Re: Random thoughts on campaigning

>From: Mikko Kurki-Suonio <maxxon@dram.swob.dna.fi>
>Subject: Random thoughts on campaigning
>
>I personally find campaigning more interesting than one-off
>battles.  However, a good, complete set of campaign rules is
>missing.  What I am going to do now is to outline the
>desirables of a good campaign system, all IMHO ofcourse, and
>see if enough interest can be found to flesh them out.

I've been writing some simple to non-quite-complex campaign
rules but cannot get anyone interested, except for one person
but I'd like a campaign involving several people.  He also
doesn't show up on FT game night at a regular basis.

Also, a fixed campaign means dedication by the players, and
if one person doesn't make it then the campaign stalls.  I
just wrote up a simple campaign for our current style of
one-off battles.  The idea is that each player is the
ruler(s) of a small interstellar, or even just one planet,
government that hires his forces out to the major races.
These major races are always squabbling but to avoid their
own bloodshed and an all out war they hire these minor forces
for raids and such.  This allows for two players to be on the
same side in one battle and opposite sides in another.
There's no supply or logistics to handle, no strategic maps,
and it seems to be a good idea to string some one-off battles
in some campaign.  How does this tie into a campaign?  Right
now the only thing I can think of is that each player has a
Points bank account, gets points for participating in a
battle, gets more points if victorious, and loses points for
ships lost or damaged (20% of the ship's points per threshold
as a repair cost).  The campaign leader is one that has the
most points, and maybe set a goal of a certain point value to
reach.	I added in a scenario generator (terrain,
objectives), which we may use whether or not we use the
campaign.  I wrote this up yesterday and have not approached
the guinea pigs, er, players, yet.

(snip)

>Movement
>
>You need to be able to catch stuff _en_route_, otherwise the
>campaign degenerates into a series of raids against
>stationary targets (with predictable results on force
>selection).  Yes, this includes those MD8 ships too.  Yes,
>even the ships that DON'T want to fight.

If you use some FTL use limit, like x distance from a gravity
well, then you can have interceptions from the jump point to
the destination and possibly with a time constraint as either
one side will FTL away or reach the possible safety of a base
or orbiting ships at the destination.

You could abstract in-system interceptions based on the main
drives.  You could roll against every ship so that some ships
may arrive a few turns later, unless the player chooses the
fleet to travel as one; this he may have to decide based on
his long range scans:  It looks like a small force so maybe
my fast ships are a large enough force to take it and can
catch them.

>I must say that the vanilla "fast jump anywhere, no fuel
>limits, no speed limits" system doesn't really deliver in
>this regard.

Me, too.  :)
I tried writing up something similar to Traveller's jump
fuel requirements but was I booed down when it took extra
mass in a ship.  I even had cut it down to a max of 20%.

(snipping lots)

I wouldn't have FTL exit requirements being in the out-system
area, but rather near the destination.	This would cut out
some of the in-system movement tracking which I don't want.

As to FTL exit speed, say that upon FTL exit you must go
forward for 1 turn (or 1 and a half like in FTL entry) and
there is a chance that some object might be in your path.
You may not want to be going too much faster than your MD
when you come out of FTL so you have time to react to that
object.  As an example off the top of my head, if 2D6+MD <
your desired exit speed you hit an object doing (exit
speed-MD) x D6 damage.

Upon rereading this, I thought of Oerjan.  :)  He'll probably
jump in the out-system area anyway and then have time to
approach at high speeds.  To offset this you could have the
defender (assuming that Oerjan's force is attacking or
raiding) have time to call in reinforcements or set up a line
of defense (i.e. mines, a Nova Cannon "wall" <g>).

>FTL travel.  Several unknown factors:	- Does it take time
>in-transit?  If so, sow much?	- If it does take time, can
>you communicate with ships in hyperspace?  Can they change
>course in mid-jump?  - How fast can you jump again?  - Do
>you retain velocity?  (Hopefully NOT) - Can you pursue
>someone into/through hyperspace?  - Can you fight in
>hyperspace?  - Does every ship have the same jump range?  If
>not, what is the governing factor?

That all depends on the style.	Star Trek with its warp
movement, Traveller with its 1 week jump and no interaction
in jump space, B5 with jump gates (another strategic option)
and hyperspace movement and detection, or any other system?
It's a matter of taste.  I prefer Traveller's because it
makes it easy to game:	no checking for intercepts (I've done
this as a GM for an ST campaign, it is not fun), and it makes
for easy turn measurements.  I read Imperial Starfire's
strategic time clock and thought what a load of work that is,
clocking every system with ships moving.  Since I never
played it I don't know how much work it came out to be.
Strategic board games are usual measured in weeks or months,
maybe days for a theatre.

To me there are 3 layers to a space strategic game:
strategic - economics, star system's controlled, research,
politics, fleet locations by star system.
operational - fleet assignments & locations in a star system,
enemy detection, refueling if required.
tactical - ship & troop combat.
I tend to blur the operational and strategic level into
strategic only, I only want to know if I have forces in a
given star system and if the enemy is there fight or flee
it,  I don't care what planet they are near.

>The boring stuff
>
>In a campaign, you are likely to get a number of very
>one-sided engagements.  These are typically rather boring to
>play out.  Thus one desirable is a quick-resolution system.
>It need not be "one roll to rule them all", but definitely
>something that can be resolved without putting miniatures on
>the table.  An abstract range system like in High Guard,
>perhaps?

Frankly, if one side isn't close to the enemy's strength they
will probably flee; which isn't much of a problem in FT as
you just turn and run, so no combat.  Unless, you want to try
to determine exactly what the enemy force is then you may
want to run into 54mu range, run scans, and then leave.  If
the scanning ship is more maneuverable then you probably
won't have combat anyway.

Ah, so much more to comment on.  I'll save it for another
post.

Glen