Cross-Posted: Full Thrust Campaign: Week 1

This was cross-posted to local and international lists, thus the
genericness 
of the post:

Five players have embarked on the Full Thrust Campaign that I've been
talking 
about for, oh, about six months:

Brian
Dave
Jayson C.
Jeff M.
Patrick

We started this past Saturday with a rough idea of how to proceed, an
even 
rougher draft of the campaign rules and a whole lot of bottled bread[1].

Using the free Cyberboard program (http://cyberboard.braniac.com) to run
the 
campaign map, I had figured out a way to do hidden movement, even though

cyberboard is intended for use with board games and thus doesn't have
hidden 
movement functionality.  That turned out to be a nightmare for me (the 
referee) and we've since gone to a different way of doing things that
makes 
the workload much lighter on me.  

Instead of my having to maintain different files for each player that
only 
show what they should be able to see and then one for me, the guy that
"sees 
all", I now maintain one file and create images from that file showing
each 
player what they're ships can see on the campaign map.	Each player then

bases their orders on those image files and makes moves on their copy of
the 
campaign map, sending me files that play back on my cyberboard file.

This way, each player maintains their own file, and I maintain one
"master" 
file that allows me to selectively show other players what's going on
around 
them as appropriate.

The first three turns of the campaign are in, and some interesting
dynamics 
have occured already.  We've had one player swarm over the campaign map 
taking 9 out of 30 planets with very fast, light ships carrying jump
beacons.  
Another player has juggernaughted with larger ships around his home star

system, laying claim to only two systems, but currently no-one is in a 
position to square off against him and win.

Other players have their own strategies, but those are the two extremes.
 I 
think it will be interesting to see if the "swarm" player can hold any
of his 
systems against aggression as the campaign progresses.

The home-brewed campaign rules (we're using Full Thrust for the tabletop

games) have some pretty serious rough spots, and a couple of players
would 
prefer to stop the campaign, change some rules and start over, but we're

forging ahead and giving this campaign a real go of it to iron out any
other 
issues and further determine what works vs. what doesn't.

Because of our use of Cyberboard, after the campaign is over we'll be
able to 
re-play all of the campaign moves back and review the entire campaign.	
That's pretty cool.  Once we've done that, I'll write up a campaign-AAR
and 
post it on a site or something similarly exhibitionistic.  I'll also be
sure 
to share the home-brewed campaign rules we come up with, as well as the 
Cyberboard Gamebox I'll have developed by that time.

-- 

-- Tim "Flak Magnet"
http://geocities.com/flakmagnet72/

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