Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Chronicles instead of Campaigns

This idea sprang more from playing Medieval Total War 2 and wanting to game some aspects of that then actually playing a campaign.


The tables below are cobbled together from various Warhammer Historicals, Warhammer compendium, Mighty Empires, and a few other places.

The idea really came into it's own when Bulldog Lopez shared an after battle game chart with me. It was a small chart for post apoc where you could send someone out to repair, and someone else out to scavenge.  Pretty simple but it got my mind racing.

The main struggle with running a campaign is getting other like minded people to play with you.  We, most of us at this point are married, have kids, and jobs, oh and live hours if not days away from each other.

So when Lopez shared the after battle chart with me it clicked.  Why not do a solo chronicle instead of a campaign.  That way I can fight Lopez's dark elves, then do a side story.  Then I can fight (beat) Bloo's dwarves then do a side story following that. 

It all stems from how the game went for me particularly, but if others want to join in it has no bearing on my chronicle.

What I wanted to achieve from MTW2 is  is using agents like spies, princess's, and priests.  Occasionally maybe the hot dog salesmen I got from the last Astropolis Kickstarter.


 Pretty easy there.  After the battle we figure out how well I fared, then roll appropriately.


 This is where it starts to get fun.  We get all sorts of cool stuff now.




The unit bonus chart is for in game actions, I like to keep track of units who capture banners, don't you?



That's rolling on the diplomacy chart from Mighty Empires or enhanced Diplomacy from Citadel Journal.





 Not all this necessarily has to be played out on the tabletop, but I do comic reports so?   I probably wont do everyone, but some of these will be to fun not too.



Executions, and your characters can escape....whaaaat!  More please!


These are all pretty loose and vague so you and I can adapt these as needed.  But I'm pretty excited to get started on this. 





 It's something I've been tinkering around with for a few years now, and then it all just clicked into to place.  Now I'm glad I can share with you.  If you have any other ideas or suggestions I would love to hear about them in the comments. 

I think anyone interested in this type of EXTRA gaming will benefit from input from everyone.  Happy Chronicling, and I hope this inspires you, and maybe even get's you blogging about it.  ;) 

29 comments:

  1. HERE COME DAT BOI!!!! Poor Bloo... always getting beat by Vasken..

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    1. LMAO...I hope someday he too can taste victory! Who am I kidding...no I dont lol.

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  2. What a great post. I have my own little toolbox to drive the story, but I never thought about it like this. This is going to be really helpful to narrative bloggers/facebookers.

    Anytime I'm looking to drive the story in my little patch of the interblogwebsocialmedialsphere, I bust out either the old RT adventure table, or the "Rory's Story Cubes" (they're little dice with pics on them. You roll the dice and then have to make up a story based on the pics. Your tyke would love them BTW.) or even the mission chart from Rogue Stars. But I've never tried to codify it like this. Capital idea!

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    1. Ya that RT table has it all! The Rory story cubes sound cool too. Glad you like it. It should find some use for us I think. ;)

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  3. The integration of RPGs and wargames into some beautiful domain-game hybrid is one of the goals I've been chasing for years.

    (Also those Mighty Empires charts are inspiring me for the wargaming supplement I need to start drafting up...!)

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    1. Well I hope you use these or it inspires you to do your own.

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  4. I like your thinking. I shall study it and send you some thought. Psychically obviously.

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  5. If I only had time for more frequent gaming, this is just my kind of jam. My Mighty Empires sets haven't seen the light of day in decades.... maybe it's time I changed that?

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    1. Thats the beauty of chronicling...you just do this after each game whenever you are able to play. So you can build the narrative slowly...but still have a narrative.

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  6. Nice post, I'll read at a more measured pace and ruminate at my leisure as to how to apply this to my own meager forces!

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    1. Awesome...look forward to hearing any thoughts you have on it. ;)

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  7. This, sir, is one of the greatest ideas I have every read. Hats off to you, my good man.

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    1. Well I hacked most of it into what it is...so I can't take all the credit. Thanks dawg!

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  8. I love these kind of posts that show such passion and enthusiasm for the hobby.

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  9. Think that will work better keeping you off the streets even better than that silly restraining order! LOL ! All kidding aside, a splendid idea here, looking forward to how it all jells.....)

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    1. In all seriousness the great gamer himself Donald Featherstone in his Solo Wargaming book touched on these ideas way back when

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    2. Oh I’ll have to track down a copy.

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  10. Excellent work. Something I’ve been ruminating about myself. I might also suggest you check out the Solo Wargaming Guide. It has some excellent ideas and charts to help with campaigning. I’ll be stealing some of these from you. Hey! Look over there!!!

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    1. Thanks. Steal away and thanks for the book recommendation.

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  11. https://www.amazon.com/Solo-Wargaming-Guide-William-Silvester/dp/1938270134

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  12. Great way to add to story to your games, even if your opposing player isn't taking part in your campaign

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  13. I like this a lot. I've always wanted to connect battles and campaigns are so hard to do.

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  14. Really good post. I'll have to look into those citadel journal articles, never knew they existed. I did some expanded diplomacy etc in my Mighty Empires Campaign. My Gamer ADD has kept me from finishing my updated map, but I've been working on updating the "Bretonnian" kingdom from that setting to go with my OWAC army. Tony Bath is another guy you want to look up. He had some great campaigns with some of the guys who went on to be rules writers in the 60's and 70's. Lot's of card driven stuff, assassinations, suspicious deaths, trade wars. I'll see if I can find my notes. I'll be poring over your post again and see if I can't figure out your tables better. I just glanced at them this pass through.

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    1. Thanks Sean. Yes if you can find some of those old notes/articles I'd be interested in seeing them.

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