Ideas for adapting Skirmish campaign to multiplayer?

[wayniac]

Hi all,

I really enjoy AOS Skirmish since it allows for cool battles that can be finished up relatively quickly.  I am considering in the near future pitching the idea of a small skirmish campaign to my local GW (the small size is great there as there is only one 8x4 table for AOS, so skirmish would allow 2 simultaneous games going on).  I had considered waiting until Path to Glory comes out in its new book, but I can already foresee a lot of complaints about the balance (or lack thereof) of Path to Glory.

Any suggestions for adapting something like the basic skirmish campaign to be multiplayer?  I'm not sure how many players we could have, but figure at least 6 up to 10 or more (I'm not sure if I should limit it, seeing as it's at a public venue).  Some ideas I am mulling about:

* If I keep the warband size starting at 25 Renown, allow the leader to be free (this basically gives you an ~50 point warband anyways).  Alternatively, simply start at 50 Renknown and use the base rules for going up each week.

* Each mission gives "laurels of victory" (stealing the term from the General's Handbook) and, instead of whoever wins the last scenario to win the campaign, the last scenario provides a large amount of laurels (maybe enough to catapult someone ahead, I am not sure yet).  The scenarios changing based on who won/lost can still remain, but it's based on the last campaign game since it may not be against the same player.  The question here is how to handle the logistics; is each week a different scenario, and if so what happens if someone misses a week, do they just not get any laurels of victory but advance the story anyways?

A major concern that I have:

* Should I limit the number of games per week to only 1?  Should I just let people play at their own pace, so if for example Bob can play 3 times a week, he can play each scenario 3 times against 3 different people?  What if two players who have completed the first scenario play each other the same week (i.e. both play 2 games a week), should they be allowed to play the 2nd scenario and get ahead?

* How should setting up games work?  The main issue is just letting people challenge who they want leads to "cliques" and some people can't get games at all due to whatever reason (bad timing, the only other player there doesn't like them, etc.) but I think it's a ton of work and effort to match people up (and then you run into them having to coordinate a time to game, which isn't always feasible).  I did briefly consider making a map or something of the area (which may or may not be Shadespire, I haven't decided yet and I may come up with my own area) with sections that correspond to each scenario and let people decide where their warbands will go, but this could be a LOT of logistics on my and their part (and I'd rather not have to dig through a ton of "moves" each week to determine who does what).

Any tips?  I have not really run a campaign before, especially not a multiplayer one before, and my past experiences were clusters because they were usually map based and had predetermined opponents based on where you were on the map (one even had "NPC" armies controlled by a random other person involved, so even if you didn't meet another player you were guaranteed to get a game in).

[Nin Win]

I'd recommend having a scheduled skirmish day/evening/event rather than a "play when you can" league.  I know some people won't be able to make it, but a regular event is something people can actually plan for rather than trying to figure out when another person (or multiple people) can have their schedules align.  If the store has an event calendar it can go on there and the manager can know to use it as part of his sales process.

Maybe figure out how long you have the space for and have an appropriate number of games that start at the same time.  And always be willing to have a new player get some table time.  Even if it means you need to cut your roster way back in renown and play Clash at Dawn again.  As the organizer, it's your job to make sure someone is the go to person for new players.  It might have to be you.

I would just manually do pairings and stick with teams as the scenarios are all 1 vs 1.  So if you have 8 players, that's two 2 vs 2 games.  Then the winning pair (roll off for draws) of table 1 and the winning pair of table 2 but then they switch partners (each pair rolls off, both highest change teams).  Similar for those who lost.  You should be able to repeat this multiple times without people playing with the same partner for a good while.  If you do hit a point where people are going to be paired up with someone they already played with, either solve it if it's easy or just relax about it and have them play if it's not ("but if we switch then they'll play together again and they did in game 2" you'll know the point when it's no longer easy to manually fix it).  When new people show up or when too many or too few show up you'll need to adjust on the fly anyway.

Might also be worth considering keeping some of the Open Play multiplayer scenarios in your back pocket.  It sounds like the General's Handbook 2017 is going to have even more multiplayer support in it.

For scoring why not do a Major Minor, Draw, Loss tally (breaking ties down that line) and then have a separate winner as being the Relic Bearer who gets away with the object of power.  No reason to say which is more important.  Just say "Joe got the best win-loss record and Mariana is the Relic Bearer who actually got away with the object of power at the end of it all."  Only crown someone an overall winner if they accomplish both these tasks.

The last scenario with the storm also looks like it might work as a massive multiplayer game with the storm closing all around on the centre of the table.

As for renown, I've just started another campaign with a friend and we went with 35 renown so we could have things like Saurus Oldbloods, Orruk Megabosses and Chaos Sorcerer Lords right off the hop.  Worked fine.   So unless someone is dead set on playing a Dragon Ogre Shoggoth as their hero, you should be fine at 35 or 40 to start.

[wayniac]

Thanks for the reply.  I think I may have not explained myself fully in my original post.. by "multiplayer" I meant allow for more than just 2 people playing in the campaign, not necessarily team games with individual scenarios featuring 2v2 or whatnot (i.e. I don't mean Triumph & Treachery or Coalition of Death, I mean multiple people participating in the campaign instead of only 2 players).  The issue at my GW is that we only have one 8x4 table, so skirmish is tempting to get more games in; I have heard people gripe many times about coming down to play and finding the table in use by someone else for a 2k point game, as it means that game will take most of the day and the shop closes early.  However this would mean doing a campaign that can support multiple players (not per game, but participating in the campaign) which is where I'm drawing blanks on how to organize/adapt it.  I do like the idea of having a specific day, and this could have the other benefit of inadvertently trimming down the players (as not everyone can make every Saturday, for example) to a more manageable number.

[KnightFire]

I played a 3 player hinterlands game using the triumph and treachery multiplayer rules from the GHB, and I can imagine that skirmish will work just as well. What I am not as sure of is how well the skirmish scenarios lend themselves to more than 2 players. If you made some modifications to them you could probably run them fairly well with 3+ players. You would also need to change the victory conditions for the campaign as a whole, as you wont just have one final game potentially. 

Organising games, manual pairings works fine, or if you want to allow challenges, an easy way is to disalow people playing each other on consecutive games, and challenges are done on a first-come-first-served basis (i.e. if two people challenge the same player, the first challenge counts and the second is void). 

If you want to allow people to play multiple games in a week then only the first game they play counts, and this does mean if you have an odd number of players then someone can play twice to make sure everyone gets a game, but you have to watch for the person who plays twice throwing their second game (to give a win to their opponent) because it doesnt matter if they lose.

A lot of it depends on what you want players to get out of the campaign really, and coming up with a set of rules that creates a structure that rewards that.

[Criti]

If it's the first one you've run, keep it as simple as possible with as few changes to the core rules as possible.

Regarding your original statements:

1) Either startat 25 or 50 Renown.  A "free" Hero may sound like an easy solution - but you've mentioned many times your people complain about "balance."  Give a free Hero and I guarantee someone will complain that someone else's Hero is better and there's "no balance."

2) As someone else replied, the Triumph and Treachery rules from the GHB should suffice for multiplayer battles.

3) Let the free market decide match ups - but with restrictions.  

Something like a significant campaign point bonus for anyone who logs battles against every other player.  Significant enough that someone who chooses not to play everyone likely won't win?

Or a "new opponent boost?"  Every time you log a game against an opponent you haven't played before, you get X number of bonus points.

You don't want to dictate matches, but you do want your players engaging everyone else.

4) Allow as many games in a period as you are comfortable tracking, but make it uniform.  1, 2, 3, whatever... if you make it unlimited, someone is guaranteed to try and run roughshod just based on number of games.

What you may consider is "games played" vs "loggable games."

Each player can play as much as they want.  Have them log all those games so you know who played whom, but then have them pick which games count points wise toward their limit.  

Played 5 games, but only 2 get tracked? Okay...track this win because wins get the most points and this draw because it was against a new opponent and I want credit for that on my card.

If you're concerned someone will play until he can log 2 major wins a week (or whatever the number allowed is)?

Go averages.  Assign a value to each game.  Maybe 5 pts for a Major Win, 4 for a Minor, 3 for a Draw, 2 for a Minor Loss, 1 for a Major Loss.

Take everyone's total score for a period and divide it by the number of games they played.  To prevent a the at the end of the campaign, round it off the nearest one hundredth.  Very unlikely 2 players will match up exactly.