Running Interlinked Scenarios + Data Interchange Software

Derk, 

I hit some design-time snags and real life time commitments that
prevented software
completion. I have since had some epiphanies about some of them. I will
work on it over
the coming year. I also think I'd like to make a 'distributed map
handler' that would
allow two separate tables to run effectively double blind without
requiring an 'actual'
third table. 
But all this is contingent in free time, and I worked from 10:30 am
until 2:30 am
yesterday, as an example of my current schedule. Plus two and a bit
hours of commuting. :( 

General on Interlinked Scenarios:

What you are discussing was the very premise of CampCon, hosted by Mike
Sarno in and
around Towanda/Sayre PA every June. The first CampCon was at Mike's
house, others have
grown out into other facilities. Attendees from this have included I
believe a Jon Davis,
a Joel Frock, a David Raynes, my buddy James Hilchie from Kingston (not
technically on
this list... *grin*), Mike Sarno, Miek Hudak, and perhaps others (I
don't recall if Adrian
has made one of these yet). We usually go down, camp at Mike's back 40,
and play a weekend
full of games.

The earliest one featured 3 interlinked scenarios. The landing (from a
hyper jump in), the
fight for the PDC (dirtside), and the battle for the starport
(stargrunt). Each event's
outcome factored in to the starting forces for the follow on ones. Also,
players were
given reinforcement chits they could spend in each game, and a chit was
either
pre-allocated (100% successful) or played during the game (66%
successful). The units were
scaled to the game - in SG, it might give you a VTOL or an APC full of
troops, in DS2 a
tank platoon, or an artillery platoon on call. Each scenario contributed
to the overall
story line. It was based on an ESU assault on the NAC colony of New
Providence, which was
inhabited by descendants of maritime anglophone settings like the
Canadian Maritimes, the
US North East maritime states, the Basques, etc. In the end, General
Sarno summed up the
results in a famous message to Comrade Hil Chi Minh, the ESU leader:
"Get your ass back to
Eurasia!". This con was a success.

The next one I remember had a series of more loosely linked scenarios.
These included four
or five different combats which all accrued victory points towards the
overall campaign.
Here again the commanders had reinforcement chits they could play into
the scenarios. The
most memorable of these was a sea board for DS2, with small resort
islands and a large
island with the starport on it. Combatants were ships, GEV and Grav. An
M-kill over water
was generally a bad thing (get your life jackets on....!). Invading
hotels and the tough
infantry combat on the floating starport were very cool. This too went
off well. 

As a cool prop, medals were given out for attending CampCon and for
certain activities. I
actually have one declaring me "Most Feared Enemy".

In both cases, two GMs (Mike and I) coordinated scenario setup. That
helps a lot. Doing
these alone, you miss stuff. I tried a similar thing back here in
Ottawa, and
unfortunately, it didn't pan out so well. The invasion force was utterly
shattered and
slaughtered. That kind of ended things right there. Mind you, different
players, only one
GM, different structure. Just goes to show you can't be a winner every
time and that
players don't always want to be content with the pre-game assumptions
you make. Some want
a lot of tactical control of the lead-up to the battle, obviously having
read Sun-Tzu. It
also went to show that points aren't a great balancer. Scenario terrain,
setup, etc. can
make a huge difference. And seemingly small pertubrations made at the
last minute can have
disasterous balance. JP likes to call some of the swing 'high swing
dice' - inherently
unpredictable. At the same time, game design or setup decisions can
really change things. 
So, I guess I'm getting at 'more eyes are a good thing'. 

Back to TWOC: (If I'd thought to call it Burden, that was an even better
name!)

To Phil Pournelle:
1) I'm sorry I didn't get more of a chance to speak with you after we've
coordinated offline. 
2) I'm sorry I missed you sending the interloper packing.
3) You made a very good comment about the forces having flashbangs and
riot control
agents. Stargrunt is short anything approaching good rules for such
things (their rules
for smoke are game-ish too... I don't find they match my real life
experiences with
battlefield obscurant deployments in variable weather conditions...).
This is something we
should address before next time we do something of this nature. You've
hit upon something
we didn't think of. I'm adding that to our lessons learned summary.
Thank you for the
input and for coordinating the Alpha Board. Your good words are also
appreciated.

For that matter, for everyone who said good things about TWOC, thanks.
That's what makes
our efforts worth the time and stress :) 

Tom B