Campaign games - Crowd-sourcing opinions

[Tom]

My brain is back to half-baked musings on campaign systems and how to come up with the ideal one.

Trying to think of some magical idealised system that would allow people to drop in and out at will and not require much central book keeping and provides a fun relatively balanced game no matter how new or established your opponent is and other such magical unicorn impossibilities.

I'm at the moment thinking what do people centrally want from a campaign?

- Something that goes on forever or has a set end?
- Obviously people like to develop their guys but should it be continual improvement or reaching some kind of plateau?
- Everyone in the band is a personality or concentrate on a few 'heroes' with less well developed support?

I don't know, I'm rambling. Ramble back at me!

[Ray]

I still really like the way deadzone handles balancing games, where once you know your objectives you can pick who to use up to an agreed points value. That way the games are always about even on points, having a more developed roster just gives you more options.

[Dave]

For me there is no one set methodology that necessarily makes for a better campaign. If it’s narrative based then I see no reason why some battles can’t be “unbalanced” as long as all players know it going in.

I do have preferences though and to answer your specific questions:

-Set goals with a defined end (although this is more due to time/real life restrictions)
-Depends on the setting, to me most genres would see a guy only be able to develop so much before he peaks.
-Torn on this one. I actually like the new Necromunda system but I also like the old one....

To add some of my thoughts on how to balance:

-Arbitrator led “NPC” gangs when a crew gets too “big”. Example; the local Jarl is fed up with your pillaging and so sends his personal guard/hired mercenaries to mess you up. Could have preset trigger points for these types of events so players know they are coming and don’t feel like they are being “picked on” (although my attitude would always be “surprise me” and “bring it on!”)
-Scenarios; directly linked to game balance in my view (as we are seeing with some of the Necromunda scenarios, they just don’t work)
-In game balancing mechanics, not sure what or how exactly but I like what GW have at least tried to do with the tactic cards (although that rule doesn’t seem to apply to the campaign system I think it should, say 1 card per 200 gang rating difference or something).
-that’s all I’ve got for now.

To counter Ray’s point, and whilst I do like the Deadzone system, it needs refining in my opinion. I seem to recall finding a grenade but being unable to equip it without having to drop an entire dude from my gang. I think it needs to be more granular without being too granular!

Are you making a game or thinking of how to apply a campaign system to an existing game system?

[Tom]

Who knows!? Just idle thoughts.

In an ideal world some kind of interaction of qualities of the two bands would generate a set of diverse objectives like a Malifaux game.

[Dave]

I would love a fantasy version of Malifaux, but geared more towards campaign play and character development. That would be awesome, get on it!