Wargame Campaigns

Wargame campaigns come in many varieties: from the map and resource based “grand campaign” to those with a handful of linked scenarios. As war gamers, we like to start campaigns but have a horrible track record of finishing them. There are many reasons why campaigns fail and many of these failures are because of the same, oft repeated, reasons. Many campaigns simply die, unfinished and forgotten. Most often, the group of players that start the campaign have the best of intentions and seeming commitment to see the endeavor through to the end; however, over time: Bob moves away, Joe gets a new girlfriend and stops coming to game day, while Fred thinks he can’t win any more and simply quits. All these events underscore the potential pitfalls in war game campaigns.

It should be obvious that the more people participating in the campaign, the greater likelihood that any of the previously mentioned events will occur. When players drop out, the ideal situation would be to recruit a new player; however, in map and resource campaigns it may be difficult to recruit a new player who sees that the previous player was in a no win situation. Ideally, the campaign system should be able to survive a change in players with little disruption.

Another reason for campaign failure is a phenomenon known as ‘snowballing’ in which one player or faction will have a series of successes which gives them an advantage that increases the likelihood of continued success. In this situation, players often quit the campaign because it has become unwinnable even though the campaign is far from finished. To keep players engaged in the campaign, the side currently losing should feel like they always have a chance to turn things around. If possible, players who have been eliminated from the campaign should be given a role so the entire group can remain active throughout the entire campaign.

All too often, the rules and record keeping for the campaign become a game in and of itself. It is worth remembering that the reason the players started the campaign was to give a reason to play the tactical game, not the campaign game. Therefore, the campaign should be simple to manage and have little or no record keeping.

In the next few articles I will describe a tree style campaign system that meets all of the criteria outlined above and allows players to participate in the types of engagements forces would face during a World War II blitzkrieg operation. While the campaign system will be generic, I will focus on how to relate Flames of War scenarios to the campaign tree missions.