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Toeko wrote:I don't know if it has been mentioned here or not, I did a very quick skim through and then jumped strait to a reply.

Why don't we, as in all Dakkaites, create a Campaign online.

have a group work on a setting for it and then some basic rules.

like each player can only report once a week, A battle report must be filed with the report.

this way even if they didn't actually play they are still putting effort into it.

I think it could be of great success.

Sounds like a cool idea
Perhaps each campaign could run for a diffrent game system each summer?
Possibly chalk it up to a vote on which system will be used this summer so we know what to start with?




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Kanluwen wrote:Frankly:
Doing any kind of lengthy, story-driven campaign with tallied results, etc is going to burn out even the most dedicated fans quickly. It will burn out damned near everyone quickly working on it to catch and iron out any snafus that crop up.

The best bet for any kind of fan driven campaign isn't to do anything remotely like the GW campaigns.
The best way to do it is, quite simply, a 'campaign pack'. Design the scenarios, a flow chart showing how X win by Y faction equals Z result. Things like that.

The issue though would be that, there would be no point and no interest if its just "kill group A to get planet Z", you might as well just play a normal game
Without some kind of context that makes you want to bother to get involved in the first place, the entire concept falls apart

FITZZ wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Ideally, it would take place in a smaller, less documented system (perhaps even a DIY one). Not only would that have less problems conflicting with current canon, but it would also encourage more DIY characters and fluff.

Agreed, a war fought in some obscure system over an objective (or several objectives) large enough to justify the interest of multiple factions/armies,but not something "HUGE" would be my line of thought as well.

Such as a chapter of loyalist marines known for their disturbing depravities in a system known to be rife with alien life being disgraced by the Inquisition and being delcared excommunicate, causing a massive destabilization of the system that starts a multi-faceted war between Xenos vying for control of a system, the Imperium fighting to destroy the now-renegade chapter, and the chapter themselves fighting to survive and show that they are still loyal to the Emperor...

...But maybe I'm just reciting what I intend for my Chapter's fluff a bit too loudly...

Still, a small, isolated event of similar scope would work wonders.

@ Kan.

When GW did the EoT campaign,they were compiling data on a daily basis and having to update it constantly as well...over dozens of systems,involving hundreds if not thousands of players.
If the proposed campaign involves a smaller scale and alters some of the mechanics GW utilized it's possible to eleviate some of the possible snags.

Toeko wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Frankly:
Doing any kind of lengthy, story-driven campaign with tallied results, etc is going to burn out even the most dedicated fans quickly. It will burn out damned near everyone quickly working on it to catch and iron out any snafus that crop up.

The best bet for any kind of fan driven campaign isn't to do anything remotely like the GW campaigns.
The best way to do it is, quite simply, a 'campaign pack'. Design the scenarios, a flow chart showing how X win by Y faction equals Z result. Things like that.

I agree with you but I feel it can be more involved. GW had a decent concept but I just feel it was done wrong


If we created our own "system" we would be able to progress a story line in thus said system and more or less have creative control of it.

That's...pretty much what I'm advocating, just with less emphasis on the people designing the campaigns needing to constantly tweak things every month.

Have months A-D=people play campaign set 1 and report their overall, endgame results over that timeframe.
It gives the people who are doing the heavy lifting, collating results, etc, time to look at how it's proceeding and see what needs to be tweaked and set up for month G's release of
campaign set 2: campaign strikes harder.
A three month lead-in for the behind the scenes crew isn't, in my opinion, too much to ask especially if they can make it work for 4 months of enjoyment for everyone else don't you think?

FITZZ wrote:

Fafnir wrote:Ideally, it would take place in a smaller, less documented system (perhaps even a DIY one). Not only would that have less problems conflicting with current canon, but it would also encourage more DIY characters and fluff.

Agreed, a war fought in some obscure system over an objective (or several objectives) large enough to justify the interest of multiple factions/armies,but not something "HUGE" would be my line of thought as well.

quoted for truth.

this statement is my sentiment exactly.

Yeah...I don't think it's really necessary for every army to be involved in the actual storyline.

Can forces be substituted and rewritten based upon your local make-up? Sure. But otherwise, it just kind of feels like shoehorning.


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Asuron wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Frankly:
Doing any kind of lengthy, story-driven campaign with tallied results, etc is going to burn out even the most dedicated fans quickly. It will burn out damned near everyone quickly working on it to catch and iron out any snafus that crop up.

The best bet for any kind of fan driven campaign isn't to do anything remotely like the GW campaigns.
The best way to do it is, quite simply, a 'campaign pack'. Design the scenarios, a flow chart showing how X win by Y faction equals Z result. Things like that.

The issue though would be that, there would be no point and no interest if its just "kill group A to get planet Z", you might as well just play a normal game
Without some kind of context that makes you want to bother to get involved in the first place, the entire concept falls apart

You do realize that even a normal game can be adapted to a campaign game if you actually spend more than 5 minutes and write up a backstory, yeah?

The flow chart wouldn't be something the average player sees. It'd be something the people designing and managing the campaign would see.

Best thing is we can make the Campaign centered around space marines and say Eldar. . . but because of 40k every race could jump in, Chaos warbands, small ork waaghs etc.

not every faction in this campaign has to have the potential to break the galaxy.

i also like Kanluwen's idea.

it keeps it simple but still allows enough room for creativity


either way I'll check back on the thread tomorrow. This weekend we can start to officiate this and see if we can get Dakka support.

FITZZ
Kanluwen
Fafnir
I take it us 4 can start putting something together, like a small "test" and run it in a controlled setting and see how it goes.

Although I would say, if a flow chart system was used, don't actually reveal the chart to the populace. That way, things feel less predetermined.

Honestly, the way I'd do it, at least in terms of what armies are involved, is the same way that Forge World has described how you can do their campaigns.

It's designed to be an "in-depth account of a specific campaign, detailing specific forces that were used during the course of that campaign". But, there's nothing to stop you from adjusting minor details like the planets and armies involved.

Kanluwen wrote:Honestly, the way I'd do it, at least in terms of what armies are involved, is the same way that Forge World has described how you can do their campaigns.

It's designed to be an "in-depth account of a specific campaign, detailing specific forces that were used during the course of that campaign". But, there's nothing to stop you from adjusting minor details like the planets and armies involved.

The thing is it would be unfair to exclude people simply due to the fact that they don't have access to an army that is involved in a specific campaign.
If a "Fan Campaign" were to begin,I would hope provisions would be made to make it inclusive to everyone interested...
...I realize that may be difficult in terms of "story",but it would seem to me the "fair" thing to do.

FITZZ wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Honestly, the way I'd do it, at least in terms of what armies are involved, is the same way that Forge World has described how you can do their campaigns.

It's designed to be an "in-depth account of a specific campaign, detailing specific forces that were used during the course of that campaign". But, there's nothing to stop you from adjusting minor details like the planets and armies involved.

The thing is it would be unfair to exclude people simply due to the fact that they don't have access to an army that is involved in a specific campaign.
If a "Fan Campaign" were to begin,I would hope provisions would be made to make it inclusive to everyone interested...
...I realize that may be difficult in terms of "story",but it would seem to me the "fair" thing to do.

Yeah, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty of it?

There's not much that can be done with certain armies.

Tau, for example, are found nowhere outside of the Eastern Fringe. They just haven't spread out that far.
By that same measure, Chaos forces aren't found within the Eastern Fringe. There's no real way for them to sustain their forces or operate the way they do elsewhere, like around the Maelstrom and the Eye of Terror.
Necrons aren't going to be found anywhere there's no Tomb Worlds, because they're almost exclusively involved in defensive operations with that part in mind--or in snatches for operations that are so far beyond the pale that it's impossible to really build a storyline for.

As Medusa V, in my opinion proved, you can either have story or fairness.
Eye of Terror worked well because it was a multi-fronted campaign, but it also suffered from a lack of specific narrative because of the wide scope it encompassed.

You could always set it on a world that has just fallen to chaos rebellion, summoned a giant daemon and thus creating a warp portal for CSM to come through.

Then plonk the planet in the Eastern Fringe nice and close to some Tau colonies, a Tomb planet, a 'Nid splinter fleet and a few Imperial worlds (possibly also a shrine world if you want to get some SoB action ).

Then the Eldar and Emo-er Eldar can show up because they are mysterious and like to spoil the party.

The Imperials want to close down the daemon and stop the rebellion, the 'Nids want to eat everything, the Tau want to stop things spreading to their colonies, the CSM want to cement a foothold so they can push outwards, the Necrons get annoyed at all this life going on near their tomb planet and the Eldar just want to screw with the path of destiny.

Edit: And of course the planet is in the path of an Ork Waaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggghhh!

Kanluwen wrote:

FITZZ wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Honestly, the way I'd do it, at least in terms of what armies are involved, is the same way that Forge World has described how you can do their campaigns.

It's designed to be an "in-depth account of a specific campaign, detailing specific forces that were used during the course of that campaign". But, there's nothing to stop you from adjusting minor details like the planets and armies involved.

The thing is it would be unfair to exclude people simply due to the fact that they don't have access to an army that is involved in a specific campaign.
If a "Fan Campaign" were to begin,I would hope provisions would be made to make it inclusive to everyone interested...
...I realize that may be difficult in terms of "story",but it would seem to me the "fair" thing to do.

Yeah, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty of it?

There's not much that can be done with certain armies.

Tau, for example, are found nowhere outside of the Eastern Fringe. They just haven't spread out that far.
By that same measure, Chaos forces aren't found within the Eastern Fringe. There's no real way for them to sustain their forces or operate the way they do elsewhere, like around the Maelstrom and the Eye of Terror.
Necrons aren't going to be found anywhere there's no Tomb Worlds, because they're almost exclusively involved in defensive operations with that part in mind--or in snatches for operations that are so far beyond the pale that it's impossible to really build a storyline for.

As Medusa V, in my opinion proved, you can either have story or fairness.
Eye of Terror worked well because it was a multi-fronted campaign, but it also suffered from a lack of specific narrative because of the wide scope it encompassed.

See the beauty of creating your own campaign, is that anyone can be there for whatever reason you want
It could be that necrons were already on a world in the system and were awoken
It could be near the Eastern fringe so Tau can participate
You could have Chaos forces summoned to a planet by stranded Chaos cultists
The list is endless my friend=)

Naturally plot coherency will have to be taken into account, but I'm sure that bridge will be crossed when we get there

Asuron wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

FITZZ wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Honestly, the way I'd do it, at least in terms of what armies are involved, is the same way that Forge World has described how you can do their campaigns.

It's designed to be an "in-depth account of a specific campaign, detailing specific forces that were used during the course of that campaign". But, there's nothing to stop you from adjusting minor details like the planets and armies involved.

The thing is it would be unfair to exclude people simply due to the fact that they don't have access to an army that is involved in a specific campaign.
If a "Fan Campaign" were to begin,I would hope provisions would be made to make it inclusive to everyone interested...
...I realize that may be difficult in terms of "story",but it would seem to me the "fair" thing to do.

Yeah, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty of it?

There's not much that can be done with certain armies.

Tau, for example, are found nowhere outside of the Eastern Fringe. They just haven't spread out that far.
By that same measure, Chaos forces aren't found within the Eastern Fringe. There's no real way for them to sustain their forces or operate the way they do elsewhere, like around the Maelstrom and the Eye of Terror.
Necrons aren't going to be found anywhere there's no Tomb Worlds, because they're almost exclusively involved in defensive operations with that part in mind--or in snatches for operations that are so far beyond the pale that it's impossible to really build a storyline for.

As Medusa V, in my opinion proved, you can either have story or fairness.
Eye of Terror worked well because it was a multi-fronted campaign, but it also suffered from a lack of specific narrative because of the wide scope it encompassed.

See the beauty of creating your own campaign, is that anyone can be there for whatever reason you want
It could be that necrons were already on a world in the system and were awoken
It could be near the Eastern fringe so Tau can participate
You could have Chaos forces summoned to a planet by stranded Chaos cultists
The list is endless my friend=)

Naturally plot coherency will have to be taken into account, but I'm sure that bridge will be crossed when we get there

What "plot coherency" is there in the scenarios you just mentioned?

That's a perfect example of just trying to shoehorn everything in under the guise of 'fairness'.

The only armies that are restriceted by geography are the Tau and the Tyranids. Pretty much anything else can be wherever they want to be.

The problem you run into when limiting armies is that you limit who can play. I'd rather shoehorn in every army, or at least allow them to participate, rather than just not allow people to play.

The other way to to do it would be to make the objective of the campaign controlling multiple Macguffins across the galaxy. So you can fight in multiple theaters, but still have a unified goal.

And let's change it up, instead of it being bad guys attacking hte imperium, let's flip it.

let's say that the Ordo malleus has discovered a series of five warp amplifiers, that if simultaneously controlled will increase the power of astronomicon, making warp travel safer, faster, and extending the reach of the Imperium ino the halo stars. Obviously this is a threat to all of the other factions, and either by design or accident (hey, the grey knights are attacking our planet) they fight to prevent the aquisition of those shards.

We can then create five different theaters, each of which allows different armies to participate, and have different starting and ending states. Maybe have an imperial world near the eye of terror have one of them. And a tau world. And an Eldar Maiden world. A dead world in deep space. And a world that recently fell to chaos cultists.

One advantage is that you can create situations where you can justify all kinds of things, like IG fighting for disorder (chaos guard or just rebels).

Ideally, we'd also write up "Expeditionary forces" army lists for every army book that's theater limited. So while Wolves might only be able to fight in their theaters, they can send campaign armies to fight elsewhere using the new rules. Same with Tau, Nids, Chaos, etc.




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I mean, if we're going to create a campaign, let's go nuts. New lists, new special characters, new units. Come up with Legion rules, Craftworld rules.

We've got some serious tournament players, so we can get a feel for what codices need added power in their lists, which can just be fun, and which might just need some new options.

In addition, new Grey Knights are coming by the summer, so they'll make neat protaganists.

In my view, we can take a midlevel book like eldar, and come up with either EoT style lists, or just modern army changing SCs that add some new abilities to old concepts.

So, create a Biel Tan exarch that allows a unit of aspects as troops, gives all aspects a LD re-roll while he's on the table, and gives all aspects preferred enemy. Suddenly aspect waves become hard hitting, nasty forces full of elite troops.

Or create an IW Warsmith that gives dreadnoughts the "venerable" rule, gives all CSM Tankhunters, and can take a unit of Oblits as an elite choice. Give him a cool long range gun and decent HtH, and that's fun list.

Or a new Tau Shas'O that gives Fire Warriors a free networked markerlight hit per turn, and gives all Tau the ability re-roll all morale, pass or fail.

I suppose the other option would be to do what FW have done with the latest IA books - find a really old, obscure reference that was never expanded upon (so, something that has already happened in the history of 40k) and then make our own conclusion.

There are loads of quite cool sounding old quotes in some of the older 40k rule books which are really enigmatic, one of those could have been used for example.

If you want to run a campaign, I would suggest several loosely linked campaigns involving different groups of factions.

For example, I think most people will agree that the Tyranid, Necron and Tau codexes are far from top tier compared with SMs and IG, so it wouldn't be fair to lump them in together. Make one campaign involving IG, SMs (including variants) Orks and both flavours of Eldar.

The other campaign involves SoBs, Tyranids, Necrons and Tau with a limited number of SM and IG allowed.

This arrangement also justifies spatial division between the two campaigns.

Polonius wrote:The only armies that are restriceted by geography are the Tau and the Tyranids. Pretty much anything else can be wherever they want to be.

Tyranids aren't limited, actually. Chaos is, however, at least when it comes to the forces of the Traitor Astartes and Daemons.

So pretty much, Chaos is.

The problem you run into when limiting armies is that you limit who can play. I'd rather shoehorn in every army, or at least allow them to participate, rather than just not allow people to play.

Which is why it's far easier to just have a framework in place for a "counts-as" campaign for those forces that aren't directly involved in the main storyline.

The other way to to do it would be to make the objective of the campaign controlling multiple Macguffins across the galaxy. So you can fight in multiple theaters, but still have a unified goal.

You'd need objectives for each individual faction to work from in that case, because there's only one force that can effectively, fluffily fight in multiple theaters and have any semblance of a unified goal.

The Imperium.

And let's change it up, instead of it being bad guys attacking the Imperium, let's flip it.

And get the Xenos players crying that "Why does everything have to focus on the Imperium!"

let's say that the Ordo malleus has discovered a series of five warp amplifiers, that if simultaneously controlled will increase the power of astronomicon, making warp travel safer, faster, and extending the reach of the Imperium into the Halo Stars. Obviously this is a threat to all of the other factions, and either by design or accident (hey, the grey knights are attacking our planet) they fight to prevent the acquisition of those shards.

We can then create five different theaters, each of which allows different armies to participate, and have different starting and ending states. Maybe have an imperial world near the eye of terror have one of them. And a tau world. And an Eldar Maiden world. A dead world in deep space. And a world that recently fell to chaos cultists.

So basically, it's just a conveniently never beforeseen amazing artifact that will improve the Imperium? It feels shoehorned in. It really does.

One advantage is that you can create situations where you can justify all kinds of things, like IG fighting for disorder (chaos guard or just rebels).

You don't need a "world recently fell to Chaos Cultists" in order to have Chaos Guard or Rebels.
There's two main areas that have huge amounts of traitor guard activity--The Maelstrom(a hiding place for the Red Corsairs and the scum they attract) and the Eye of Terror(self-evident as to why that one works). And that's discounting the Tau Gue'vasa.

Ideally, we'd also write up "Expeditionary forces" army lists for every army book that's theater limited. So while Wolves might only be able to fight in their theaters, they can send campaign armies to fight elsewhere using the new rules. Same with Tau, Nids, Chaos, etc.

Tau, Chaos, and Necrons are really the only forces that would effectively be 'limited'.
Tau aren't limited just "because". They have willingly halted their progression since the Third Sphere Expansion. Why? We don't know, but it might have something to do with the fact that they effectively lack intergalactic travel capabilities. Their ships utilize the Warp, to an extent, but only as "short hops" rather than extended trips that actually would allow them to fully expand. Add to it that they're seemingly wary of things they don't comprehend and experimenting with it bit by bit, it's a rather effective explanation as to why they're confined to the Tau Empire within the Eastern Fringe.
Necrons are, like Tau, limited by their own choice. They occasionally launch raids/assaults, but usually with some kind of reasoning behind it(reclaiming stolen artifacts, culling Blanks, etc).
Chaos is effectively limited by how well they can maintain a stable connection to the Warp. Even the best enacted rituals lose their focus and power on the Eastern Fringe.

Why would you have the Loyalist Astartes limited to one particular area? Those buggers get everywhere, they effectively pick and choose where to deploy their forces.
They don't need an "expeditionary force". Nor do the Tau really have the capability to have an "expeditionary force" that would travel beyond the Eastern Fringe, etc.

I mean, if we're going to create a campaign, let's go nuts. New lists, new special characters, new units. Come up with Legion rules, Craftworld rules.

We've got some serious tournament players, so we can get a feel for what codices need added power in their lists, which can just be fun, and which might just need some new options.

I mean this as nicely as possible, but...
Screw the tournament players. I don't want them within a mile of any campaign system I'm working on. Too many of them are powergamers, and campaigns are about fun not just winning and tabling your opponents.

It's the storyline and the fun that you can have while playing through that storyline.

In addition, new Grey Knights are coming by the summer, so they'll make neat protagonists.

In my view, we can take a midlevel book like eldar, and come up with either EoT style lists, or just modern army changing SCs that add some new abilities to old concepts.

So, create a Biel Tan exarch that allows a unit of aspects as troops, gives all aspects a LD re-roll while he's on the table, and gives all aspects preferred enemy. Suddenly aspect waves become hard hitting, nasty forces full of elite troops.

Or create an IW Warsmith that gives dreadnoughts the "venerable" rule, gives all CSM Tankhunters, and can take a unit of Oblits as an elite choice. Give him a cool long range gun and decent HtH, and that's fun list.

Or a new Tau Shas'O that gives Fire Warriors a free networked markerlight hit per turn, and gives all Tau the ability re-roll all morale, pass or fail.

I'm hesitant to really delve into special characters, just because you'll get the inevitable slew of people here asking "Is this guy legal to put into my army?"--even if we explicitly make it clear from the outset that no, he's not legal to put into an army outside of this campaign setup.

I see your point about shoehorning in as many factions as possible, but having as many people playing is what makes global campaigns fun.

If we wanted to be really story driven and fluffy, we'd have IG players fight ork players for six months, and then announce that the Space marines arrived and the Imperium won.

Just like 40k is more about abstract combat than it is about simulating combat, so too should a 40k campaign be looser and more ridiculous than a rigorous recreation of the North African campaign.

As for most of your comments, most seem to boil down to "Here's a reason some people might not like your ideas, so we shouldn't do it." I mean, some ideas are good and some are bad, but IMO a good global campaign should prevent as few people as possible from participating (by allowing more armies and styles of play), even if that means a smaller percentage choose to participate (because they don't like the story line or special characters).

In other words, I'd rather have 70% of all gamers than 100% of Ork and Nid players.

Another possiblity, that might be simpler, is to pair off codices (or create small groups) and run several campaigns simultaneously.

One of the cool parts of doing a full service campaign is that it could allow people to really field some fun stuff in games that have some meaing. 13th company, Legions, genestealer cults... we can go nuts.

You're fixated on this idea of a "global campaign" so that every race at once can be done with minimalistic effort on the part of the players working on their background can get involved, much like how GW's were ran.

That's not necessarily the 'best' way to do it. A well-run campaign is like a well-run D&D campaign.

With a good group of minds running it and the players actively participating in their own background material, etc--it can be a gorgeous and glorious thing.

As for the IG/Orks example--a story driven and fluffy campaign doesn't need to be a "recreation of the North African campaign".

I'm not saying a global campaign is better than an intimate campaign. I'm saying I want to run a global campaign, so I dont' care which is better.

This is a thread about GW global campaigns, so when we starting talking about running a campaign, I just sort of assumed that's what we'd do.

I'm also mostly brainstorming at this point. Maybe nobody wants to recreate those days. Personally, I like the idea of building a world, creating new army types, new heroes and villians, and giving the campaing some heft and stakes without altering the current background.

No reason you can't do that for an intimate campaign, don't you think?

I'm really not sure what you're trying to do here. I get that you don't like the idea of a community run global campaign. I guess you won't be helping out, but if other people are interested in trying it, I'd like to give it a shot.

That said, would there be any interest in trying to run something similar? Could we use dakka for reporting and the like?

You could run the campaign in the Campaigns forum, that's what it's there for.

Polonius wrote:I'm really not sure what you're trying to do here. I get that you don't like the idea of a community run global campaign. I guess you won't be helping out, but if other people are interested in trying it, I'd like to give it a shot.

No, that's not it at all.
I don't like global campaigns when they're done in such a way as to try to shoehorn in every army all at once.
As I said:
A good campaign is going to end up like a good D&D game. You're not going to feasibly have every single monster in a single sitting.

If you do have that, what you end up with almost every time is a poorly structured, poorly ran mess that goes off on every conceivable tangent.

For a first-time all volunteer, community ran project? I think it's far too ambitious to do that right from the starting gate.
GW did a piss-poor job of the exact kind of setup you're espousing with the Medusa V campaign, and they have far more experience(arguably ) in organizing and planning these kinds of things than the community most likely has.

Polonius wrote:That said, would there be any interest in trying to run something similar?

I'm about ten steps ahead of you, and have about a paragraph worth of introductory material saved on my flashdrive

Jumping ahead a page to get in here,

I'd love to help run a camapain, I've got hardly any players nere me so I could help with fluff/ settings and coralating results

I ultimately had to kill a long (over a year) project to develop and run an online campaign website for DP9. It was a tough decision, but ultimately there just wasn't enough 'value' to either the players or the company to justify working on it. Plus I went through a lot that year... Moving, renovations, some personal stuff, etc.

Anyway, one of the first things learned was that we wanted to favor 'stories' over 'data.' Collecting data has some issues, as it lets the designers look at trends and see who plays what, what armies are more reliable winners, etc.

We decided to favor 'stories' as we didn't want to treat our player base like children. No matter how it's sold ("The galaxy will live or die at your hands!") no one really expects big changes based off the whim of the player base. We wouldn't expect the CEF to be completely wiped out and have to rewrite future books with this gap, and tell CEF players to find another army. It's just not a fun way to go for anyone.

So based on this, I decided to focus on 'stories'. Had a couple good conversations with John Buckmaster, who sued to post here, that definitely made me feel this was a good decision. It's an idea I'll keep around in case it makes sense in the future.

I wasn't happy about ending this project, although it was the right decision. I've got some ideas saved that I'd like to reuse for other future projects, but that's another story.

@Polonius: If you do plan to run a campain and need help with it just give me a heads up and I'll do what I can to help. Running a campain is something I'd like to do, but just don't have the players in my local area to do one. So helping with an online one sounds like the perfect chance here

A good way to do a campaign is to use a system. Then each country or region would fight on different planets. I/E I live in the US, my planet would be x, I live in Canada, my planet would be y, I live in Australia, my planet would be z. etc.etc.) There are some great system maps over at the FF sight, pertaining to Rogue Trader, and the other RPG books.

Use the system your given, then continue to embellish the particulars, depending on your country. The central location for each region would have to develop the scenarios, the setting, then people in individual stores added to it with thier contribution, from just fighting a basic one on one game of A vs B, to a multiplayer fight of a game of BFG, over the region in question, then to fight games of planet strike to fight over the different regions of space, to get you to different planets, sort of how they do it in DOW.

Just a variation of a theme, but it works if everyone wants in. You can use a small contribution from the players for a goal prize. such as a special character, or a unit box, from when you place objective markers out there, and you get to win something, from either points of units, or from a special character, to something as small as an objective piece, that gives you a special ability through out the campaign, from the City of Death book, or the Planetstrike stuff. ( A 40mm base with a radio or a box on it for a one free off post orbital bombardment, or a weapons upgrade, from the unit options in the armies codex.

Basic thing to do is to get players in your area on board with the setting, then play a few games, map base it, and continue to embellish the campaign setting, with things like special units, to special characters, to particular objectives in your area. ( maybe a holy relic, or a chaos alter, or something like a warp gate.) The thing of it is that those in the campaign call the shots, and the area and setting is loose enough for stores to involve players in a reason to fight it out over thier planet or system.

You start the game with a couple of basic squads and a HQ. then continue to ladder the armies up and continue to fight with your units over the course of the campaign over the objectives on the worlds or planet areas in question.

( I'm fighting on X world, it's a jungle world with a ruined city, a small settlement of humans, eldar, tau, etc. And they have a couple of terraign objectives, such as a swamp area, a desert, or a mountain chain that has X Y and Z on it.) Then run with it withg a map, give everyone a copy of the map, and fill it in as the battles continue.
If you want to use the Mighty empires tiles, or a grid square on a real map, thats on you, but that you are all fighting over the same stuff, and everyone's on board, thats the thing.

Kanluwen wrote:[No, that's not it at all.
I don't like global campaigns when they're done in such a way as to try to shoehorn in every army all at once.
As I said:
A good campaign is going to end up like a good D&D game. You're not going to feasibly have every single monster in a single sitting.

If you do have that, what you end up with almost every time is a poorly structured, poorly ran mess that goes off on every conceivable tangent.

For a first-time all volunteer, community ran project? I think it's far too ambitious to do that right from the starting gate.
GW did a piss-poor job of the exact kind of setup you're espousing with the Medusa V campaign, and they have far more experience(arguably ) in organizing and planning these kinds of things than the community most likely has.

I'm going to address a few concerns, and then step away, because it seems that you have very different expectations for a global campaign than I do. As I've stated, I'm willing to tolerate a little more shoehorning to allow for more players. in addiiton, when you restrict the armies, you not only reduce who can play in the campaign, but against whom they can play. So if you have a club with 6 guys, and our campaign uses four armies, only players of those four armies can really participate.

In addition, nearly every imperial player can participate in nearly every campaign. It seems awkward to not allow any space marines at all, for example.

I think that a long running campaign between, say, black templars and tyranids would be awesome.... for those people that play one of the two armies and have an opponent to play against.

As for Medusa V, that was ridiculous in that it put every faction on a single planet. Would I described would have multiple theaters scattered through the galaxy for a united purpose. It's not an epic, earth shattering event, but it's big enough that nearly all enemies of the Imperium would be interested in preventing it from occuring. Like it or not, the IoM is the prime mover of the 40k universe.

So, what I'd like to do would be to create multiple "theaters" for players to chose from. If both armies can be played in that theater, than you can post the results to that theater. If the two armies never share a theater, or the players can't agree to one, than they can just play a "support" game, to represent the actions that go on other fronts. The idea being, if the IoM is taking a beating outside of the set theaters, than they're less likely to succeed, and vice versa.

As for being ambitious, yeah, it sure is. And it probably won't get off the ground. But it would be neat to see we could come up with.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Balance wrote:We decided to favor 'stories' as we didn't want to treat our player base like children. No matter how it's sold ("The galaxy will live or die at your hands!") no one really expects big changes based off the whim of the player base. We wouldn't expect the CEF to be completely wiped out and have to rewrite future books with this gap, and tell CEF players to find another army. It's just not a fun way to go for anyone.

So based on this, I decided to focus on 'stories'. Had a couple good conversations with John Buckmaster, who sued to post here, that definitely made me feel this was a good decision. It's an idea I'll keep around in case it makes sense in the future.

that's a cool idea, and one that might be overlooked: using a global online campaign to foster long running linked games within clubs.

If you've got a regular opponent, or a small group, you could play a ton of games in theater, and report the results in a report of an offense. So, maybe a Space Marine and IG player regularly play againt Chaos and Orks, and play a dozen games using some simple linked campaign rules. They then submit the results, and a narrative. It'd be kind of cool.

I figured that we'd get some interesting stuff, so one option for reports was to hide all the 'Batrep' numbers and such (what army did each side play, how many points, etc.) and just go the text entry. Of course, to do it right I'd need robust text entry with images, rich text, etc. However, the idea was that some people would use this for either standard fiction, fiction in the form of 'reports form war reporters', letters home, etc.

The basic realization were that numbers were fundamentally dishonest. Players had no incentive not to fake them (since we couldn't expect to not catch them, in quantity) and the company wasn't going to use them to shape the world... But stories could be used, at least a bit. if John Doe wrote some neat point-of-view fiction,t hen immortalizing his character in official canon was a reward for everyone.

I'ms till looking at these. If I could get some solid dev time I think i might be able to set up Drupal (and some mods) to allow a lot of the features I wanted in a form that is a bit more useful. I think there might also be a way to easily provide a tool for clubs to do bracket-style tourneys easily... If only I had time to mess witht hat stuff instead of my day job. :(

Oh, another idea I was using was that the campaign was split into 'stages' (representing time periods... A stage could be a day, a week... whatever) and each stage had a list of 'interesting' matchups for the stage. You could get a list of the matchups, or it would suggest them (To use GW, if you put in 'Space Marines' it might point otu that there's neat stuff for fights against Chaos and Tau int his 'stage.') The interesting amtchups would have atatched abckground, scenarios, trial unit rules ("For this scenario, this special character/unit is available"), etc.

Polonius, what I'm advocating isn't just "Here are the rules, sorry Tau player YOU CAN'T PLAY!".

I'm also not saying "Screw you global campaigns, I'm only gonna play with my local guys and the rest can go to hell!".

I'm saying that by far, the best idea I can come up with, is simply a vaguely generic historical campaign.
We come up with an overall background for why/who was involved for the 'canon' timeline of the campaign.
We gradually build up results from players who are using those 'canon' forces and advance our timeline of the campaign and how it played from there.

Are we precluding some folks who aren't using those canon folks? Not really. There's nothing to stop them from using this as the basis for their own campaigns later on.

I'm not saying we need to have this thing so incredibly in-depth that it reads like a history book. It needs to be more like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, with the decisions available and where your forces are fighting being slightly affected by what army you're using.