The Next Campaign, pt 3

I wanted a study of place and character. I’ve been working on a collaborative setting system for a while. It might not be the best fit for a generation ship setting, but I’m willing to try it out there.

I’ll also be working with my players on hashing out major systems for the ship. Things like engines, electrical generation, water reclamation, pharmacology, etc.. If each person has a job, they’ll have to work in some relevant department. What level of luxuries would they expect/desire? What would they do in their offtime?
 
I’d also want to have recurring settings whether it’s a central control center (bridge), a lounge, a library, or even one character’s luxurious quarters, I’d want settings that the players are familiar with and can interact with, should they so choose (the quarters would be best, obviously, since I could redress it to be anyone’s quarters.). 
 

The Next Campaign, pt 2

In the end, I decided to go with “other.”

The Ciaren Campaign was largely successful. I’ve found that after successful series, there’s often a few “off” games to compensate; players are used to the old series and their characters and are on some level reluctant to jump into something else. Good series are usually a combination of luck and collective excitement, which isn’t something that you can call up on a whim.

So my next series is going to be something very self-involved. It’s an experimental series that I don’t expect my players to really like. I think they’ll be more enthused about the one after this one.

I wanted to strip the next game down to some essentials. The New World of Darkness system is something that is very straightforward and lends itself to improvisation. Everyone is familiar with it, so there’s not a lot to learn. I’m not utilizing any supernatural elements so there won’t be any “powers” to memorize or worry about either; each player’s skills will be their powers.

I needed something different though. A mortals game about federal agents or mercenaries or whatever seemed like the only way to go—otherwise, why are they all together? I needed something that would be a slice of life, but provide some source of direction, unity, and urgency that a setting on Main Street, USA wouldn’t provide.

In terms of “ship in a bottle” settings, generation ships are nigh-unbeatable.

The characters are the members of an intermediate generation of a generation ship. They would have advanced technology, freedom, unity, etc., within an electronic cocoon of pipes, wires, and bulkheads. They would be members of a modestly-sized, self-contained section of a massive ship. They would have families, even spouses and children and want for nothing, except survival another day whenever problems arose.

I explained this in general terms to Richard, my roommate.

“So, what’s the hook?” He asked.

The Next Campaign, pt 1

So, I wrapped up my first DnD run, The Ciaren Campaign a few weeks ago. According to feedback, it went really well (note to self: make RPG feedback forms). As it often does, the end of one campaign leads to the beginning of another campaign. “What’s next?”

I’ve got three to four players right now. After talking it over with them, I cut the options down to a Shadowrun series, a Star Wars series, or the realization of a Star Trek series.

Now, Derek wants to run Shadowrun. When I asked what elements of Shadowrun he liked, so as to either narrow down what elements of Shadowrun I had to learn about or what elements of Star Trek or Star Wars I wanted to accentuate, he described Shadowrun to me. It was surprisingly helpful.

Collective Setting System: More Results

Nation A takes an active role in events outside of its border, and oh man, what borders! Nation A exists in the impassible, rocky Northlands. While known far and wide for the courage of both their peoples and ruling class, the concept of Nation A as a single community or culture is somewhat alien. Nation A sat on the sidelines for The Great War, securing protectorates and sending in support troops only for training purposes. This has made Nation A a powerful player in post war politics as they possess the neutrality to suggest changes and the power to back them up.

Despite a great number of economic assets, Nation B’s aggressive, determined drive to continue expanding has seen them ignore those opportunities. Nation B has impressive military honed by their victory in The Great War and supported from B-Keep, an impressive fortress structure to the West. However, their great drive for expansion has garnered them a wealthy, respected, and well-run nation, but garnered them no more land than any of their neighbors Most citizens are considered middle-class, Nation-B markets are prized for their quality goods and shrewd hagglers, and material wealth carefully managed from times now long forgotten. If the elitist rulers could ever change their dogma of constant expansion and facilitate these qualities, they would be the wealthiest nation in the area.

Nation C spent most of The Great War acting as a weapons supplier and getting rich off of it. Luckily, they supported the winning side and continue acting as a trade hub between kingdoms to this day. Despite their economic ties, history records them for the treachery of Diconsuior, where the founder of their line usurped an enemy’s lands through a blatant act of murder. Many in Nation D still call them traitors, though they appreciate the fruits of Nation C goods and arms too much to make an issue of it.

Only slightly younger than Nation B, Nation D is a powerful state with strict internal controls. They benefited most from The Great War, gaining an experienced navy and several new lands in the process. Nation D is known for its impartial class of Magistrates, who arbitrate disputes between citizens, as well as between different branches of the government.

Ultimately a minor player in The Great War, Nation E was the battleground for its first stages, years of considered stability and a focus on peace and prosperity with its borders saw it become a target for opportunistic enemies. Over the course of the war, Nation E gained back its losses, though the areas that saw the most fighting are still trying to fully recover.

Collective Setting System: War and Things Other Than War

War

Histories have both War and Peace cards. Peace cards give a base bonus, and then another bonus if there’s another nation at Peace in the same era. Border Wars are minor clashes that don’t necessarily need another participant.
 

The big history is The Great War cards. There are five of them (the number of nations the system was built for). The Great War cards are red on one side and blue on the other. Players play them with the color of their choice facing up. After all histories have been played, whichever color is most popular wins The Great War and receives the win bonuses (and penalties). Whichever side loses receives the loss penalties (and bonuses). There are some specials that can affect this.

Whatever era The Great War is played on will be the era that all other Great War cards are played on. If the first The Great War card is played on a nation’s Recent Era, then all other The Great War cards must also be placed on that era. A player playing a The Great War card may move a nation’s history card to another one of that nation’s eras in order to play a The Great War card, provided that nation doesn’t already have a history card in the other era (Again, if a nation has Histories on all of its eras, no more Histories can be played on it.). If the first The Great War card is played on a nation’s ancient era, then all other nations immediately get their own Ancient era.

If there are no opposing colors of The Great War at the end of play, no one wins The Great War and no bonuses (or penalties) are received. Cheaters.

Ideas for the Future

Template cards better. Putting bonuses for Holdings on the sides and templating Histories to make their eras clearer would be a marked improvement.

Specialization in the form of defense/offense for Power, trust/monetary for External, infrastructure/culture for Internal, etc, etc, would be something to add, possibly on Attitudes or Histories.

Collective Setting System: Your Types

Attitudes: Attitudes alter a nation’s maximum resource values. A nation can only have one attitude, and once it has an attitude, only a special card can change it.

A nation with a Neutral Attitude has the potential to support a much healthier economy, but they tend not to have much potential for expansion. To get a strong ecnomoy, the player needs Histories or Holdings.

Holdings: Holdings are the heart and soul of the system. They represent things the nation has or lacks that defines what it is. Holdings give a +1 bonus to one of a nation’s resources (sometimes +2) or give an equal penalty. Holdings can be played up or inverted; it’s the choice of the player who puts it down (though some cards can invert them later). A nation may have any number of holdings, though a player may not put a holding on a nation that would exceed its maximum and when a player puts an Attitude on a nation that would place a resource’s maximum below its current level, they must remove holdings from that nation to reduce that resource’s level to or below its maximum. Histories are not removed this way or do they face any play restrictions based on a nation’s resource maximum.

Histories: Histories, like holdings, can modify values, but they often have drawbacks as well. Like Holdings, they can be played inverted, which usually reverses their penalties and bonuses alike. Wars are an exception (see tomorrow’s post).

Specials: Do all manner of non-conventional things. They’re a miscellaneous card type that can do anything from invert cards (see above) to represent great heroes and swap histories.

Collective Setting System: The Basics

Before play begins, it needs to be established how many nations you’re building and how many players you have.  There should be at least five cards per nation, so the starting hand size should allow for that many cards, total plus however many more cards are needed to give each player an equal starting hand.

You can share starting hands, make some plans, discuss your intentions for each state, and determine starting player and order of play by mutual agreement. It would also be a good time to hammer out some names and talk about general aspects of the setting; its themes, environments, and moods. This isn’t a competitive game where one player is trying to make the strongest state. It’s supposed to be a fun semi-collaborative effort to produce surprising game world elements. By default, hands are concealed, direction of play is determined randomly, and the starting player is the storyteller for the game the world will be featured in.

Play it, don’t do it.

On each player’s turn, they may either play a card or draw a card, discard a non-history card, and then play a card. Cards are played on states (though some specials may affect other cards in play) and remain on them as long as that nation can support them.

History cards are a special case. Each state has two periods in its history; Distant History and Recent History (there is also an Ancient History Special card which can produce a third period). Once all states have a History card on them for each of their periods, play is over.

Looks kinda like this.

Lightning Round

Sometimes, a group of players will run out of cards. When a player has an empty hand at the beginning of their turn, instead of usual turn options, they draw three cards, play a History card if possible, then discard the rest.

The Lightning Round exists to keep things simple. There are only so many features of a nation that people can keep track of before they simply glaze over everything. The purpose of this system is to make memorable nations that players are familiar with, not large stats and piles of descriptions. The Lightning Round exists so that if players are having a hard time finding the History cards to finish up, they can search for one without having to pass a turn without doing anything.

With any luck, your results will look similar to:

Collective Setting System: Resources

As you probably noticed Monday, the states made with this system are mostly defined by five resources, described below.

Power works like a general military strength, though it measures both internal and external forces. A nation that’s well-defended can have a force that’s capable of withstanding an enemy’s marauding forces. While there’s no technical specialization, it’s assumed that nations with comparable skills (or total skills) will balance out when fighting with their strengths.

Wealth indicates the trade, material wealth, and the fruits of that wealth.

Size is only somewhat self-evident. It is size, but also size in relation to the other nations as well as quality of things within a nation's borders. A mile of productive farmland is worth more than twenty miles of monster-spewing deserts.

External is the nation’s relationships and esteem with other nations. Whether it’s an undeserved reputation or a history of valor, other nations will weigh the nation’s input and treat its peoples and rulers with respect.

Internal is the nation’s cohesiveness, interconnectedness, and order. A nation with a high internal rating has generally happy citizens, benevolent nobility, and can boast an overall culture of peace and justice.

Each resource starts at 0, with a default upper limit of 2 (Attitude cards can change this). Players use cards (mostly Histories and Holdings) to change these values either up or down, depending on the character of the state they’re building.

Collective Setting System: Results Speak

A few weeks ago, my roommate brought me to a game of munchkin with some of his friends. While there, I saw that they had the A Song of Fire and Ice roleplaying game. I flipped through it, half interested, until I came to the part labeled “House & Lands.” While it’s a system intended to help players find a nobility and home to be aligned with, it had a lot of what I needed for the collective setting project I was thinking of earlier.

We also played Munchkin, and that was fine too (but Pandemic would have been better.).

Using that as a basis, I made up some cards that players could use to define states/cities/planets[1] in a setting and played a few rounds with myself, patching up the rules as issues arose. The rules aren’t important. This isn’t a win/lose game; it’s a collaborative setting creation process, so refereeing isn’t as important as making things fit intuitively together and reigning in complications.

I’ll share the results of a brief ‘solitaire’ session and explain the mechanics throughout the rest of the week.