The Campaign: When Warbands Become Empires

(Last of a series. Previous parts: One, Two, Three, Four.)

In a campaign with multiple active characters forming multiple active parties, those parties will become warbands out of necessity.

Warbands will come into conflict. Sooner or later those conflicts become combats and losers either bend the knee or get sent to their graves. The winners become the authority, claiming dominion over the land and ruling it as they see fit. Kings by their own hand, the conflicts of their earlier days become the dynastic struggles of thrones and temples as well as the cosmic conflicts of gods and monsters.

The game does not change. It merely scales up.

The Warlords of the Land

Remember when I said that players, playing in multiple groups, would make the campaign come alive? That continues when players' characters reach Name Level.

The winners of those inter-party throwdowns are the ones that rise up to become kings, high priests, archmages, master thieves, etc. with all the power, influence, wealth and politics that such success entails.

What did those winning players do to ensure that their men came out on top? What alliances did they make? What costs did they incur? What favors do they owe, or are owed?

There's a reason I put up two Conan illustrations up top; his is one of the best literary examples for a player to look to. One would be spoiled for choice in terms of real men that did the same thing; as I have said previously, there is good cause to mix in plenty of history with your literary reading when trying to get a better grasp on how to win at RPGs.

By the time this happens your campaign ought to be well on its way, and this first group to arrive at the big stage will become leaders of factions whose ambitions attract the attention of existing players at this level of the game. The ambush between a dozen characters (with Henchmen and Hirelings in tow) is now blatant warfare between warlords, covert conflicts between criminal syndicates, and crusades by religions against those against the them.

What emerges with this in action is that the formalized leveling process of high-level Assassins, Druids, and Monks becomes an informal dynamic that applies to everyone within a campaign- and players whose characters don't survive the fight can end up taking over Henchmen as successors, when they don't have to reroll and start over at 1st level (the latter of which is where the original Rogue got its gameplay loop, which is where "Roguelike" came from).

Now players don't play one man, or one man and his warband, but one man and his entire power structure- whatever that may be. More tools, more resources, same game.

Welcome to Faction Play.

The Faction Game

This is where the campaign, already showing its Braunstein roots, reveals its Kriegspiel lineage.

While there's plenty of high-level action to be had, as there are threats that only high-level characters are able to address, much of the action is institutional in nature and thus the men at the center of these organizations are going to be issuing orders more than they're going to be swinging their +X swords.

This means that play away from the table picks up in importance, meaning that tracking movement on the map and time on the calendar--something now well-practiced--becomes a major factor in seeing who's going to win the campaign. Because faction leaders--and that's what these characters are--can't be everywhere at once, they will need to delegate elements of their plans to subordinates and allies- and those are the characters that can, and should, show up at the table more often.

And, at the last, this can--and will--involve those winning warlords making their own dungeons.

Doesn't that sound far more exciting than anything Current Edition or PC/Console (MMO)RPGs can offer? Yep. The #BROSR leads the way.