The Campaign: Managing Multiple Warbands Makes The Rules Matter

(Part Three in a series. One is here, and Two is here.)

The primary objection to having multiple active parties of adventurers in a campaign comes down to managing who does what, where it is done, and when.

The solution is to use a map and a calendar.

Each character (and faction) in the campaign gets their movements plotted on the campaign map, and their actions plotted on the campaign calendar.

The latter is already implemented into standard Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition gameplay because it is used to track the time spent by characters when they are active at the table. The former is already acknowledged because those same characters have to travel from A to B to do their dungeon delves, their monster hunts, their mass battles, and so on. All that is being done is to track more than one group at a time. Odds are good that you've already experienced this without noticing it.

When The Stakes Are Real, The Rules Matter

The value in strict timekeeping, 1:1 Time, and the accounting for logistics when away from town now make themselves plain.

If one warband decides to track down another, then the pursue needs to intercept the pursued. That can't be done if there are no records on where someone is and when they were (or are) there. Players--often the pursuers--resent it when the Referee doesn't have that information at hand to rule on the odds of the pursuers figuring out where their prey is so they can intercept them.

This is when most players start to recognize the value of practices in the game that have been long ignored, disdained, and mocked- and still are. There's no handwaiving away the Time To Intercept calculation when it's Player vs. Playeer. There's no "LOL house rules, yo!" when it's Player vs. Player. There is only the game on the page, as administered by the Referee, and nothing else will be accepted as legitimate.

Why?

Because Player vs. Player action is where everyone is forced to confront the reality that the RPG is a wargame at its heart, and therefore it is a game, WITH WINNERS AND LOSERS, and the stakes are the lives and fortunes of the characters involved in the conflict. Players care about keeping their characters alive and thriving against enemies of all sorts, and they deeply resent being shorn of the fortunes that they risked live and limb to acquire.

It is only by ensuring that the contest is done by the book, with a disinterested Referee to ensure impartiality, that the results will be accepted by all concerned.

Those that lose, in particular, are going to examine the events as they go down to ensure that no one got something that they should have gotten. They will double-check to see if the other side could have made that distance in that time, that they could have known where their characters were and when, and that any other advantage displayed was legitimately gotten and employed.

If some Youtube eceleb got ganked at an ambush executed by Jeffro Johnson playing a Ranger in a campaign, you wouldn't hear the end of it for weeks. "I had no chance to do anything. Jeffro just rolled on a table and I got one-shot before I so much as rolled Initiative. I looked at the after-action report and it was exactly textbook procedure for Surprise, but I still feel like it was unfair. The DM didn't care when I complained about that not being fun."

The Referee, therefore, has to be on top of his administration game when multiple active warbands are in the campaign. Even if there is no direct action right away, if they end up running afoul of one another at some remove--one group clearing out a dungeon the other intended to hit, one group killing or taking a vital NPC that the other needs, etc.--then it's a question of "when" not "if".

Keep that in mind when we scale up to Faction Play.

When The Rules Matter, The Game Becomes Real

The same care for administration during Downtime is necessary when the parties do clash.

It is all well and good for the Referee to track travel on the map and time on the calendar, especially when one warband pursues another, but should those two meet there is a chance for an encounter. If that chance hits, then there's a decision on whether or not to make this a (potential) combat encounter or not.

If so, every character involved goes into Time Jail IMMEDIATELY.

There is a reason for this, and that reason is Scheduling Is A Bitch.

Every concerned player needs to be contacted, told what is up, and told to make time to meet and resolve the encounter at the earliest convenience. If necessary, the Referee should delegate the session running duties to a disinterested party that all concerned trust to be so and to run the game competently. Otherwise, we want for the Referee also.

Because you have two groups meeting to play, that's going to be a large group; to keep the matter from going all night, Callers should be required.

The Referee should have an encounter map on hand, even if he runs Theater of the Mind, and be meticulous in recording who did what and where at which time.

Once the encounter is resolved, the difference between when the parties went into Time Jail and that special session is hashed out and put on the calendar (and movements put on the campaign map). If everyone remembers that AD&D1e is a wargame, and not Special Snowflake Super Show, all well and good; if not, all that record-keeping, strict procedural approach, and absolute neutrality will be the big Cover Your Ass that numbs a lot of butthurt.

(Sadly, I learned that first-hand years ago.)

Revealed Preferences Are Revealed

The fact is that a lot of the Storytelling LOL wankery in tabletop RPGs goes away as soon as Player vs. Player action arises shows that even those who argue that tabletop RPGs are not a game don't believe what they say; their actions do not match their words.

As soon as they are forced to confront the fact that RPGs generally, and AD&D1e in particular, is a real game with real stakes and therefore is something that has winners and losers they flip their shit; the immediate fallback to strict by-the-book procedure and all that is their confession-by-action that they know that RPGs are games and not narrative fuckery.

Do I recommend multiple active parties? Yes.

Do most campaigns think about how to foster this? No.

Let's fix that in tomorrow's post.