[Campaign] Factions and adjustments to keep the game interesting

[Feral_80]

At my game club we are running a pretty basic Leviathan campaign: 2 factions (Imperium vs 'bad' guys) over three phases, tot. 8 players.

 

Things are working quite ok, 2 factions is much easier to accommodate and balance than 3 factions (which we used in an earlier campaign) because essentially any side/player can play as many games as they like with no need to further balance the overall thing. But one thing is not working very well: one faction is trampling the other one!

 

Reasons aside, Imperium just won phase 1 and seems to be in a very good spot for phase 2 as well. Although everything will be decided in phase 3 because of how we assign campaign VPs, this does not help keeping the campaign interesting. Leviathan blessings do not seem to help that much either for those players who scored less XPs.

 

We are considering a more fluid approach to factions, by which I mean that stronger players might be able to switch faction, even temporarily, facing their (former) allies and making things more interesting overall. But in order to do that, we should devise some system to structure and regulate these side changes. E.g., introducing some form of in-game currency to 'hire' a player? Introduce a mechanism aimed at switching sides automatically once one side scores too many victories over the other? And so on.

 

Has anybody else experienced a similar situation, and possibly devised some solution?

 

We'd like to keep things quite simple, so no more than 2 factions in any case. But we need to introduce some balancing mechanism for the sake of the narrative and pleasure of the game.

 

Thanks for your contribution.

Edited February 7 by Feral_80

[Noserenda]

I recall reading an article yeeears ago about online multiplayer where they made a persuasive argument for 3 factions being ideal for pvp because essentially it lets two factions gang up on the third if they get too far ahead, and that has some application to wargame campaigns even if the third faction if less defined "xenos" or similar who essentially switch sides as needed to keep things running. It definitely is more complicated for the organisers though, so you have to strike a balance somewhere.

But death spirals are real, its why i dont like granular map campaigns these days, as the winning factions gather advantages and grow stronger and the losing faction players lose interest and go play something else instead of getting their faces stomped.

The other idea ive personally used to some success is having alternative victory conditions. In my case it was for a Titanicus event where the core missions generally gave VPs for Traitors/Loyalists and advanced the faction, but there were secondary missions that were at least a bit incompatible with the main task that accrued personal Honour for the player themselves and that Honour was a separate award at the end. 

So a losing faction is going to try and stay on mission and get ahead whilst winning players might get complacent and grab a little something for themselves. Typical secondary missions were protecting buildings far from the main objectives, blowing up an enemy drop ship (after its deployed its cargo), getting off your opponents edge to ravage their rear echelons or destroying enemy titans when you are meant to be withdrawing. The possibilities are just as endless as any other scenario :D 

Hope these sleep deprived rambles help! 

Edited February 8 by Noserenda

[ThePenitentOne]

Your campaign is already rolling, so some of my suggestions here won't matter. Before I get into my own ideas, I support what Noserenda has already said- two factions is too few to prevent a runaway scenario.

 

When I design campaigns, I don't structure outcomes based entirely on win/loss/ VP, and I almost always use a GM who has access to NPC forces.

 

So, the tracks I use include:

 

Win/ loss (VP)

Escalation

Territory (Map based)

Long-term Crusade goals (which can include territorial abstraction such as Tau, GSC, or Drukhari Crusade- as opposed to teritories on a map... Although in some cases, combining the two works)

 

The key is to structure each mission so that actual VP Victory comes at the expense of other things. If you go for VP, you come closer to a tactical "win," but it tends to be those who "lose" that get the perks, which help them in the next game, when maybe they're eager to make up the win/loss ratio because they know they're behind- but that in turn leaves some of the other spoils on the table for the other team.

 

Making non-VP related rewards single use is another good strategy to prevent runaway scenarios.

 

I also like KT side missions; I use gestalt profiles so that experience earned in a KT side mission applies to both a Crusade roster and a KT roster- you only use the Crusade advances in 40k games and the KT advances in KT, but apply any XP to both. What that allows you to do is give a player of a disadvantaged army an opportunity to earn some additional XP for a single unit, which can help them close the advantage gap.

 

The way I campaign tends to be pretty damn complicated, but that's why I only really campaign with like-minded friends, who frequently discuss their army's goals, most of which are far more complex than "Winning the campaign"

 

Like, if you're trying to conquer a planet, and I'm trying to steal enough aircraft to get off that planet, technically it's possible for both of us to "win" the campaign.

 

The Ashes of Faith campaign rules are kinda cool this way- there are two separate goals, which creates more than just win/loss end states.