Creating a Narrative Wargames Campaign - Part 6: Troubleshooting

This post is the next (and last) in a short series inspired by a conversation between myself and @zakludick. It related to setting up a narrative campaign for a wargame.

I originally started out just writing this as a single post, but once I started writing down the headings for all the different topics, I rapidly realised that it needed a short series to do justice to the concept.

In the series, I'm not going to write up a set of fixed "rules" for setting up a narrative campaign. Rather, I'm going to highlight a number of topics which can be discussed with your friends as you set one up. There are no "right answers", it's just a case of thinking about what your game to be like, and creating a structure which is fun to play and minimises the inevitable differences of opinion.

Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio

So you've got your players, you've all agreed what figures and rules you're using for the battles, and you've created all your campaign rules and info.

The campaign starts.... and you run into problems. What are the kinds of thing you can trip over and how can you solve them ?

This post is very much based on my own mistakes ! Some of them I was able to fix and in other cases it all went pear-shaped and I only came up with solutions afterwards.

Players Dropping Out Or Unhappy

You should expect this and plan for it ! Players will drop out for all kinds of reason. Sometimes it's real life getting in the way, but it can also be because they aren't finding the game engaging, or get frustrated if they are a competitive type and feel like they aren't winning.

While there may be ways to get unhappy players to re-engage, my experience is that it's often better to let them walk away with dignity and friendship intact. Trying to incentivise them to stay in the game is likely to create a situation where every player knows that the best way to get ahead is to be disruptive.

If an unhappy player has genuine concerns, the best solution is to get everyone together to hash it out. Turning it into a series of one-to-one conversations between the unhappy player and an umpire is a recipe for disaster, but involving everyone can be a brainstorming session to come up with any rule changes needed to keep the game functioning smoothly.

If a player does leave, you should agree before the campaign begins what happens to the territory, resources and troops they command. It's especially important if each player is providing their own miniatures for the tabletop battles. Ideas include;

1. Having a shortlist of new players waiting in the wings who can step in (very much the "best case" solution).
2. If the game is factional, have another player from the same faction take over. Or even roll dice for it among all the players and explain it as a revolution and change of regime !
3. Split their territory and resources between neighbouring players or all players. Be aware that this can change the game balance !
4. Give their territory and resources to the weakest player. Again, it can change game balance, but if the player leaving was also losing badly it might just restore the balance.
5. Scrap their armies and make it open season on their territory and resources. A good solution if players are providing their own models.
6. Declare their territory a "no go" zone and out of the game. Possibly the least unbalancing option, although creating a "hard border" for some players might help them a bit too much.

Rules Disagreements

It's almost inevitable that there will be rules disagreements. After all, you've created a whole game out of thin air, and are effectively playtesting it.

The solution to this is simple; have a mechanism agreed beforehand to resolve it. An umpire could rule, or it might be by a vote of all players, or it could even be as simple as rolling dice to see who gets the highest score.

It is also worth considering whether a disagreement is a matter of minor interpretation, or something more fundamental. Never be afraid to modify the rules mid-game, but give players time to adapt to the changes and try to avoid ret-conning anything that happened previously.

Avoiding Death Spirals

In any kind of game, there are likely to be winners and losers. Even with a game that is intended as a long-term story-telling adventure, there may be times where one player or faction becomes dominant. This can be terribly discouraging for players who feel like they are losing and unable to do anything about it.

What you should think about during the design phase is what mechanisms you want to ensure that even a player who is badly losing has a chance at victory.

Perhaps the campaign hinges on a final battle, and although a player who has been winning for a while should have a significant advantage, it can be designed so that an underdog player still has a chance at victory. Or you could balance things by incentivising shifts of alliance to support lower-powered players. Or you can flex resource acquisition or the difficulty of resource management to help smaller players.

Keeping It Manageable

The biggest killers of long-term campaigns I've seen are scope creep and poor time management.

I'd suggest resisting the temptation to add complications to a game that involve creating bookkeeping work. You'll have enough to do tracking resources, armies etc already. Computers have helped a lot, but you still don't want to be the overworked umpire who has to delay a game because it takes a week of data entry to process the previous turn !

My experience with this is that if you're considering a particularly ambitious campaign, try running a short-duration version with a totally cut-down set of rules first. It'll establish whether the concept is fun, help identify any issues, and show you which parts of the rules and background can be expanded out in ways that improve enjoyment without adding too much admin.

Unexpected Gameplay Events

One of the joys of a narrative campaign is that players can use their imaginations.

Players represent not just two army commanders, but all the background diplomacy, personalities and systems as well. So it can make for legendary stories when a player comes up with some ingenious roleplaying type way to get an advantage or do something totally left-field.

In an ideal situation, you'll have an umpire who can come up with a ruling on the fly to determine the success of whatever the player has cooked up. Failing that, I find the best way is to either have all the players haggle it out narratively (if you got a chilled-out enough group !) or to assign probabilities and let the dice decide.

It's also worth recognising situations which are entertaining when used the first time, but should then be blocked as game-breaking if used repeatedly.

Conclusion

That's this little series of posts finished. Hopefully they've inspired you to think about running campaign games !

The most important things are to enjoy the game, to allow yourself to be flexible and forgiving in running it, and to always remember that your in-game opponent is still your out-of-game friend.

Enjoy !

Previous Posts in this Series

https://peakd.com/hive-189497/@alonicus/creating-a-narrative-wargames-campaign-part-1-what-is-a-narrative-campaign
https://peakd.com/hive-189497/@alonicus/creating-a-narrative-wargames-campaign-part-2-planning-your-campaign
https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/creating-a-narrative-wargames-campaign-part-3-game-prep
https://peakd.com/hive-189497/@alonicus/creating-a-narrative-wargames-campaign-part-4-the-role-of-umpires
https://peakd.com/hive-189497/@alonicus/creating-a-narrative-wargames-campaign-part-5-balancing-narrative-roleplay-and-battles