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Hey guys! I want to run a campaign at my local store. I have just one problem with this: I don't know ANYTHING about doing it. Can you guys teach me?

While many of us probably have dreams of linked campaigns using gothic, 40k, kill teams, supply lines, and all the rest, the most important rule for campaigns is that unles you have a group of really, really, really dedicated players, keep things simple. And when I say dedicated, I mean the type of people who voluntarily spend lots of time creating terrain, scenarios, and things for your local gaming group. Play through one simple campaign, and if your group enjoys it and wants to do another, you can always move up to something more complex.

So what type of campaign does your group want to run? How many people are truly committed to doing this? Some advice here- many people will say they want to participate, but you should probably limit participants to the guys who have been coming every single week for the last ~6 months to help ensure you're only involving the really dedicated players. The more players you include, the harder things will become, since you're dealing with that many more personalities, preferences, and schedules. Capping the number of different players at 5-6 is probably your best option. Talk to the participants and find out what they want. If you have a smaller number then maybe a simple linked-scenario campaign is best. Look at the example in the 5th edition 40k rulebook for ideas. The basic premise is that you link together a few set scenarios, with slight alterations depending on how the previous game went. Maybe game 1 is an escalating engagement mission, where small scouting forces are just coming into contact. Game 2 could then be a straight up fight at a lower than average point level, game 3 could be some sort of ambush scenario, etc, etc. You can give small bonuses to the winner of earlier games, like maybe some re-rolls, or a few extra points. Map campaigns are a different story. The rules in the mighty empires hex box can translate pretty easily into pretty much any miniature game system, so you might start there. The recent changes to the US GW site mean that the pages for the old summer campaigns no longer exist, but look around the internet, and maybe the GW sites in other countries for vogen, cityfight, lustria, eye of terror, albion, medusae, and storm of chaos for ideas.


The other big rule for campaigns is to plan in ways of dealing with missed games and such. Most of us wouldn't mind gaming every week, but sometimes real life rears its ugly head. People get sick, go on vacation, have to work, spend time with family, you know the drill... The problem with a rule that says "if you miss a week, then you auto-lose" is that it can start becoming a snowball effect. Someone gets sick and misses one week, loses 2-3 games, and suddenly is doing really badly, now that person has less incentive to try and play every game. He misses another week down the line, the same thing happens, and the incentive drops even lower. You can avoid some of this by having teams of two players, so that if one person misses a week, hopefully the other teammate can fill in. If you allow teams, you can increase the number of participants. You could have 'ringers' sub in for missing players; perhaps the guy who couldn't commit to fully participating because of aforementioned real life, but would still like to be involved.

Of course there is a lot more than this, but start with what I've already discussed and then come back with more specific questions.

Steve

Campaigns can be awesome, sweeping epics, as SteveW as said, with multiple systems, specially written scenarios and purpose built terrain. Or they can be so simple they're little more than a glorified gaming league.

The first decisions you need to make are:

1. Who's playing?
- as a general rule the more players you have, the more abstract you need to be and the harder your logistics (both in game and IRL).

2. What system(s)?
- obviously this will depend on what you collect (its no good doing a combined WFB/Warmaster campaign if only 2 out of 5 players have Warmaster armies). Think carefully before using mutliple systems. It can add a lot of depth but can seriously unbalance campaigns.

3. What type of campaign?
- generally speaking, campaigns are map-based or story-based. Map-based allows each player strategic freedom and works well with larger groups (you need an absolute minimum of 4 players).
Story-based, of which 'tree' campaigns are the most generic (I won/lost the battle for the bridge so now I raid enemy territory/have to defend against an invasion) work fine for 2 or 3 people but get hideously complex for more players. Avoid unless your players are teaming up into 2 or 3 factions!

4. What's the story?
- Generic map-based campaigns are a bunch of people trying to take over the world *cue 'Pinky and the Brain' theme tune*. If you want your campaign to be more than this, you need to work out why the players are fighting and what they are trying to achieve. Beware, though, as multiple victory conditions need to be well thought out to ensure they are not mutually exclusive and you end up with all the players winning!


If you want to post your answers to these questions or PM me and I'll be happy to give you some more specific ideas.

Good luck with whatever you decide!
C_C

I probably will end up with only about 4-6 people getting in. I'll most likely run it throughout the upcoming school year, giving people like two weeks to get certain games done or something like that, since our store isn't enormous and people here for the summer won't be here long enough for it. I like the idea of a map campaign, where you get different sides trying to take over the planet. As far as reasons for why the armies would be there and stuff, that isn't terribly hard to come up with, since we will only be using 40k. Many thanks for helping.

If its just map-based 40k, that's no problem.

Here's a mechanic I used when I ran a similar campaign.

Draw your map and divide into areas. If you have a large enough terrain set you could specify what each game's terrain will be (or if you only have one type of terrain you could make your map an individual city/forrest etc rather than a whole planet).

The winner is simply the player at the end of the campaign who controls the most territory. This is worked out using a simple mechanic called 'Control Points (CP's)' that allows games of any size to have an impact.

Before each game, both players roll, the winner decides which area the battle is fought in. The winner gains 1 CP IN THAT AREA for every 500 points. (So in a 1500 point battle, the winner gets 3CP's).
The loser reduces their control in that area by the same amount. If the loser does not have enough control in that area (or no control at all), excess points are taken from the nearest area they do control, to represent the resources wasted.
Each army's 'Home base' starts with 10 CP's.

I know this sounds a bit complex, but trust me - a map and a box of coloured pins and its a piece of cake!!

At the end of the campaign, look at each region. If two or more players have CP's in a region, the person with the most pins controls it. If you are the only player with CP's in that region - its yours and as a bonus counts double when adding up territories.



Trust me - its a lot easier than it sounds. The main benefit is that any player can play any size of game at any time and it all counts! This makes the logistics a LOT easier, as it doesn't matter who turns up.

Hope this is useful. Any questions post or PM - and have fun with your games