5-Hour Time Limit Campaign Brainstorm

[gwrfelling]

I am soliciting as many ideas as I can for a campaign that fits these criteria:

1. Campaign may not run past five hours in real-time duration.
2. Campaign must be designed for only two, three, or four players.
3. Campaign must maximize the number of games within the given time limit.

I have taken a look at the "Conquest" and "Battlemaker" systems in the Campaign section of the Resources page, and I like many of their ideas; however, I would like to discuss other options.

Any bright ideas?

[Macbeth]

Hi Gwrfelling,

have I already suggested this to you in another thread.

First off design your campaign maps for Four, Six or Eight Armies so that you can have two armies per player.

Give each player a primary and a secondary army.

The Primary army is one they get to control themselves fully (war declarations, careful choosing of where and when to fight).

The secondary army is run as a programmed leader using the rules in the resources page.

The character of the programmed leader is diced for at the beginning of each year - but at the time of their first move (primary players don't get advance warning of a feeble leader) and also diced for if the General is killed in battle - replacement leader.

The player gets to fight the battles for their secondary army (unless the secondary attacks the primary) but has to follow the dictates of the programmed leader dicce.

It is good to get each players' primary and secondary armies at opposite ends of the map from each other.

Cheers

[Chris Brantley]

My approach to this challenge has been to bend traditional concepts of the campaign into a tabletop game. Create a strategic map that is large enough to accomodate all armies and which depicts the area of the campaign (e.g. Ancient Britain, the Roman Danubian frontier, etc.). Every player controls an army that's involved in the campaign and has a homebase or supply element they have to defend. Divide your time available into half hour rounds. After 25 minutes of game play, stop for 5 minutes of diplomacy and to distribute economic resources. Every two rounds = 1 turn or one campaign year...at which point you allow players to buy replacement elements using the resources they have collected (by tax, loot or pillage). Award prestige in the form of skulls for each element killed (city taken, etc.) or gold tokens (for tax revenue/loot). At the end of the time alloted, stop and see who has accumulated the most "prestige".

The more complex you make it, the less enjoyable it will be. You just want a few incentives to encourage historical behavior. Otherwise players will fill in the gaps for you...resorting to all manner of diplomacy, bribes, back-biting, alliances, etc.

See Britannia 43 AD as an example: http://www.wadbag.com/events/Britannia43AD/

[JamesLDIII]

Perhaps I said this once in another campaign thread, but here's my take:

Just play a "theater" level campaign instead of a whole nation. The regions reflect a smaller portion of the globe and in time.

Have just two sides, and allocate the players between the two sides.

Definitely allow each player more than one army, or perhaps a combined mega army (but make the choice to concentrate all ones troops a painful one.

Make sure the best way to win is to fight battles--with only five hours, you probably want to get 4 series of battles in that time, and not have a bunch of footsying around.

A few possibilities to jog the memory:

Book I
Ramses or Thutmose in Palestine
Early Persians in Greece (Thermopylae, Marathon, Plataia)
Book II
Alexander vs Greeks
ALexander in the East (vs Scythians or Indians)
any Roman theater of operations, like
one of the year's of Caesar's campaign in Gaul.
Caesar in Spain, Pompey in Spain, Numantia, etc.
Romans on the Danube
Romans in Palestine
Rome vs Goths or Huns
Book III
A good Arab conquest theme
Normans in Sicily
1066 AD (Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Danes)
Crusaders in Palestine
Mongols vs .......
Book IV
French in Northern Italy
Samurai
(Anyone in Palestine?)

[gwrfelling]

Hi Gwrfelling,

have I already suggested this to you in another thread.
No, it is new to me. I like the idea, in general, but do you find that players need to play more than one game at a time in order to fit all the action into the required time-frame?

My approach to this challenge has been to bend traditional concepts of the campaign into a tabletop game.
I have talked with Jeff Caruso, who, I think, has played in your Britannia 43 AD scenario, and I am very interested in the tabletop game approach. In fact, I have a good tabletop set up mapped out for the Han Chinese, Xiongnu, Wusun, Dayuan (Ferghana), Kangju (Sogdiana), and the Greater Yuezhi/Kushan with the Taklamakan desert, ringed with cities, in the center. I definitely like your breakdown of the time into rounds, campaign years, etc. Here is a question: How do you determine turn order, and does it change over the course of play?

Make sure the best way to win is to fight battles--with only five hours, you probably want to get 4 series of battles in that time, and not have a bunch of footsying around.
Yes, that is what I want. Also, your idea of a player running two armies might work well with the two armies being in opposing factions; for example, each player runs a Roman army and a barbarian army, giving rivals for prestige points, even on the "same" side, a hard time. Again, do we run into players running more than one army needing to fight two games at the same time?

[Macbeth]

No, it is new to me. I like the idea, in general, but do you find that players need to play more than one game at a time in order to fit all the action into the required time-frame?


In general with each player running 2 armies - what mostly happens is that all players are involved in each battle either as a main protagonist or the commander of some allied contingents.

In five hours game time we can usually get through a full campaign year - by comparison with one player per army when it is usally 2 - 3 sessions per year.

Cheers

[Jeff Caruso]

I am soliciting as many ideas as I can for a campaign ... I would like to discuss other options.

Any bright ideas?

Something that allows and encourages a lot of trash talking before the game. Then very little of the general rules and scenarios written down so you can improvise as needed. Harder to pin you down if not able to quote the paragraph etc. Roll dice, have a good time. :)

Maximus

[Tony Aguilar]

I really enjoyed the Gothic Wars campaign that Chris Brantley and Jeff Caruso ran at Historicon '07. I didn't mind that I won too...as the rest of my games that weekend went down the tubes! Not too many special rules, and you could just get down and play the game, make cracks and have a good time with 7 other players all going at it at once on the same large battlefield.

[Mike Porter]

I really enjoyed the Gothic Wars campaign that Chris Brantley and Jeff Caruso ran at Historicon '07. I didn't mind that I won too...as the rest of my games that weekend went down the tubes! Not too many special rules, and you could just get down and play the game, make cracks and have a good time with 7 other players all going at it at once on the same large battlefield.

That was great fun, and one of my best memories of the Con. (It's hard to forget when someone tries to assassinate you!:p ) I have two pics here (http://dbagamer.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/final-historicon-report/)for anyone interested in seeing the playing surface..

[Xavi]

If you go for the large map, make it a ReallyBBDBA. Large map, each player has his owen PIP dice. 2 sides. Go at each other's throats.

Plan B would be to play smallDBA: battles of 6 elements only. You only have a D3 for movement (Die: 1-2 = 1PIP, 3-4 = 2 PIPs; 5-6: 3 PIPs) Suddenly the movements are MUCH faster and battles play faster as well!! Good if you want to see manoeuvtre et al fast.

Plan C:
Have a map with regions. Each region assigned to a player. To fight, invade the enemy province: regular DBA game. Repeat until you conquer the enemy capital.

Cheers,

Xavi

[Tony Aguilar]

That was great fun, and one of my best memories of the Con. (It's hard to forget when someone tries to assassinate you!:p ) I have two pics here (http://dbagamer.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/final-historicon-report/)for anyone interested in seeing the playing surface..

Hehee, I like the look on Schlanger's face eyeballing you: "You are going DOWN pal." His troops were about as far away from you as he could have been and still managed to send his hit squad after you.

I though for sure that Giampapa was going to put a dirk in me, but he never did turn on his Latin brother.

I throroughly enjoyed killing all of the (5!) Generals (especially turning on A-Bos with the rear shot of my catapult from the city...BOOMYOW!)

[Mike Porter]

Hehee, I like the look on Schlanger's face eyeballing you: "You are going DOWN pal." His troops were about as far away from you as he could have been and still managed to send his hit squad after you.

I though for sure that Giampapa was going to put a dirk in me, but he never did turn on his Latin brother.

I throroughly enjoyed killing all of the (5!) Generals (especially turning on A-Bos with the rear shot of my catapult from the city...BOOMYOW!)

Keep in mind, you didn't get all the generals (smirk), and I did so enjoy razing your fort to the ground and parading my pig trophy atop my general's element. As for Giampapa--I will never forget his treachery!:mad: I should have known better than to trust a Yankees fan! :p

[gwrfelling]

I can see that the trash talking continues well after the campaign, too. An excellent indicator of another campaign for the future, I'm sure.

Specifically, how was turn order handled in the Gothic Wars game?

[Tony Aguilar]

Keep in mind, you didn't get all the generals (smirk), and I did so enjoy razing your fort to the ground and parading my pig trophy atop my general's element. As for Giampapa--I will never forget his treachery!:mad: I should have known better than to trust a Yankees fan! :p

Ehh..fort, schmort. It needed to be re-upholstered anyway. :)

[Mike Porter]

I can see that the trash talking continues well after the campaign, too. An excellent indicator of another campaign for the future, I'm sure.

Specifically, how was turn order handled in the Gothic Wars game?

It was run pretty much exactly as Chris mentions above in his comment. The exception was that the Barbarians could switch sides during the diplomacy phase.

[Tony Aguilar]

Keep in mind, you didn't get all the generals (smirk)

Correct..I meant to say "I throroughly enjoyed killing (5!) Generals."

My troops did not have any ill-will towards you, that is until you burnt my tower down...you savage you. :(

[Mike Porter]

Correct..I meant to say "I throroughly enjoyed killing (5!) Generals."

My troops did not have any ill-will towards you, that is until you burnt my tower down...you savage you. :(

I'm truly sorry about that. I wasn't going to attack it, but Giampapa named you Magister Militum, depriving me of the title. I needed to make an example to demonstrate that Roman treachery was not going to be tolerated.:)

I think we've hijacked this thread...

[gwrfelling]

...Then very little of the general rules and scenarios written down so you can improvise as needed...
This suggestion, as much as I like it, requires like-minded individuals sitting at the table. Rigid cry-babies need not participate! Did the scenario designer play in the Britannnia 43AD and the Gothic Wars games, or did he have to participate strictly as a GM?

[Jeff Caruso]

This suggestion, as much as I like it, requires like-minded individuals sitting at the table. Rigid cry-babies need not participate! Did the scenario designer play in the Britannnia 43AD and the Gothic Wars games, or did he have to participate strictly as a GM?

Chris ran both games. I played in the Britannia but had no part in running it. In the Gothic Wars I helped Chris and did not play.:(

Jeff

[gwrfelling]

...In the Gothic Wars I helped Chris and did not play.:(
We at CMH might need to remedy that in the near future.

[Chris Brantley]

I definitely like your breakdown of the time into rounds, campaign years, etc. Here is a question: How do you determine turn order, and does it change over the course of play?

This is a challenge. To keep it as simple as possible, I focused on running games with two distinct sides....both were Roman vs. Barbarian. So Romans rolled pips together, moved, fought, etc. And Barbarians did the same. When Barbarians switched sides to fight as Roman allies, then they rolled with the Roman side for pips. Or if you did War of the Roses, it could be Lancastrians and Yorkists.

Issues can arise when you've got a civil war going on (between barbarians or between Romans). In those cases, I would have the two players roll between them for order (attacker vs. defender) and play it that way.

To have each player move and fight individually would eat up too much valuable convention time. So I am still looking for a mechanism other than the sides mechanism that would allow me to deal with those types of campaign settings.

[gwrfelling]

This is a challenge. To keep it as simple as possible, I focused on running games with two distinct sides....both were Roman vs. Barbarian. So Romans rolled pips together, moved, fought, etc. And Barbarians did the same. When Barbarians switched sides to fight as Roman allies, then they rolled with the Roman side for pips. Or if you did War of the Roses, it could be Lancastrians and Yorkists.
A two-sided game does seem the simplest approach.

Issues can arise when you've got a civil war going on (between barbarians or between Romans). In those cases, I would have the two players roll between them for order (attacker vs. defender) and play it that way.
The random die-roll would be sufficient; however, perhaps one could accumulate "aggression points" due to particular behaviors during the game, and these points could be added to the die-roll (like aggression in the regular DBA rules). I would like to explore this idea a bit more... Any ideas, guys?

To have each player move and fight individually would eat up too much valuable convention time. So I am still looking for a mechanism other than the sides mechanism that would allow me to deal with those types of campaign settings.
A holy grail of sorts--time efficiency combined with a pleasing amount of complexity for period color. I like the general idea of everyone moving simultaneously until they are "in combat" (in your Britannia 43AD rules); the trick is to define "in combat" clearly.