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I love campaigns. They're a great way to keep your local 40k community engaged, they're an excuse to run unorthodox missions, and they can provide a sense of continuity that can make games feel that much more rewarding. That said, I often find that the sheer number of diverse factions can make it really tricky to hold together some form of over-arching narrative. Coming up with a story for why Tau and Necrons are fighting is easy enough. Coming up with a story for why IG are involved is no problem. Explaining why every flavor of xenos in the galaxy happens to have taken an interest in this particular corner of space, however, can be a bit much. Even more frustrating is the tendency for numerous players to show up with several brands of imperial forces (especially space marines). Explaining why space puppies, blood angels, grey knights, tyranids, daemons, and dark eldar all happen to be at one anothers' throats makes it hard to keep a coherent story together.

Sure, you can come up with some convoluted or improbably combination of explanations. But you can only tell the story of how a warp storm dumped twelve flavors of marines onto the same planet after an artefact drew the eldar to that planet just before a hive fleet hapened to be wandering through the area so many times before it becomes such a mess that you may as well not even bother with a story.


So! What are some more elegant ways of handling lots of different factions within a given campaign? Do you find a way to link the story together across large swaths of space so that you don't have to explain everyone being in one place? Do you forego a tied-together narrative entirely in favor of following the individual exploits of each faction? Do you lump everyone together into broad alliances and simply accept that some players won't get a chance to face off for most of the campaign as a result?

Hmmm, that is tricky, especially the inter-marine rivalry stuff where people rock up with allied forces. I like the idea of a sector-wide conflict though

I think the best way is just beating the problem into submission with raw imagination (easier said than done).

What are the factions likely to be involved and here on dakka we might be able to come up with something that doesn't just rely on 'space magic' to bring everyone together.

I'm a personal fan of vast archaeo-tech psychic beacons would draw in Chaos/Daemons and 'nids, Ad Mech and Tau would want to investigate it, CWE need to manipulate the scenario to save Eldar lives, DE are drawn in like vultures because carnage is fun and Necrons would want to silence it.

I suppose Marine/IG vs Marine/IG is the tricky one.

Every campaign my group has run, there has been no specific reason why every Race and SM chapter has shown up. However, most of the time, players come up with their own reasons. It's nice because now the players are more invested and explains why Imperial Guard are fighting the Ultramarines.
Examples include:
BA looking for a cure to the Red Thirst.
Eldar using everyone as pawns.
Tyranids for that sweet sweet biomass.
Orks because Waaaaaaaargh!!!

The issue isn't so much that I can't think of plot hooks. It's that the improbably variety of factions usually involved or unintuitively at one another's throats sort of strains my suspension of disbelief.

You generally either end up with...
A.) Every campaign centering around one or two mcguffins that somehow manage to be of extreme interest to every faction under the sun (archaeo tech psychic beacons). Which seems a bit less feasible after each campaign (most stories in the lore focus on only a couple factions being drawn into a given conflict). Or...

B.) Every campaign centers around the sector where the eldar are manipulating the BA into seeking a cure for the thirst, which is actually just a ploy to stop the tyranids from eating the biomass of the local ork waaagh.


So I guess what I'm looking for is a different approach to campaigns, a different methodology, rather than raw plot hooks. Though those are some excellent plot hooks, guys.

@Ynneadwraith: We have a little bit of everything out here. Not much in the way of Tau, but plenty of orks, various flavors of marines, IG, daemons, eldar, etc.

Hmmm yeah, it's like trying to play smarter rather than playing harder.

I do like the idea of delegating the motivations thing to the players suddenly you just have to come up with the world and the missions, and they can sort out why they're there. Lets them build the narrative and motivations for their dudes over the course of successive campaigns. You can always help them a long a little with ideas if they're struggling

Well, when I was about 14-15 years old, the campaign me and my friends did handled the fact we had about 6 different people all playing different armies together in one campaign very simply.

First, we created a map of the continent the campaign was taking place on. By drawing a random shape on a piece of standard paper.

Then we divided that map up into a fairly significant number of different territories. By drawing lines dividing that shape up into smaller shapes inside itself.

Long story short, we basically made a custom version of Risk. It could in fact have been a direct ripoff of Risk as it would apply to Warhammer armies fighting a campaign.

Being an adult makes simple things so needlessly complicated, doesn't it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Hmmm yeah, it's like trying to play smarter rather than playing harder.

I do like the idea of delegating the motivations thing to the players suddenly you just have to come up with the world and the missions, and they can sort out why they're there. Lets them build the narrative and motivations for their dudes over the course of successive campaigns. You can always help them a long a little with ideas if they're struggling

Yup. Because no one wants their personal army's motivations for fighting a war to be dictated by anyone else, much less the person playing one of the armies they're fighting that war against.

Have you heard of the roleplaying taboo called "godmodding" by chance?

I was going to suggest something like what Pouncey said. Try a Dawn of War type of campaign. I would suggest trying something like this: have each player build an overarching Order of Battle, maybe ten to fifteen thousand points worth, that they can then draw on to make their lists for each engagement. Depending on how long you want the campaign.to continue, you can allow resupply, or add regional bonuses, like a hive spire that allows the lowest quality infantry that each faction can produce Without Number. It would require some balancing though, as you don't want an IK faction to get a new knight every turn.

Experience bonuses for heroes, HQs or surviving units might be a thing. Allowing the attacker to set the terms of the battle would help too, as forces get whittled down, it would allow for smaller things like kill team games to happen too.

As to your question, you can tailor the campaign for the factions that you could reasonably expect to play in it. Including a reason for orcs to be present doesn't make any sense if none are going to be represented, for example.

 carldooley wrote:
I was going to suggest something like what Pouncey said. Try a Dawn of War type of campaign. I would suggest trying something like this: have each player build an overarching Order of Battle, maybe ten to fifteen thousand points worth, that they can then draw on to make their lists for each engagement. Depending on how long you want the campaign.to continue, you can allow resupply, or add regional bonuses, like a hive spire that allows the lowest quality infantry that each faction can produce Without Number. It would require some balancing though, as you don't want an IK faction to get a new knight every turn.

Experience bonuses for heroes, HQs or surviving units might be a thing. Allowing the attacker to set the terms of the battle would help too, as forces get whittled down, it would allow for smaller things like kill team games to happen too.

As to your question, you can tailor the campaign for the factions that you could reasonably expect to play in it. Including a reason for orcs to be present doesn't make any sense if none are going to be represented, for example.

So basically like Risk, but with extra lore-related logistics and character progression features?

Doesn't Risk work just fine on its own to provide a complete, enjoyable game that you can feel comfortable copying its mechanics for the overarching story behind the game you actually want to play - WH40k tabletop - without adding extra stats and mechanics to balance on your own?