Tips on how to organise a 40k narrative campaign?

[Dosjetka]

Hi all,

 

It looks like I'll be organising and running a 40k narrative campaign based around the events on Vigilus with my local gaming group. Apart from "use the Vigilus Defiant book", does anyone have any tips and/or tricks to share on how to organise and run such an event? Do you know of any resources that could help me and others run 40k narrative campaigns, whether specific to Vigilus or general sutff?

 

Any and all help appreciated. :tu:

 

Cheers!

[Dragonlover]

That new Cityfight box that just came out looks pretty handy, although I've not had a chance to lay hands on it myself yet. Could be worth a look?

 

Dragonlover

[Cactus]

Most of the Horus Heresy black books contain some advice for running the campaigns contained therein. From memory I think Conquest would be the most appropriate place to find tips for your Vigilus campaign.

 

Have a plan for how you will handle the inevitable drop-outs and missed games.

[Brother Casman]

The Urban Conquest box looks great for setting up a map-based campaign. There should also be some guidelines in Chapter Approved 2017 and 2018, which might be worth a look.

 

Might also be useful to watch some videos on DM tips from games like D&D, since there are likely common pitfalls to running the show, regardless of setting/game.

[RandyB]

"Setting up a Wargames Campaign" by Tony Bath. Available at Amazon.

[Charlo]

• Don't go overboard
• Plan *just* enough
• Draw inspiration from a wide variety of sources
• Make the games fun

We had some Heresy campaigns run at my local club and it was a very simple affair. Each round (about a month long) we got a few paragraphs of fluff, a mission with some twists and a list of match-ups to play.

 

While obviously 30k centered we used those character advancement rules and as it was a Zone Mortalis campaign, players could also use Voidsman squads in their army at a points cost etc.

 

I'd also say let the players do the work too, and always be open to suggestions. Again, the campaign allowed people (misguided as they were ;)) to use the 8th ed rules instead of the Age of Darkness rules if they wanted.

 

One thing I'd suggest is using the Open war cards - you can generate missions really easily with them!

[Brother Tyler]

Here's a bit of advice from Rick Priestley in Tabletop Wargames: A Designers' & Writers' Handbook. The authors use the acronym CORS to describe the principles (which I'll briefly paraphrase):

• Complexity - The campaign is a means to an end, not the game itself. The campaign rules should be simple so that the hobbyists can focus on the game play.
• Obsession with historical narrative - As with the above, the campaign shouldn't be so obsessed with the historical narrative that it gets lost in the details.
• Resource-based avalanches - The campaign rules should mitigate the risk of runaway leader syndrome; each game should lead towards the ultimate victory, but the final outcome should still allow for anyone to win.
• Too many Sides - When multiple players are involved, it's better to have them split into two sides so that missing players have less of an impact on the campaign and reduces the likelihood of missed games or the campaign ending prematurely.

To summarize: keep it simple and build flexibility into the campaign.

 

The authors are more focused on designing campaigns (i.e., writing a campaign for publication), and you have the benefit of GW already producing a number of tools that you can employ to make things easier.

 

Something else you may have, depending upon the members of your campaign, is the option to use Kill Team every now and then to spice things up a bit. It wouldn't have to be applicable to everyone involved - if at least one player on each side is willing, you can simply have those players use Kill Team.

[WarriorFish]

Logistics - and by that I mean do everything you can to make it easy and simple for your players, the lower the buy in and repeat cost the more likely people are to join and stay. Clearly laying out the plan and method of the campaign first is also good, so people can see what is involved and make suggestions also. As mentioned expect and have a plan to handle people not turning up or dropping out (whether actively, or not turning up enough).

 

Most important thing is to have fun of course, but that can only happen after you've done the hard work Keeping things simple is the best thing to do, and last but not least: don't be afraid to executive decision something to prevent a deadlock. Don't forget to let us know how it goes, and good luck

[thewarriorhunter]

The Independent Characters Podcast did a two part episode on running events earlier in their show. The first episode is the hosts talking about it, and the second is interviews with people who regularly run events (Frontline Gamin, NOVA open, Adepticon, and a few others).

 

I can't remember specifically what they spoke about but I do know they've never had a show I have not liked.

 

Here are links to both episodes:

 

Episode 78: http://theindependentcharacters.com/blog/?p=2959

Episode 79: http://theindependentcharacters.com/blog/?p=2988

[Ranwulf]

I hope this helps you even if its a bit too late.

 

Generally speaking we have been playing the Vigilus Campaign mostly by dividing in two teams of equal strenght, though we started with two and more people showed up to play sometimes with one player playing twice with a different army so everyone can play. Every battleround we rolled for the Nihilus Event, adding a bit of chaos (heh) to the battles. Not only that, but we rolled for each battlezone the players would play in unless we wanted to make something narrative and fun between the players.

 

To make it more insteresting and character focused, we have been using two rules from the Chapter Approved 2018 book, the Battle Honours and the Special Characters builder. The first one we realized it would be pretty hard to keep a track of because our players are not exactly that organized (in fact, most of the time I have to keep track of everything, like Glory Points, next games and so on), so we allowed two units, chosen at the start of the game, to be allowed to level up.

 

Instead of making a 6 skills character straight from the start, we decided to allow each character to pick a skill at the end of each battleround, though starting with a single skill of choice. This "character" has to be your warlord, he is allowed relics and Warlord traits that would stay with him through the campaign, though we allowed players to change the Warlord, with the conscience that only that character would get a new skill at the end of the battleround. This alone allowed a great deal of "character focus" in the campaign, with each character being named and with a bit of a backstory, and allowing some seriously epic moments for the players.

 

My suggestions, besides this general ideas that we have been playing:

-Someone should keep track of everything. Make a word, office or whatever you can to keep track of everything because believe you me that your players most likely wont.

 

-We are a very competitive group, but we all tried to instill on each other the idea of playing more narratively. We all agree with certain games, with specific fights and what makes sense for the players. For instance, when a friend entered with his Night Lords force into the campaign, we picked the Carnage in the Spire mission because it would be an awesome introduction for his Warband in the campaign.

 

You can also pick narrative and missions from all over the place, for instance the Konor missions, the narrative missions in the 8th edition book, you can pick City Fight missions, Stronghold Assault, Planet Strike that are all pepered through the Chapter Approved books.

 

-Be warned that the Vigilus missions are NOT balanced. They have attackers vs defenders basis, and its tied to Power Level which is also not very balanced in itself.

 

-I learned a bit of using GIMP, and within a day or two I managed to make cool pages based on the Horus Heresy stuff. This works both as a cool way to build a narrative, but at the same time is to help your players to understand a but what happened in that battle round with the players. It doesn't have to be professional work, just as long it works for you guys.

 

I hope this was helpful.

 

Ran

[Dosjetka]

Cheers for all the input, folks. I've been working away at this in my spare time and have taken on board a number of ideas. The campaign should launch towards the end of the month/beginning of March so I'll pop back and give feedback and perhaps even further advice. :tu:

[spiros14]

I too have been running the Vigilus Campaign (third phase) amongst my own gaming circle. We're up to round 5, and it is still going strong (one issue you can have is that interest in a campaign is lost roughly six weeks in)

The main thing that I attribute the success of the campaign so far is the organisation: I've been using a Facebook Group page to help me organise my campaign, making a separate event on it for every round (along with a pre game event to decide what teams players wished to be on) this means players have an easy understanding of how long each round is; what the special rules for that round is; and the current score between teams

[Roderikum]

I would also strongly reccommend to tales a look at "Vengeance is Victory" rules from HH book three ("Extermination" I think it is). They give rules to manage resources in a very easy way, but with depth enough to make them relevant un every Battle.

[Exilyth]

The first ever campaign we ran at the FLGS back in the day, we used (printed on) paper taped over a cork board as a map w/colored tacks to keep track of who controlled what region. Everyone could attack one region each round, which would determine the games which would be played. Was a very simple campaign our first one.

 

Ofc. nowadays I just make a digital map in a graphics program (e.g. inkscape or gimp) and flood-fill the regions with different colors - that makes it much easier (less stuff to carry around, no tacks falling off) and can also be send via e-mail or printed out. (Protip: use some aerial image as the bottom layer and use the same image but run through an edge detection filter for getting the outlines on another layer. Erase the inside of the regions and clean them up, then fill with a certain % transparency so the bottom image can be seen through. Save as a file format which preserves layers and export e.g. as *.png when you need an image to print/send.)

 

Pen and pencil are a must have - not only for keeping track of game outcomes, but also for writing down campaign ideas when a stroke of inspiration hits you in the middle of running a game.

 

Props can greatly enhance the atmosphere of a game. This can range from something as simple as a well designed printout of high commands orders (which can be whipped up once as a template and then easily reused with altered text) to more elaborate things like getting the piece of archeotech (innards of an old, defunct electric device) out of the puzzle box (thrift store find). Of course, the more elaborate the prop, the more it distracts from the actual game, so I'd use handouts and such for mass battles and save the more complex stuff for small games (e.g. inq28/kill team).

 

Objective markers are a type of prop which does not get in the way of gameplay but really does wonders for narrative - we're not just fighting over objective blip #26435234, we need that fuel depot to get the fuel needed to travel to our actual objective! Or reach one of the antennas to get new orders, or evacuate the civillians, solve the soupcans, lower the bridge and cross the river, close the gates before more enemies can get through - the possibilities are endless.

 

A table calculation program like microsoft office excel or open office calc/libre office calc/star office calc is a great way to keep track of player information.

 

Provide people with your contact info so they can call or e-mail you in case they can not make it to a campaign group meeting or game. Ask people for their contact info so you can inform them when you're unable to attend. Optional: sending a weekly campaign status via e-mail.

 

Lay down the common rules for the campaign: Avoid using house rules if possible, or if you do, write all of them down and give every participating player a copy. The same goes for a list of banned units (if any) and your policy on when FAQs become legal to use (e.g. "The campaign will not allow forge world units and uses the 8th edition 40k ruleset as of today (date) and excludes any further FAQs, except for the upcoming Codex GSC FAQ which players will be forced to use as soon as it becomes available."). This ensures everyone is on the same page and there's no confusion about what is legal in the campaign and what isn't.

 

Of course, you can make exceptions for certain missions, e.g. a resource/reinforcement shortage could dissallow certain units from being used in a mission. Also, that a unit is banned doesn't prevent it from showing up as a mission objective - e.g. one mission could have a kill team stealing a Baneblade tank. If the mission is successfull, the tank may be used in the next mission - ofc, the opponent could be allowed to bring equal points in (non-superheavy) vehicles to even out the fight.