Re: Re: [GZG] Re: First go at a campaign - some questions

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>A version of this, called 'The Sun Never Sets' by Dave Waxtel and Barry
>Gray, appeared in The Courier magazine (Vol III, No. 4, Jan - Feb 1982,
eek,
>there are probably a number of members of this list who are younger
than
>this magazine! Yes, my child, in them thar days magazines were printed!
On
>paper! :) )
>>
>> The campaign system for The Sword and the Flame has an ingenious
>> method of dealing with this. Each player is both a British minister
>> *and* a native ruler. If I'm the Prince of Siam and the Tommies are
>> really pounding on me, then in my persona as MP, I'm going to vote to
>> send troops to Abyssinia, not Siam.

>In FT, perhaps all the players would be members of the UN, or the
governing
>council of one of the powers, while also protecting their patch when
playing
>their own fleet or power.

I played in one of those campaigns and it was fun. I was an MP, British
second in command in India and first in command of the Boers.

As British second in command I was sent with native Indian troops to
Afghanistan when India was restless and Afghanistan was in open
conflict. When Afghanistan quieted down I went back to India and was
sent to South Africa (India was still restless) and was attached to the
column that avenged the distruction of a British column fighting the
Zulus. The general theory was if Indian forces mutiny it's better to
have them anywhere but in India.

As Boer commander I got the Boers into a restless state and was in the
zone next to the zone where the first British column was ambushed by the
Zulus. My three units of mounted Boers showed up on the edge of the
battlefield but could not enter or shoot into "British" territory but
could accept survivors that made it into our territory. After the first
shock wore off the Zulu commander just ignored us and didn't get within
"a threat" range.

By having two commanders for each command one person could miss a turn
and the game could go on. The only problem was that there wasn't enough
cut-throat gamers so each native uprising usually got smashed due to
sufficient forces being sent.

Anyone tried matrix Gamming?

I tried out a gaming system using matrix gamming which was interesting.
Each player would propose an action and reason for the action based on a
set of possible actions and reasons and each player would vote on the
action and then a random chance role is made.

For example:

Fleet 19 of UN will return to base due to need for overhaul. The canned
action in this case was "return to base"  and the canned reason was
"needed overhaul". The players would argue the order: the fleet just
arrived the previous turn from base and had been at base for three
turns. The vote was let's say 6 to 2 against (gamemaster gets 2 votes)
so subtracted 40% (2 for - 6 against times 10%) chance and base was 40%
so there 10% chance (always at least 10% chance and never more then a
90% chance orderers will be followed) fleet will follow the order and
return to base. Politics can enter in and deals can be struck so that I
vote for this and you'll vote for that.

Tie this in with a "normal" game and it could go like this. UN Fleet 19
joins with NAC fleet Force "C" to defend against the invasion of the
BEMs (please fill in with any Bug Eyed Monsters you choose). The BEM
player in matrix part of game proposes order (see above) and when the
dice is thrown a 1 is thrown and UN Fleet 19 heads back to base and will
have to stay for at least 1 turn at base before doing anything.

The next turn the NAC commander could issue order: Fleet 19 will "ignore
orders" due to "critical situation" of invasion by BEM.

The UN commander could issue order: BEM 6th armada will "return to base"
due to "unrest of forces" due to missing religious festival.

The BEM commander could issue orders: Fleet 19 of UN will "return to
base" due to  "shortage of supplies" with the assumption that the first
order may be cancelled.

Scott