the start of every turn. If it's a six, a wandering monster appears from a random table edge. Their "artificial intelligence" depends on the creature type. Most big things will just attack the nearest characters, but others might be more sophisticated (i.e. five goblins: will shoot arrows at nearest foe, but will only attack in melee if their points cost is greater than the nearest enemy and that enemy has no friends within one long stick that would bring the total points cost above the goblins' cost.)
 
We've had several games where two or more wandering monsters have destroyed all the players' models and have then fought each other to the death (rather like the end of a Harryhausen film). It was remarkably entertaining (the players took over a monster each).

Another good option is "guardians". In our games, these are typically undead who protect a given section of the table - a ruined palace or a tomb, perhaps. They attack anyone who crosses the perimeter of their territory. So players have the option of trying to lure them to one side of their area so that a thief can sneak in and grab whatever they're guarding. And when no intruders are within their special area, they deactivate.

There are lots of other possibilities for lurkers - trolls under bridges in fantasy games, for example, or farmers who defend their homesteads, or angry and territorial animals. If these are surprises to the players, you can really create an interesting dynamic to the games, as early "winners" fail victim to unwelcome surprises.

Along with the secret objectives that shandy mentions above, you could also give each player a unique bit of local knowledge. So Player A knows that there's an angry bear in the cave, while Player B knows that the bridge is likely to collapse if more than one character is on it at at time. Another player might have some means of attracting - but not controlling - wandering monsters. For example:

"Your leader has the Dragon Horn, which can be used to summon dragons and their kin. The Dragon Horn affords no power over the beasts, however."

Or another player might know that banging the gong in the middle of the table will attract the beastmen that live in the forest. And so on.

[ketoeloeh]

Thanks guys, a lot of great input again.

Thursday evening we had a game in our club that I demo'ed/GM'ed (I introduced two youngsters to Mordheim), and I already slipped a few concepts in the game 'just for laughs' ("See that bloke in rusty armour there? Remember last week in the inn he said some nasty things about the woman that gave birth to you? Well, now you're really looking forward to having a private chat with him .").

They really liked the little bits of added "story" introduced in the game, so I guess it's something to explore further.

So "Warpg"'s it is then .

Thanks for the great ideas, and if any of you have more please share them - all input is highly appreciated.