Thoughts on how to run my sci-fi campaign
I have been thinking about running a sci-fi campaign down
the club for a while now. I have run campaigns
before but they tended to take up a lot of time and energy. I did however run a
skirmish (almost) role play campaign that was very successful that managed to
take up very little time and energy. So
I have been revisiting some thoughts from back then.
So how can I do this without too much paper work and time? The
first thing I needed to think about was the level the campaign would be aimed
at. Are we talking armies taking over worlds and struggles across star systems,
with all the economic factors and resources management? I did not want to have to worry about the output
of a colony or how many men a colony had in its army. And then it came to me: Space pirates and mercenaries. If the player was a commander of a group of
pirates or mercenaries then such concerns would be way above his pay grade. I realised
I could take out nearly all the record keeping by simply saying each player was
a combat commander. He need not worry
about logistics and neither had I. All
he had to concentrate on was fighting the battle and making requests to a
higher authority when he wanted something outside his level of authority. In this campaign I could fight battles with my
15mm forces with around a platoon to a company per side. Each
player would have a limited number or troops and vehicles at his disposal but
would know roughly what extra he might be able to call on. But that would be down to his superiors ( in
other words me as GM).
Now as a rules writer I realised I have a tendency to get
carried away with righting lots of rules.
It struck me that this was totally unnecessary. I had considered writing a complex system for
the time it would take and the cost of repairing mecha and vehicles. But this I
can do away with. As the GM I can decide what the answer is to any question like
“how long until my mecha is repaired?” or “How many anti-tank missiles do we
have?” I would take a leaf out of my style
of very freeform role playing I GM from time to time. I would just make it up on the spot and note
down any decision I made. Suddenly I
felt free of the many constraints imposed by rules systems. Now I
could simply supply my players with the info they needed without reference
charts and logistics. A player does not
need to know how the answer to his question is generated. Just like in real
life. A platoon commander simply askes
his superiors when his casualties will be replaced. He has no interest the cost or how they will
be arriving. All he needs is a when and
how many.
This method I think would work for many historical campaigns
too. The players need not even know you
are making it all up. If they ask a question
just tell them to hang on a sec whilst you find out. Then go off roll a dice, make up the answer
and simply note down your decision. It’s
the end result the players have that matters not how you got there. As long as it all seems fair and reasonable.
