Where I think objective-based play comes in, is in that latter category. While I like that FFG has toyed around with it with the missions that they have tried to promote, as well as the objectives as they exist in Armada, I'm not sure that FFG is really good at it. I think they're really at hear a boardgame company and not a roleplaying game manufacturer, even if they've dabbled in RPGs. That said, I'm also of the opinion that people's craving for headcanon or story is very diverse, and it is difficult for FFG to try to capture it or find a happy medium which will keep most people happy.

FFG isn't one person. They're got people who specialise in RPGs and they've got people who specialise in board games.

1. Kill specific target on other team: Each side gets to nominate one of their ships. The other player gets bonus points for blowing it up. I would assume you can get points for all ships, but something large for the target ship.
2. Steal tokens off the board: Place odd number of tokens on the board and any ship that ends on top of it or their movement template over it can spend an action to grab it. Your side then needs to get it off the board (or live until the end with it in your possession). Points can be given for just objectives or also include destroyed ships.
3. Defend/Destroy stationary target: One side is defender and one is attacker. They place an odd number of objectives that are the targets (1 or 3 is what I’m thinking). Points are given to one side for blowing up or the other for saving them. Nothing given for destroyed ships.
4. Escort target ship off board: There is something like the Senatorial Shuttle that slowly limps its way across the board. One side needs to blow it up. The other needs to save it. Points given for ships destroyed and for escort ship.
5. Deathmatch: Standard game.

Token grabbing favours swarms strongly whereas assassination favours the larger ships, so you'd need random objective selection (but I think that's a given). Good balance though.

I think you do always need an element of reward for destroying enemy ships such that you don't create a situation where the game is unwinnable before it's won.

The station defence one sounds interesting. You also might be able to work in some good uses for ordnance into it.

Escort's very thematic, although I'd have more than one ship to escort.

Not sure about asymmetry. Do you get asymmetric objectives in IA (I've only played the Geonosis power generators skirmish mission) and Armada?

Token grabbing favours swarms strongly whereas assassination favours the larger ships, so you'd need random objective selection (but I think that's a given). Good balance though.

I think you do always need an element of reward for destroying enemy ships such that you don't create a situation where the game is unwinnable before it's won.

I think you are right about granting points for the token grabbing scenario. It does favor swarms, but many of the other scenarios don't. So, without knowing what you'll get, will you take a swarm?

As for unwinnable games...there is the possibility. If someone takes a very unbalanced list (such as all Tie Swarms or 2 Pancakes) then there is the chance that you might have a very hard time with one of the scenarios. That's kind of the balance. It promotes diverse list building. One YT with some cheap swarms would be very competitive. I think that's something you need to put into it, though, or it just becomes the same old, same old.

Escort's very thematic, although I'd have more than one ship to escort.

Not sure about asymmetry. Do you get asymmetric objectives in IA (I've only played the Geonosis power generators skirmish mission) and Armada?

Part of the problem with scoring is that you need to have an odd number of objectives. Otherwise, you end in a tie too often. I've seen it in many different game systems.

Can you viably do a 3 ship escort? That might be fun, actually. Another thing, though, is that many people only have 1 starter kit and 1 shuttle token.

My group was using the following for campaigns, but now we have started using the missions for one off games. Take a look.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/89973/my-stores-star-wars-x-wing-campaign

I haven't had time to look at eagletsi11's list (although I will soon), but something else to toss into the mix:

My group often does the capture/control point style missions, but does so by drawing up a campaign map that consists of various different locations to dogfight over. Capturing different sections gives (minor) benefits for future matches. This lets us combine tactical and strategic thinking. Even down to splitting up our larger forces into smaller squads to fight over different sectors.

Good for a campaign game, but bad for a tournament game based on scenarios.

Still, it could be easier to run a "tournament campaign" if these got off the ground. What I mean is an event where each battle is somewhere in the campaign world. Each round would impact the next.

Hey,

So, I've been designing a lot of campaigns recently.

Here's some things I've noted:

1. Complexity: I've been trying to literally make most of my scenarios are simple as possible. As intuitive as possible. The game is already complicated. My campaign system, while simple as possible, also adds another layer. On top of that, the various specials of each particular campaign. The less rules, the better.

1a. Game time: I play with some friends who aren't quite as invested in this as I am. (Sadly). This might not be a problem for you, but for me, the scenarios tend to get even longer than normal games, exacerbating into 2 hours ish.

I'm really looking forward to writing some "skirmish" scenarios of 30 to 80pts, based around average 1hour of play time.

This means average play. Not experienced and fast play. Please do not allow your possible experienced play time with your own group bias against factoring this in. I note above that this might be a non-issue with devoted or quick players.

2. Death-ball: We use this term in Starcraft to denote taking all of your forces in one group and simply smashing the opponent. This is almost an objective in normal 100pt deathmatch. Divide up your enemy's forces and defeat them one at a time.

However in a scenario, your opponent is already ging to split up a bit if they are playing whole-heartedly to try and do the scenario objectives. If one player can simply win by ignoring the scenario and destroying the opponent, then your scenario honestly just devolves right back to deathmatch.

3. Assymetry: This creates great game play moment, but you actually need to "balance" the assymetry. If I give 80pts vs 100pts, there needs to be some advantage the 80pt side has THAT IS WORTH 20 POINTS. This game is so minutely balanced that for the most part, there is 0% chance of success when you are down more than 12 points.

--

Of these, soft-countering (or "discouraging") deathballing has been my hardest problem. I've done so by awarding WAYY more for completing objectives and also making it so that if you are losing, you can still complete the objective and come out with more reward. Or flee and still gain some reward. BEING ABLE TO FLEE WHILE LOSING IS NOT ENOUGH BALANCE.

Basically: The losing side should still be able to win something even when they have started losing. If that can't happen, your scenario is pre-disposed to deathballing into 100pt deathmatch.

I came up with a "Kingslayer" format the other night with some friends.

-Bring a 100-150 point list.

-Designate 1 pilot out of that list to be your King.

-The objective is to slay their King at all costs.

-The player whose king is destroyed first loses.

That way, things like MoV don't get all muddy. You blow up their designated King, you win the match. You can blow up the rest of their list, but if you fail to destroy their King, you simply lose. A draw is when time is called and neither King is destroyed.

We also have a "King of the Hill" format where you stay in range 1 of the center asteroid and have to fend off attackers from contesting the objective space, but we're still trying to work that one out.

If you look at air campaigns over history, which I think is probably the best source of similar mission data, there are relatively few 'types' of missions. I am fairly strongly generalizing here, but these are broadly applicable archetypes which could be tweaked or randomized slightly for each play through.

1. Strike - You fly somewhere to attack something. These can be very generalized targets (i.e. enemy targets in a particular area), or very specialized targets such as Electronic Warfare attacks, Wild Weasel missions or stand off munitions attacks on point targets. These usually require specific types of vehicles or munitions.

This translates relatively well into X Wing: You can have a force of heavy ordnance carrying ships and fighters (possibly escorts) trying to make it through a force of enemy fighters and off the board in one piece. You score points for every intact ship which exits off the board still carrying its ordnance. The defending fighters score points for each bomber they splash. It would be a fairly boring game as you could just speed off the board at maximum burn. It would probably be better if you had to attack certain targets (tokens or objectives that specify the targets) on the board and get points for doing so before making your escape. You could also have missions where you had to be at a certain point and carry out actions to launch a special munition, whilst the defenders have to stop you from doing that.

2. Escort - You are escorting mission specific craft to strike a particular target, protecting them from enemy fighters. This is particularly relevant to EW or Wild Weasel missions, because those types of craft are usually not dedicated dogfighters or lack effective weaponry to engage fighters. Therefore they usually require some protection.

This also scales well into the game. You can have a force of fighters defending a series of allies on their way across the playing area. They dont have to be fully realized ships, simple counters such as the senators shuttle from the core game box. You score points for each escorted craft which makes it off the board edge or to a particular point, whilst the attacking enemy ships get points for each one they destroy. For increased interest you could have the escorted ships having to go to a particular part of the playing area and carry out a specific mission. Such as use an action or make an attack on a token or target. You get points for how many successful attacks are made.

3. Patrol - This includes Combat Air Patrol (CAP) missions which are usually geographically limited in order to allow friendly forces freedom of movement in or through a particular area (often local), or aim to deny enemy forces presence in that area. It can also include dedicated air superiority missions remote from friendly locations, which aim to gain local air superiority, either for a temporary or an indefinite period. The longer the period of time and the further away the location which requires superiority, the larger the demand on pilot hours and resources. Long range patrol missions are therefore costly.

This is probably more related to the 100 point dogfight, with two sides fighting it out to be the last one standing. You could make this scenario more interesting and allow meeting engagement type fights with only a portion your total points committed at the start and other ships coming on in later turns. You could also make Scramble type scenarios where one side has managed to get its strike force into enemy territory unseen and the defenders have only had very short notice of their presence. You could also have hunter type scenarios where one side has to investigate possible locations of an enemy force, with hidden setup rules.

4. Reconnaissance - You have to go somewhere and look at something or scan something. This could also be folded into the Strike mission type. They are pretty similar, maybe there would be a recon scenario for the Strike mission type.

This also scales well as your small force of recon ships might have to fly into range 1 of several tokens and carry out an action 'scanning' the tokens for information. You would then get points for any ship which scanned a token and made it off the board alive. The defenders would get points for each token which was unscanned, then each ship which scanned a token and was destroyed and then any destroyed ships.

So how do you keep these kinds of objective missions interesting? A simple card drawing method could settle the type of mission played by each player, with other cards dictating specific variables to the mission. Within each type of mission, you might get specific tactics or victory conditions which would be specified.

For example: You shuffle the mission and scenario decks and draw one card from each: You end up with a Patrol mission objective card specifying a patrol mission type. You then draw another card to determine scenario details and you draw the Hit and Fade card. This specifies that you are up against a larger hostile strike force (your opponent gets an extra 50 points) and you only get to count victory points for intact friendly ships which cause damage and then escape off the board.

The next game you draw the Strike mission type and then draw the Ordnance Strike card. This specifies that you only score victory points for destroying or damaging objective tokens on the board. The tokens are ray shielded so you have to attack them with ordnance carrying ships. This would affect your build choice.

Something like this would keep it simple and fairly randomized to prevent the same mission types becoming stale. If you made the decks large enough you could have a lot of different types of scenario within each mission type.

TLDR: err...objective stuff happens and then some other stuff blows up. Pew pew Pew!

Good for a campaign game, but bad for a tournament game based on scenarios.

IA and Armada do it for tournaments, and Armada's not that far a cry from X-Wing. Any particular reason why it wouldn't work for X-Wing?

That what happens in one game effects the next? Even if against a different opponent?

phocion, I think you are on the best track here, looking at the kind of objectives and scenarios you would see in a real air battle. I think the reason we haven't seen a really great objective that works well with X-Wing's rules is because people are stuck in the mindset of a ground or sea based battles, which the majority of table-top games simulate, but those types of scenarios don't translate well in a game that is simulating a high-speed air battle.

phocion, I think you are on the best track here, looking at the kind of objectives and scenarios you would see in a real air battle. I think the reason we haven't seen a really great objective that works well with X-Wing's rules is because people are stuck in the mindset of a ground or sea based battles, which the majority of table-top games simulate, but those types of scenarios don't translate well in a game that is simulating a high-speed air battle.

Right.

On defending a static object:

This is an extremely hard to design scenario. There are many problems. Firstly, these ships have inertia which means they move away from the defended object.

Second: Shooting at something else, causes your opponents to get free shots on you. In an 100pt battle, even two or three times of this is considered good play and can win you a game. Imagine how much worse that is when you have to destroy 10 or 8 hull.

"But BB! Just give the defender less points!!" WRONG: Then the attacker is simply fixated on destroying the defending ships, and taking their sweet time later to destroy the objective.

The deathball aspect of the game discourages targets like this.

Solutions:

1. Allow only specific ships at attack the location. Or ordnance only. The caveat balance to this is: These ships then cannot deal as good damage to defending ships. OR: Defender can win the game by objective by simply objectivising the location-attacking ships.

Flimsy, and wordy. Hard to balance. Also have to balance making it not too easy to simply destroy all the bombers via sniping.

2. Allow attacking ships to do two attacks: 1 normal, 1 towards the location. This seems to me an easier fix... however it will look a little like deathmatch.

In air combat, there are common assignments to escort a bomber squadron. However, in real life, these bombers (unlike tie bombers) are not good in anti-squadron combat. See Armada for whole differentiation of anti-squadron attack power. This ensures that the bombers must remain on target and cannot simply be pulled to do a death ball attack on the defenders, THEN destroy the target at their leisure.

This then creates the need for air superiority battles, but these tend to occur before bombing runs. Then the bombing runs tend to be massacre based.

If you look at air campaigns over history, which I think is probably the best source of mission data, there are relatively few 'types' of missions. I am fairly strongly generalizing here, but these are broadly applicable archetypes which could be tweaked or randomized slightly for each play through.

1. Strike - You fly somewhere to attack something. These can be very generalized targets (i.e. enemy targets in a particular area), or very specialized targets such as Electronic Warfare attacks, Wild Weasel missions or guided munitions attacks on point targets. These usually require specific types of vehicles or munitions.

This translates relatively well into X Wing: You can have a force of heavy ordnance carrying ships and fighters (possibly escorts) trying to make it through a force of enemy fighters and off the board in one piece. You score points for every intact ship which exits off the board still carrying its ordnance. The defending fighters score points for each bomber they splash. It would be a fairly boring game as you could just speed off the board at maximum burn. It would probably be better if you had to attack certain targets (tokens or objectives that specify the targets) on the board and get points for doing so before making your escape.

2. Escort - You are escorting mission specific craft to strike a particular target, protecting them from enemy fighters. This is particularly relevant to EW or Wild Weasel missions, because those types of craft are usually not dedicated dogfighters or lack effective weaponry to engage fighters. Therefore they usually require some protection.

This also scales well into the game. You can have a force of fighters defending a series of allies on their way across the playing area. They dont have to be fully realized ships, simple counters such as the senators shuttle from the core game box. You score points for each escorted craft which makes it off the board edge or to a particular point, whilst the attacking enemy ships get points for each one they destroy. For increased interest you could have the escorted ships having to go to a particular part of the playing area and carry out a specific mission. Such as use an action or make an attack on a token or target. You get points for how many successful attacks are made.

3. Patrol - This includes Combat Air Patrol (CAP) missions which are usually geographically limited in order to allow friendly forces freedom of movement in or through a particular area (often local), or aim to deny enemy forces presence in that area. It can also include dedicated air superiority missions remote from friendly locations, which aim to gain local air superiority, either for a temporary or an indefinite period. The longer the period of time and the further away the location which requires superiority, the larger the demand on pilot hours and resources. Long range patrol missions are therefore costly.

This is probably more related to the 100 point dogfight, with two sides fighting it out to be the last one standing. You could make this scenario more interesting and allow meeting engagement type fights with only a portion your total points committed at the start and other ships coming on in later turns. You could also make Scramble type scenarios where one side has managed to get its strike force into enemy territory unseen and the defenders have only had very short notice of their presence. You could also have hunter type scenarios where one side has to investigate possible locations of an enemy force, with hidden setup rules.

4. Reconnaissance - You have to go somewhere and look at something or scan something.

This also scales well as your small force of recon ships might have to fly into range 1 of several tokens and carry out an action 'scanning' the tokens for information. You would then get points for any ship which scanned a token and made it off the board alive. The defenders would get points for each token which was unscanned, then each ship which scanned a token and was destroyed and then any destroyed ships.

So how do you keep these kinds of objective missions interesting? A simple card drawing method could settle the type of mission played by each player, with other cards dictating specific variables to the mission. Within each type of mission, you might get specific tactics or victory conditions which would be specified.

For example: You shuffle the mission and scenario decks and draw one card from each: You end up with a Patrol mission objective card specifying a patrol mission type. You then draw another card to determine scenario details and you draw the Hit and Fade card. This specifies that you are up against a larger hostile strike force (your opponent gets an extra 50 points) and you only get to count victory points for intact friendly ships which cause damage and then escape off the board.

The next game you draw the Strike mission type and then draw the Ordnance Strike card. This specifies that you only score victory points for destroying or damaging objective tokens on the board. The tokens are ray shielded so you have to attack them with ordnance carrying ships. This would affect your build choice.

Something like this would keep it simple and fairly randomized to prevent the same mission types becoming stale. If you made the decks large enough you could have a lot of different types of scenario within each mission type.

You're right about the kind of objectives that make logical sense in X-wing. But I don't think translating these missions into a modular objective system we can use in a tournament setting is very feasible. The problem with these mission archetypes is that the 'strike', 'recon' and 'escort' types (which are the non-deathmatch missions) are difficult to translate into balanced missions that can be played by 100 point lists (or any set of equal-points lists). And if you want to have competitive tournament play I think that equal list points are almost a necessity. (If we're not talking about tournaments, then balance becomes a lot easier, but there are still problems).

In escort and strike missions, it is easy to create situations where the dogfighting aspect of X-wing is completely ignored. If the destruction of a target is your only goal, then you'll focus down that target with extreme prejudice, typically ignoring or avoiding other threats instead of fighting them head-on. I call this "Suicide Run Syndrome" (SRS). SRS has two chief problems: it makes scenarios difficult to balance (usually requiring an advantage for the defender), and it makes gameplay boring. If all you need to do to win is point your ships at a target, fly them up and shoot it, that doesn't make for interesting gameplay. Even if the scenario is balanced; for example if the defender has an equal chance of destroying the attackers before they destroy their target, then the game becomes a list comparison exercise with some dice throwing, instead of a battle of wits (with list construction and dice as factors).

One way to work against SRS is to make scenarios more complex, adding layers of defense that have to be destroyed or overcome before attacking the final target, but that's a bad option here because more complexity is in general a bad idea for competitive play. An example: Attack Run. Another way to work against SRS would be reducing the relative value of the objectives. Make the destruction of the targets worth a significant amount of points towards victory, but not a binary win/lose decider for the game. That would also be very tricky to implement well.

EXAMPLE:

Bomber Escort Mission

Imperials:3 tie bombers with 1 Proton Torp and 1 Seismic Charge each, plus 80 points of their own choice from their "fleet"*. (Totally approx 80 + 60, where the missiles and bombs are HIGHLY NOT WORTH THEIR POINTS).

Rebels: deploy 1 target location with 8hull 0agi. 130 or 140points.

(This number is nearly perfect for this balance. Tested.)

Info:

Only spawned tie bombers can damage the target location.

You may flee this battle. This saves you from having to rebuy this ship for next mission.

When you die, roll a mayday die: on hit or crit, you eject and may rebuy this ship at half its cost for next mission.

Objectives:

Imp: Destroy the target. 2ndary - Safely escort the bombers off the field.

Reb: DESTROY THE BOMBERS 2ndary - do not allow the target to be destroyed.

Reward:

Imp: $30 if destroyed the target, +$10 per Bomber that survives. +$10 if mission loss.

Reb: $10 per Bomber destroyed, +$20 for saving the target. +$10 if mission loss.

-------

In this scenario, the two sides are incentivised to do different things. This creates different behavior among the players. The Imp player wants to use their 80 points to create a screen for the bombers.

Rebels due to lower point values do not want to simply deathball joust.

If the Imp player deathball jousts, the Rebel player can use this time to simply snipe all the Bombers, then flee off the board for a win on points.

The points here give you money to repair and squad for next mission, thus also incentivising you to do the mission, not just attack each other.

Regardless of main objectives, the "loser" still has the ability to win something out of the match.

The reason for loss money is to allow the campaign to go on to compensate for destroyed ships.

As for Suicide Run Syndrome:

I don't see it as much in my games because we want to tend to win by killing off the enemy. However, I can see where this is a problem.

This again can be relieved by creating differing objectives, where a player who is losing either their force or the mission by objective can still make something out of the time.

We also counter against Suicide Run Syndrome by creating a campaign fleet: A set of 200pts of ships that you use within the campaigns. If you suicide run, you will not last very long in the campaign and quickly become short of ships and points to buy new ships. Thus, you will quickly lose and not be able to play in a slightly longer run.

This I think, tends to destroy the tactical soundness of SRS.

As for Suicide Run Syndrome:

I don't see it as much in my games because we want to tend to win by killing off the enemy. However, I can see where this is a problem.

This again can be relieved by creating differing objectives, where a player who is losing either their force or the mission by objective can still make something out of the time.

We also counter against Suicide Run Syndrome by creating a campaign fleet: A set of 200pts of ships that you use within the campaigns. If you suicide run, you will not last very long in the campaign and quickly become short of ships and points to buy new ships. Thus, you will quickly lose and not be able to play in a slightly longer run.

This I think, tends to destroy the tactical soundness of SRS.

True; SRS is solidly defeated by campaign rosters. But frankly, most battles have very high attrition in X-wing, so I'm not sure that is a good option overall. It also heavily favors expensive survivable ships, like YT-1300s, IG88s, etc. Not an insurmountable problem, but I'd be very leery of implementing a roster system in a tournament setting.

As for Suicide Run Syndrome:

I don't see it as much in my games because we want to tend to win by killing off the enemy. However, I can see where this is a problem.

This again can be relieved by creating differing objectives, where a player who is losing either their force or the mission by objective can still make something out of the time.

We also counter against Suicide Run Syndrome by creating a campaign fleet: A set of 200pts of ships that you use within the campaigns. If you suicide run, you will not last very long in the campaign and quickly become short of ships and points to buy new ships. Thus, you will quickly lose and not be able to play in a slightly longer run.

This I think, tends to destroy the tactical soundness of SRS.

True; SRS is solidly defeated by campaign rosters. But frankly, most battles have very high attrition in X-wing, so I'm not sure that is a good option overall. It also heavily favors expensive survivable ships, like YT-1300s, IG88s, etc. Not an insurmountable problem, but I'd be very leery of implementing a roster system in a tournament setting.

goodness thats hard to read.

Yes, agreed.

Our campaign is based on fly casual, also meaning that we all should have fun. Flying a very hard to kill fatty is not considered good form for this type of casual campaign.

Even more so with missions of lesser value, such as 60 to 80 points, its even worse. We take FFGs errata of the Escalation 60 pts phase to be concurrent with this ideal.

As for competitive tournament based scenarios, thats a whole lot harder to balance. simply creating some objectives based for point probably seems like a good idea. "Most Wanted" scenario from Armada for instance.

Also, we use the eject die and fleeing to mitigate the high death cost.

Where I think objective-based play comes in, is in that latter category. While I like that FFG has toyed around with it with the missions that they have tried to promote, as well as the objectives as they exist in Armada, I'm not sure that FFG is really good at it. I think they're really at heart a boardgame company and not a roleplaying game manufacturer, even if they've dabbled in RPGs. That said, I'm also of the opinion that people's craving for headcanon or story is very diverse, and it is difficult for FFG to try to capture it or find a happy medium which will keep most people happy.

FFG isn't one person. They're got people who specialise in RPGs and they've got people who specialise in board games.

Oh, wow. I really thought that FFG was just Christian Petersen with a word processor, connected to a horde of gnomes carrying out his singular vision.

But seriously, I'm not sure how my argument is subject to an ecological fallacy. Just because they have people in the stable that specialize in RPGs doesn't mean that this is what the company as a whole will do well outside of that niche. I can't even say how well they perform inside that niche (though, witness what happened with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) with a dedicated RPG crew.

Corporate culture and business model matter. The individual talent they may have on payroll won't significantly alter those. While I may be wrong (and I hope I am), it doesn't seem to me that FFG's business model is geared towards exploiting story-based gaming. They probably (correctly) don't see a lot of added value in doing so. I do think they tried it with X-Wing, but have found that it didn't give them much payoff. So it seems to me that they've since embraced their comparative advantage, which isn't in story-based gaming.

Honestly, I think a question we do have to ask is : Would competitive tournament official play actually benefit from story-based play or not?

Would it create more rules and trouble than its worth?

We on the side are always welcome to create new user content.

If I was FFG I'd hire a few more full time monkeys to first:

Rehash the interface of Mission Control.

Advertise, continue to develop Mission Control and user support.

Get some darn guy to wipe out the kooky thread we see come on the forum all the time.

Honestly, I think a question we do have to ask is : Would competitive tournament official play actually benefit from story-based play or not?

I can't fathom that it would.

Competitive tournament play is just a different thing. While I enjoy that sort of play, there are also other itches that I would scratch with XMG. I don't think that XMG must always be competitive tournament playing style. It's just the easy default, because anything else requires a greater level of cooperation and agreement by the players.

Now, maybe that's just too great of a threshold to cross for many XMG-paying communities, and maybe it's only for a niche section of XMG players. However, in my community I have been hearing rumblings (admittedly, those have been prompted by yours truly) of interest in a more story-led gaming experience.

If I was FFG I'd hire a few more full time monkeys to first:

Rehash the interface of Mission Control.

Advertise, continue to develop Mission Control and user support.

Get some darn guy to wipe out the kooky thread we see come on the forum all the time.

I think Mission Control was a good idea, but it just didn't seem to be what it needed to be. I think that story-based gaming is something much more beyond 'missions'.

Get some darn guy to wipe out the kooky thread we see come on the forum all the time.

¿Que?

The eject DIE (in my campaign crit kills pilot, hit takes out of the rest of the mission string of 1-4 engagements, focus takes out of next engagement and blank - he bugged out and took ship to base so is fine) is great.

My current roster system for the ongoing campaign is 1 of each unique everything, and for generic pilots however many of each generic pilot can fit into 100 points, so 8 academy pilots for example. Generics die on a crit or hit and live on a blank or focus.

Right now, it seems a bit too soft, as there has only been a handful of casualties in 4 missions, so a better, tighter roster system should be impemented - anyone got one?

Honestly, I think a question we do have to ask is : Would competitive tournament official play actually benefit from story-based play or not?

Would it create more rules and trouble than its worth?

I don't think 'story-based' play is ever going to work in an honest-to-goodness tournament. There's too much faction-on-faction violence for it to ever make sense, for one thing.

But I think you could definitely run a fun event, playing out a story with multiple players participating in thematic, balanced missions. Making thematic, balanced missions is hard but not impossible; I've been doing it since Mission Control came online. Making competitive, thematic missions that can be played in a competitive tournament is another proposition altogether.

I could imagine myself putting together the framework for a multiplayer campaign, but it's a lot of work to do, especially if I don't think anyone is going to use it.

Honestly, I think a question we do have to ask is : Would competitive tournament official play actually benefit from story-based play or not?

Would it create more rules and trouble than its worth?

I don't think 'story-based' play is ever going to work in an honest-to-goodness tournament. There's too much faction-on-faction violence for it to ever make sense, for one thing.

But I think you could definitely run a fun event, playing out a story with multiple players participating in thematic, balanced missions. Making thematic, balanced missions is hard but not impossible; I've been doing it since Mission Control came online. Making competitive, thematic missions that can be played in a competitive tournament is another proposition altogether.

I could imagine myself putting together the framework for a multiplayer campaign, but it's a lot of work to do, especially if I don't think anyone is going to use it.

I'd use it. You know this to be true.

I'd love more than anything else to run a 4 a side epic campaign through a star system.

Where I think objective-based play comes in, is in that latter category. While I like that FFG has toyed around with it with the missions that they have tried to promote, as well as the objectives as they exist in Armada, I'm not sure that FFG is really good at it. I think they're really at heart a boardgame company and not a roleplaying game manufacturer, even if they've dabbled in RPGs. That said, I'm also of the opinion that people's craving for headcanon or story is very diverse, and it is difficult for FFG to try to capture it or find a happy medium which will keep most people happy.

FFG isn't one person. They're got people who specialise in RPGs and they've got people who specialise in board games.

Oh, wow. I really thought that FFG was just Christian Petersen with a word processor, connected to a horde of gnomes carrying out his singular vision.

But seriously, I'm not sure how my argument is subject to an ecological fallacy. Just because they have people in the stable that specialize in RPGs doesn't mean that this is what the company as a whole will do well outside of that niche. I can't even say how well they perform inside that niche (though, witness what happened with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) with a dedicated RPG crew.

Corporate culture and business model matter. The individual talent they may have on payroll won't significantly alter those. While I may be wrong (and I hope I am), it doesn't seem to me that FFG's business model is geared towards exploiting story-based gaming. They probably (correctly) don't see a lot of added value in doing so. I do think they tried it with X-Wing, but have found that it didn't give them much payoff. So it seems to me that they've since embraced their comparative advantage, which isn't in story-based gaming.

I think this is an excellent post, but isn't there a distinction to be made between story-based and objective based?