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Crusade is cool. I like Crusade. I just *don't* like the amount of negotiation/setup/record keeping that goes with it. And as cool as the battle honors/scars are, they're obviously a potential source of balance issues, especially once you've accumulated a few of them.

With that in mind, does anyone have a written-out system for narrative games that:

* Lends itself well to either pickup games or games with friends where you don't want to intimidate them with lots of extra work? Minimal new game rules/record keeping, basically.
* Doesn't necessarily come with an upgrade/level-up system? (So I don't have to make my opponent worried about whether my striking scorpions are normal scorpions or secretly anti-tank 4+ dev wound scorpions with lone op or whatever.)
* Basically just provides some sort of structure to help tell a story with a sense of continuity?

I essentially just want a tool to help make my games feel more fluffy or at least help me frame a story around my pickup game. Crusade kind of gets in its own way here because it requires a lot of prep work and buy-in from opponents and also can't really be slotted into a pickup game because some of the agenda rules dramatically change up the game in ways that opponents might not enjoy. Ex: There's an eldar agenda that just straight up causes an objective to be removed from the board.

So here's what I'd say:

Play any mission, but before you start the game, decide what each of the objectives actually is in terms of narrative. Then decide the consequences if team a gets it or if team b gets it. So it might be a piece of equipment; it might be a map that unlocks another mission, it might be a signal being sent for reinforcements.

Figure out WHERE the battle is being fought, and what are the consequences of winning/ losing. Does the battle represent a fight for a territory? A city? A continent? A planet? A system? What is the environment in which the battle exists? So if you're fighting for a city, how many cities are there on the continent, how many continents on the planet, how many planets in the system, how many systems in the sector? Can you get from one territory to the other, or are some territories only accessible via certain routes?

What's your army's goal? Are you trying to build something? Break something? Ally with someone? Eliminate someone?

I always thought the campaign systems for Ashes of Faith or Urban Conquest were decent and could be tweaked for 40k. Often, campaign materials are at least somewhat system agnostic.

I tend to set conditions for army growth- so my GSC is the prime example, and I've written about it here several times. I don't add anything to my escalation roster until we infect it, steal it or breed it. My Drukhari are similar; want specialized Wych units beyond basic Wyches? Win an arena territory, and they'll trip over themselves to join you. Fail to win an arena? Why should they bother?

I'd also say use the parts of Crusade that work for you and don't sweat the stuff you don't. Battle Honours might be too bad for balance or paper work with your group, but can you still use the Institution Infiltration rules to help tweak you missions so that they're mor than "Stand on the circle"?

Ever take a Risk board and fight 40k battles to take territories instead of playing risk? I have. Do you remember the WD with the deck of cards campaign? I'll look for it and get you the issue number- but suits represented different resources and numbers related to either the quantity of the resource, the difficulty of the battle or both... It's been a while.

I used to like combining Battlefleet Gothic, 40k and Kill Team... So a BFG planetary blockade could interfere with reinforcements in 40k battles, Kill Team fights could lead to special deployment rules in 40k, etc. Fight a 40k battle to defend a building for as many turns as you can: that tells you how many turns the Kill Team game taking place inside the building will last. Remember the Apocalypse book where they built an Ork Rock that could affect the planetside 40k game unless the marines could teleport into the Rock and take it out?

Still have your Planetary Empires hex-tiles? They were edition agnostic. And no, you don't need the official OOP GW tiles to do it.

Just do what you'd do to link the games in an RPG campaign.

Also: Crusade works by escalation, but attrition campaigns are cool too. In the former, start small and grow. In the latter, start HUGE, but what dies in a game is dead. So build a whole damn SM chapter and then tell all the non-SM players that's how many points they have to build a roster. Play games of whatever size.. But what dies stays dead.

Use the campaign map from Dawn of War: Soulstorm but then replace the battles with 40k games.

I made one up using 'Greathelm' and chess as inspiration. A 'map' the size of a A5 piece of paper. Equal size 'armies'. and then go at it.

In my one, more specifically, the defender has 8 Tactical Space Marines, the attacker has 8 ork beast snaggas. Each time a ork gets wiped, they can respawn.

Objective, see how long the Marines survive.

I'd say using missions from Crusade books (don’t even have to be from 10th) already helps to break up the sameyness of the games. Personally I liked to write my own scenarios that took inspiration from GW missions, but with 9th edition the GW Mission style got pretty bland ("this time the 6 circles you fight over are actually civilians you want to rescue").
So, take some inspiration from older GW products or even missions from other games and make up your own. Narrative not necessarily means campaign play all the time, it just gives a reason why your little soldiers are on the field and for you as a player to do some roleplaying.

 PenitentJake wrote:
So here's what I'd say:

Play any mission, but before you start the game, decide what each of the objectives actually is in terms of narrative. Then decide the consequences if team a gets it or if team b gets it. So it might be a piece of equipment; it might be a map that unlocks another mission, it might be a signal being sent for reinforcements.

Figure out WHERE the battle is being fought, and what are the consequences of winning/ losing. Does the battle represent a fight for a territory? A city? A continent? A planet? A system? What is the environment in which the battle exists? So if you're fighting for a city, how many cities are there on the continent, how many continents on the planet, how many planets in the system, how many systems in the sector? Can you get from one territory to the other, or are some territories only accessible via certain routes?

What's your army's goal? Are you trying to build something? Break something? Ally with someone? Eliminate someone?

See, I think this is the sort of thing I'm hoping the narrative system will provide. So that when I do a pick up game with an opponent, I'm not holding things up by pausing to try and retrofit a fluff explanation onto the rules. This is a smidge extra tricky for eldar as some of the default mission names/descriptions don't necessarily seem like they should apply to us. If we get the Hidden Supplies card, it begs the question of why eldar are interested in the same bolter shells some imperials are trying to secure, unless you frame it purely as a mission to deny getting those shells, etc.

I always thought the campaign systems for Ashes of Faith or Urban Conquest were decent and could be tweaked for 40k. Often, campaign materials are at least somewhat system agnostic.

I'm not familiar. How would I check those out?

I tend to set conditions for army growth- so my GSC is the prime example, and I've written about it here several times. I don't add anything to my escalation roster until we infect it, steal it or breed it. My Drukhari are similar; want specialized Wych units beyond basic Wyches? Win an arena territory, and they'll trip over themselves to join you. Fail to win an arena? Why should they bother?

I love this sort of idea. I even did something similar to this in 9th with the drukhari crusade rules, not letting myself add certain units until I'd secured corresponding territory in Commorragh, and then requiring I secure a second such territory if I wanted additional detachments of that unit type. (So my wych cult units from Arena A fight one way while my wych cults from Arena B fight a different way and thus have different obsessions/subfaction rules.)
That could be a lot of fun to do again with drukhari, even just in pickup games. Any suggestions for a system/guidelines for expanding that to something like my chaos forces or my craftworlders? Chaos can just be attracting allies/servants via prestige, I guess, but craftworlds typically send all the forces they need in one fell swoop. Maybe craftworlds lend themselves better to an attrition type thing where I start with a large roster of units and then whittle them down over time?

I'd also say use the parts of Crusade that work for you and don't sweat the stuff you don't. Battle Honours might be too bad for balance or paper work with your group, but can you still use the Institution Infiltration rules to help tweak you missions so that they're mor than "Stand on the circle"?

Solid advice.

Ever take a Risk board and fight 40k battles to take territories instead of playing risk? I have. Do you remember the WD with the deck of cards campaign? I'll look for it and get you the issue number- but suits represented different resources and numbers related to either the quantity of the resource, the difficulty of the battle or both... It's been a while.

That doesn't ring a bell, but it sounds awesome! Please let me know when you find the white dwarf number. (I *probably* have access to it if it's on the vault.)

I used to like combining Battlefleet Gothic, 40k and Kill Team... So a BFG planetary blockade could interfere with reinforcements in 40k battles, Kill Team fights could lead to special deployment rules in 40k, etc. Fight a 40k battle to defend a building for as many turns as you can: that tells you how many turns the Kill Team game taking place inside the building will last. Remember the Apocalypse book where they built an Ork Rock that could affect the planetside 40k game unless the marines could teleport into the Rock and take it out?

See, this sort of thing sounds cool, but it's also a ton of work and negotiation in advance. As a Dungeon Master, I already have too much prep work to do to take on more.

Still have your Planetary Empires hex-tiles? They were edition agnostic. And no, you don't need the official OOP GW tiles to do it.

Good call. I don't, but they'd be easy enough to make with some arts and crafts.

Also: Crusade works by escalation, but attrition campaigns are cool too. In the former, start small and grow. In the latter, start HUGE, but what dies in a game is dead. So build a whole damn SM chapter and then tell all the non-SM players that's how many points they have to build a roster. Play games of whatever size.. But what dies stays dead.

Totally. I've been kicking this idea around for a while, but it does kind of run into the same issues as normal Crusade. Still, if I don't mind ditching the battle honors/agendas, I could probably just use this as a guideline for unit selection. So my options become more limited over time, and I just see how long I can last before my force is unusable.

Thanks!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Orkeosaurus wrote:
Use the campaign map from Dawn of War: Soulstorm but then replace the battles with 40k games.

Not a bad idea. A simple way to provide some continuity. Could even have some simple rules tied to each region. I think my only real concern on this one is that my main armies are space elves, and space elves don't typically spend a lot of time fighting over territory.

Also, presumably to win that campaign I'd need a strongly positive win:loss ratio, right?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:
I made one up using 'Greathelm' and chess as inspiration. A 'map' the size of a A5 piece of paper. Equal size 'armies'. and then go at it.

In my one, more specifically, the defender has 8 Tactical Space Marines, the attacker has 8 ork beast snaggas. Each time a ork gets wiped, they can respawn.

Objective, see how long the Marines survive.

I think you may have lost me. Is this a system for narrative 40k games, or just a separate game entirely?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I'd say using missions from Crusade books (don’t even have to be from 10th) already helps to break up the sameyness of the games. Personally I liked to write my own scenarios that took inspiration from GW missions, but with 9th edition the GW Mission style got pretty bland ("this time the 6 circles you fight over are actually civilians you want to rescue").
So, take some inspiration from older GW products or even missions from other games and make up your own. Narrative not necessarily means campaign play all the time, it just gives a reason why your little soldiers are on the field and for you as a player to do some roleplaying.

This seems like solid advice. The thing that I've run into when considering doing crusade missions is that it feels like there ought to be some kind of secondary objectives or agendas so that we're not just meatgrinder-ing the primary objectives. But then, agendas can get pretty odd (see: the eldar one where an objective gets picked up off the table). My opponents tend to be chill though. I could probably talk them into doing some sort of crusade-inspired missions that are tweaked in some fashion.

I've also been contemplating trying out the 9th edition challenge missions from the chapter approved books.

I think the main thing I'm looking for is just something to frame a narrative around and create a sense of continuity. Be that through some sort of persistent unit selection rules or simple consequences for previous game outcomes, etc.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Orkeosaurus wrote:
Use the campaign map from Dawn of War: Soulstorm but then replace the battles with 40k games.

Not a bad idea. A simple way to provide some continuity. Could even have some simple rules tied to each region. I think my only real concern on this one is that my main armies are space elves, and space elves don't typically spend a lot of time fighting over territory.

Also, presumably to win that campaign I'd need a strongly positive win:loss ratio, right?

Well if the win condition was conquering the entire map like DoW single-player then yeah, you'd need a huge win ratio and you'd probably eliminate some of the other players early, which may not make for a good multiplayer game. It could be better to impose a "time limit" and then total points at the end based on the value of the different territories.

And yeah, Eldar and DE were both in Soulstorm but justifying them in a Risk-like conquest game could take some thinking. Maybe they're the patrons of some human faction who they need to dig for relics? And they battle to "defend" their lands from Imperial reconquest because that would prevent them from finding what they're looking for?

 Wyldhunt wrote:

See, I think this is the sort of thing I'm hoping the narrative system will provide. So that when I do a pick up game with an opponent, I'm not holding things up by pausing to try and retrofit a fluff explanation onto the rules. This is a smidge extra tricky for eldar as some of the default mission names/descriptions don't necessarily seem like they should apply to us. If we get the Hidden Supplies card, it begs the question of why eldar are interested in the same bolter shells some imperials are trying to secure, unless you frame it purely as a mission to deny getting those shells, etc.

So first off, THIS is exactly what Crusade attempts to do, but "not Crusade" was part of your requirements.

For example, Campaign Books (which in 10th ARE Crusade books) supply the "when" and give you a wide selection of "where" - usually in the form of 2-3 systems with 3-5 planets/ space stations/ trading posts, etc. If that's too restrictive, rules for generating systems are in the Tau dex, rules for generating planets can be found in the GSC and (I presume) the Nids dexes. And what's more, while all the terminology isn't universal between the dexes, some is, and what differs can be rationalized- so for example, if you generate a planet using Tau rules, you know it's diplomacy target and it's military target and it's "capture" reward... But then you can look up that planet type in the GSC dex to determine which planetary institutions are particularly prominent, and then you can look up the same planet type in the Nid dex to determine its resistance and biomass.

Do that, and your system will already be more detailed than ANY of the systems in the campaign books, which actually provide very little information about any of the planets that affects the game... Instead they provide "fluff" for those specific locations, which might give you ideas for terrain or whatever, but otherwise don't have any real, tangible game impact.

As for the "Why it's important," that's what agendas are all about, and most of them ARE written in a way that gets around that problem you mentioned with the Aeldari, for example, because they are not tied to victory points so they work regardless of what the actual mission objectives are. SO the last Boarding action game I played with my Drukhari, it wasn't even a Crusade game: we used a standard Boarding Action mission right out of the book. But I also pursued the Demonstrate Superiority agenda, so my Kabal, my Cults and my Coven all competed for the most kills. I didn't even have to inform my opponent I was doing it. Incidentally, all of my sub-factions achieved the same number of kills (1 each) so I ruled that the Coven won because a) they didn't take a single casualty and b) they swooped in on the major objective right at the end and ended up winning the game (just barely).

Which is why I say take another look at Crusade with the singular intent of mining the parts that work for you- I do think you'll be surprised how much you can use once you stop seeing it as all or nothing.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I always thought the campaign systems for Ashes of Faith or Urban Conquest were decent and could be tweaked for 40k. Often, campaign materials are at least somewhat system agnostic.

I'm not familiar. How would I check those out?

That's a tough one- it's the little paper book that came with the Ashes of the Faith Kill Team set that you need for the campaign- I took a look at the Goonhammer review, because they usually go into detail about specific rules, but this one was just an overview. Still worth a read for inspiration, but it's not enough to let you play. Urban Conquest is even harder because it's an 8th ed product.

https://www.goonhammer.com/ashes-of-faith-campaign-review
https://www.goonhammer.com/product-review-urban-conquest

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I love this sort of idea. I even did something similar to this in 9th with the drukhari crusade rules, not letting myself add certain units until I'd secured corresponding territory in Commorragh, and then requiring I secure a second such territory if I wanted additional detachments of that unit type. (So my wych cult units from Arena A fight one way while my wych cults from Arena B fight a different way and thus have different obsessions/subfaction rules.)

You and I think alike on Commorragh my friend. The two Boarding action games I've fought (and in fact, all of them that I will fight), my Ascendant Lord has been hired by Corsairs to track down information on the whereabouts of The Eye of Vect- a stealth ship that featured in the Blackstone Fortress game. In my first battle, we lost, but we got enough data that the Corsairs agreed to let us use a Razorwing in any Commorragh battles for Docks territories. In my second game, I won and we got so much data that the Corsairs are outright contributing a unit of Voidscarred to my order of battle for use as the Archon Sykil Draeven sees fit (within reason, of course).

I have two separate Wych Cults that duel each other in a custom arena... I've got the modular fighting surface built, but I want to build some spectator seating before I fight the battle. I will be posting a bunch of that stuff in a couple of places over the next week or so, along with information about the Commorragh component of the campaign. I actually laid out the 72 territories in the 9th dex into a 3d map of the splinter realm- it's called the fractured spiral. If I had any capacity at all to do 3d Digital modelling, I'd make a map that way, but I'm old school, so I'm looking at building a rough model out of cardboard.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

That could be a lot of fun to do again with drukhari, even just in pickup games. Any suggestions for a system/guidelines for expanding that to something like my chaos forces or my craftworlders? Chaos can just be attracting allies/servants via prestige, I guess, but craftworlds typically send all the forces they need in one fell swoop. Maybe craftworlds lend themselves better to an attrition type thing where I start with a large roster of units and then whittle them down over time?

I can tell you what I'm planning for my eldar and my chaos in broad strokes.

Eldar:

So I've got a Warlock who experiences a vision of such visceral power, that it pushes him further along the path of the Seer... And he begins the game as a green Farseer. In the vision, a Corsair Pirate named Veth Raiden steals a ship called the Eye of Vect from the Living Muse himself (sound familiar? Yes, the Aeldari Crusade IS on a collision course with the Drukhari Crusade). The seer doesn't know WHY the Eye of Vect is important to his craftworld, but it is... And what's more, he has foreseen that a great Court of the Young King army will be necessary to save/ capture the ship. Trouble is, his craftworld is small- it has many Aspect Shrines for Dire Avengers and Howling Banshees, but any other shrines that once existed have been lost to battle over the centuries. Fortunately, the Craftworld DOES have a TON of incredibly well travelled Rangers... Some know how to find Scorpions, Some know how to find Reapers and some know how to find Spiders.

Right now, my Farseer is green, so few if any trust his visions. He's convinced 5 Avengers and 5 Banshees to join his quest, and together they've found five Rangers and a Unit of Shroudrunners that know a webway portal that will get them to a Maiden World crawling with Scorpion shrines. The first battles will be Kill Team games where the Banshees and Avengers combine into a team to find Scorpion Shrine tokens (ie. replace x objectives in any mission with the little Scorpion statues, and while you use normal mission objectives and rules, THOSE objectives, if controlled by the Eldar are places where offerings can be left for the Scorpions. Leave X offerings, and the Scorpions will find you). Once the Scorpions join, they can join BOTH the Crusade roster AND the Kill Team. At that point, I'll figure out what the Scorpions need help with, and if my farseer's force helps them achieve it, a unit or two of Scorpions will agree to join us when we leave the planet to go make friends with the next Aspect.

With chaos, I'm starting with a Cult... Known as the Cult of Carnal Light. The leader fights with a needle pistol full of HIGHLY addictive psychosensory drugs, and he has a Renegade Psyker whose psychic attacks have the added effect of adding any suitable casualties of those attacks to the roster on a 4+ post game. Note: by suitable, I mean Battle Line guardsmen and the NPC faction I created to feed Cults... They are citizens of an Agriworld (farmpunk necromunda gangers) whose families are referred to as Thresher Houses.

So once the psyker and leader rack up 10 kills, I can add a unit of cultists. At the same time, there are Arcane Lore fragments kicking around. One set of lore reveals the location of a Soulforge lost in the vast tracts of farmland between the settlement and City territories where most of these games take place. Another sets detail the rituals to summon the various Slaanesh Daemon units that are in the EC dex. I say "set" because each piece of lore must be assembled from a variable number of fragments. These fragments, of course, replace objectives in standard missions. If the Chaos team assembles a complete piece of Lore, they can attempt a ritual mission to summon the unit in question... And YES, I am ignoring the rule about summoned Daemons being ineligible for XP, so any summoned Daemons WILL be added to the roster and WILL have access to Crusade content adapted from 9th.

Once the Cultists have summoned enough Daemons, they will of course act as a beacon that attracts followers of Slaanesh... Particularly the Emperor's Children.

Like I said, these are the broad strokes- individual rules will have to be developed to accommodate the kind of Chaos force I'm building, because it won't be strictly book legal- I hated GW's decision to cut Daemons out of Crusade, and I will not allow it to have an impact on any games where I'm free to do otherwise. I can always make a 10th ed legal army from the roster I build, but the roster WILL include things that can't be allowed to appear in an army together. The fact they're on the same roster means they ARE the same army... They just don't fight in all combinations. So the EC don't have access to cultists and Venomcrawlers? Fine. My pink Venomcrawler and pink-robed Cultists will only be fielded in armies that use the CSM dex.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Do you remember the WD with the deck of cards campaign? I'll look for it and get you the issue number- but suits represented different resources and numbers related to either the quantity of the resource, the difficulty of the battle or both... It's been a while.

That doesn't ring a bell, but it sounds awesome! Please let me know when you find the white dwarf number. (I *probably* have access to it if it's on the vault.)

I think I confused a couple of things... I do know that there have been playing-card things in WD, but what I was thinking about is actually from the Into the Dark campaign book for Kill Team- it's EASILY adapted to 40k, and unlike the Ashes of Faith or Urban Conquest rules, it's brief enough that I'll type up a version of it in my own words and post it in the rules section for anyone who wants to use with either 40k or KT. It really is system agnostic enough to be used for any map-based campaign, regardless of the system.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

I used to like combining Battlefleet Gothic, 40k and Kill Team... So a BFG planetary blockade could interfere with reinforcements in 40k battles, Kill Team fights could lead to special deployment rules in 40k, etc. Fight a 40k battle to defend a building for as many turns as you can: that tells you how many turns the Kill Team game taking place inside the building will last. Remember the Apocalypse book where they built an Ork Rock that could affect the planetside 40k game unless the marines could teleport into the Rock and take it out?

See, this sort of thing sounds cool, but it's also a ton of work and negotiation in advance. As a Dungeon Master, I already have too much prep work to do to take on more.

This is true. It is a lot of work, and a labour of love. I've been able to advance the Commorragh campaign using regular games so far, but eventually, the games that I need to advance the narrative will become more and more specialized. I will be putting up BOTH missions, house rules, bat reps and campaign resources as they're developed. I've been very, very slow to do it so far, but actually playing in the Boarding Action league is really inspiring me and moving things forward, so you will start to see stuff soon- starting with Commorragh, because that's where I'm at right now.

Definitely understand what you're after. I love a sense of story in my games, but really don't enjoy attempts to inject progression mechanics. I'm a bit of a fighting game player at heart and like my duels to start on even footing.

I think the key is definitely in spending time on terrain and bringing the battlefield to life. I've gotten far more into building out my terrain collection in the last year or two and does really help to apply the same ideas you use to give an army character to the maps you play on. Just like you'd give the captain model a name; name the game mat after a planet. There's good generic baseline terrain you can use, but like a good model, you can go a long way by adding details that give it story.

You can shake up different locations with different layouts generally as it makes sense for a planet to have multiple locations with similar archeture, but you can also create several sets of terrain to shake things up. If it's a barren map, you can decorate one layout with mining equipment while another might be overrun with Ork structures. You can also swap maps and design whole new planets.

Having good objective markers goes a long way as well. Finding something suitably generic but flavorful can be tough but having a vareity of options helps particularly if you design them around the features of the world you're telling the story around. Maybe that Genestealer cult mining map has uncovered some Necron relics that serve as the objectives. Now you've got a mining colony planet that's struggling with Ork raids while secretly working to summon their star deities unaware that their efforts are disturbing a long forgotten tomb.

Progression mechanics have never been what makes a good RPG; the main draw has always been the settings they take place in. The best fictional cities often do more to provide story telling opportunities than any amount of great characters. Build the stage and let the stories tell themselves.

You can swap stat progression for game progression, basically using the choose your own adventure style.

Build your story in dot points. Assign mission types to each dot point. Determine which previous dot point affects the selection of the next.

This also has new story dots attached, so you defeat the army at Mission 1, you now move to play Mission 3 as the attacker and the story beat changes to X.

Choose your own adventure using story fragments as nodes along the campaign is a way to build a story and create the narrative without having to worry about unit stat balance. The score is in the story told through those fragments until the final one shows how the campaign finished.

That's basically how I GM because the players are never going to follow your railroad, so having nodes floating around that connect by player action gives agency without a sense of rails.