Hello,
I keep trying to run an only war campaign,
but I am extremely limited in time.
we are talking 3 hour session a week with no prep time.
And it keeps falling apart.
Are any of you able to run a long in depth campaign with very short sessions and zero pprep?
And if so, what advice would you offer?
Cheers.
Yep, have a over all idea of the story, have a bunch of random generator sheets, send the players on a mission out the back of the book, and have fun.
Not as easy as that but if you pick the skrynne camp at the back of the core ,book, do that ( with lower XP rewards) then you have a good opening bases to work from, and can then go on and say okay, I have all this information here about this world, then 30mins before your game roll a dice, and look at mission suggestions in the back of the book, Say you get a search and destroy game ? well okay, We are fighting orks on this world, so scouts might have located a Ork Nob of high rank, in area. Then send them on the mission, you can judge on the fly how many orks they have to fight, then have a random encounter sheet, to roll off of, to see what you find along the way.
If your players are any good, they should be guiding the story, as much as you are, To many Gms and Ive been guilty of this my self, spend hours prepping every single session, there's no point, because your players can just spend two hours beating up a drug dealer, and all getting stoned before going into combat.
Tell you what, you PM me with a Email and Ill send you my random encounter sheets fro the skrynne camp if you like. ( dnt want to post them on here just yet, my players are sneaky)
I find myself in the same situation quite a bit as well. I second the notion about random generators, and in fact, I use a bunch of them for just about everything. NPC names and descriptions I found generators for, city maps are random, building/base layouts are generated, hell even the planets/creatures/locations are genned from a Rogue Trader system generator. Using these really cuts down on the time spent coming up with them yourself, so that helps quite a bit.
As far as plots go, sometimes it helps to have a very vague objective which would mean less planning, more stuff on the fly. Say you have thirty minutes to prep for the game. Maybe the players are sent to a friendly village to deal with a complaint about missing cattle and crops - only when they get there, the intel was wrong and it was missing people. The plot thickens, things get more sinister, and they have to talk to people/explore buildings to figure it all out. For such a mission, all you would conceivably need were a handful of NPCs (really just names/descriptions, you come up with dialog off the cuff), a map of the village, and maybe a map of a building interior where the finale of the mission happens.
I ran such a mission with only a map of the village and it was one of the best I've ever done. Took me all of 10 minutes to prepare for the session as I knew in my head how I wanted it to end, but left the beginning/middle open to respond to the way the PCs behaved. Great roleplaying, zero stress beforehand, and very hard for players to torpedo your plans - because you have none!
Campaigns are a bit trickier, but easy to plan for Only War as the rank hierarchy means most sessions will be mission-based. The players can't really ruin a campaign as they don't have much control over what they will be assigned to do. How they do it and if they succeed doesn't even have to affect the next mission, but can have repercussions down the road. That's where the planning gets fun.
I really struggled with plot progression in our current campaign as I was just coming up with missions before each session, with plot advancement limited to the planet they were currently on. I was really struggling to come up with a way to move them to other planets and have something that would last long-term. So what I did was sit down one night with a pad of paper, and just outline how I wanted the campaign to go. It looked a little like this:
Themes:
Villians:
Arc 1
Planet 1
Planet 2
And so on and so forth. This gave me a visual idea of how I wanted things to progress instead of being limited to a session-by-session basis. Not only that, but naming the future missions or giving them a small description lets me stew on how I want them to work out, and when it comes time to prep for them, I already know what I want to do and how I want things to happen. Now all I have to do is generate some maps and NPCs and I am good to go.
Due to my 42 hour a week full time job, and meeting for 4 or 5 RPG sessions a week, when it's my turn to GM you can imagine that I'm pretty pressed for prep-time.
So I don't prep, I literally just get an overarching story concept like "Storming the Severan Dominate held Forge World" in my first Only War campaign, and then string together plot twists and story arcs on the fly, plucking out appropriate statblocks from the books, and occasionally adding situational tweaks to them (Most common one is adding the player character Specialisms). The campaign ran for 8 or 9 months before I ended with the finale of assaulting the core of the Necron Tomb Complex.
Cpt' Everos' thing works pretty well too. Using that for my current Tyranid invasion game.
So i totally second random generators and having players lead the session. if your players aren't proative then it will never work because you'll be frying your brain trying to come up with the next thing, when you could outsource that to the other 3-4 brains in the room and they'll be extra invested in the story to boot.
to play only war the way i do it is almost impossible with no prep time. this is because i player only war on a large scale, with very military engagements, you know like city maps. these things are very hard to plan in advance because its hard to keep track of them. also when you have no prep time its very hard to come up with decent NPCs, and really the only good NPCs to come out of a no prep game are accidents (beautiful accidents, but you cant rely on them).
i you're playing only war where the PCs are doing things on their own and there's little other guard involved (which i call "super squad") then you'll be fine, but IMO thats totally not the way you should play only war. but then, if you're having fun it doesn't matter what i think haha
Having just discovered the concept of DnD Encounters, I've been thinking you could put the party in a dungeon. Well, not a dungeon per se, given this is 40K, but have them fighting through a hive city, a space station or a space hulk. Each individual session is of the "kick-in-the-door" sort, but you can lace them together with recurring NPCs, questions and clues. And each prep plan just consists of making a map and populating it with enemies and traps, and that you can even do on the fly.
An interesting campaign could be one using OW, but playing as naval armsmen - fending off boarders, fighting mutants in the lower decks, breaking up illicit activities, and enforcing discipline on a void ship. The whole game would just be a series of "dungeons" linked together, essentially. With investigation mechanics from Dark Heresy, I think it would be a fun one, and easy to prep for.
An issue with 'only war encounters' is that players are much more squishy in only war than D&D. this means you either need to boost the players with kit (which defeats the whole point of only war: you're meant to be terrible), or limit the enemies you throw at them.
An issue with 'only war encounters' is that players are much more squishy in only war than D&D. this means you either need to boost the players with kit (which defeats the whole point of only war: you're meant to be terrible), or limit the enemies you throw at them.
What about the fact that players are not a lone party, but part of a far larger regiment and can more readily replace characters? Granted, you'd have to expect more frequent death and maybe quicker character generation... but as I suggested in the thread on Open Campaigns, it also allows for more varied characters and even drop-in players.
I'm running a DnD game right now at work (I'm a teen librarian) and leaning towards Encounters-style for the ability to easily slot in new and part-time players as, at the very least, NPCs. I'm starting to think about trying to run Only-War-lite for them at some point, as the concept is one of the most approachable to people who haven't encountered the 40K mythos before. Something where new characters and players can drop in or out quickly would probably work well and (to return to the thread topic) require less prep time.
An issue with 'only war encounters' is that players are much more squishy in only war than D&D. this means you either need to boost the players with kit (which defeats the whole point of only war: you're meant to be terrible), or limit the enemies you throw at them.
What about the fact that players are not a lone party, but part of a far larger regiment and can more readily replace characters? Granted, you'd have to expect more frequent death and maybe quicker character generation... but as I suggested in the thread on Open Campaigns, it also allows for more varied characters and even drop-in players.
Would you let those new characters start with the same amount of XP that their now KIA character had, or not?
Hey Aze
(...)
we are talking 3 hour session a week with no prep time.
And it keeps falling apart.
Are any of you able to run a long in depth campaign with very short sessions and zero pprep?
And if so, what advice would you offer?
"ZERO prep" will never work over a Long period of time. If you want to get something out of it IN THE LONG RUN you Need to put something into it", unless you are bursting with creativity and having a mind like a draw-Chart. Otherwise, this will FAIL, and will do so regardless of the system you try "to GM in".
No, what can you do to improve your lot?
1) Time Management
Every day is full of unused time Windows. Time you spend waiting for something. This are perhaps abby small (5 minutes), perhaps longer. Use this Windows to think about a Scene you were working it. You won´t be able to make notes, you won´t be able to have Details pinned down. But you might have idead, the constaint '"re-thinking" about the Topic keeps it vivid in your mind and thereby easy to re-Access. WARNING/DISCLAIMER: to your Environment, you might start to come across as somebody who "is not really here". Don´t do so during a Meeting at work or while your girlfiend is talking to you. I am SERIOUS here.
Of course, this will not help you with COMING UP with something..unless you take These "time Windows" in a relaxed, Environment. Turn of the sound of your tv if a Commercial break Comes up (if you still watch TV, that is!). Lean back in the kitchen after you Switch the coffee machine to on and take yourself a while.
2) Charts and Tools
The bad Thing about Charts: you will never have those absolutely matching your game Needs, twice so when talking grimdark 40k. They Need to be worked with. But they are GOLD, never the less. What I want to suggest is a trip over to drivethroughrpg.com. Have a look at products of Moebius Adventures ("Insta-NPC" and their other products) and look for a PDF called "the Location Craft".
The Later helps you to prep an event-Encounter table at the start of your session, then "rolling with the dice role" during the session and having the table as a "living table" while the session is on. It still Needs you to know "what it is all about" and "where do I want this to end", so. And, you will Need to improvise stuff right out of the blue based on three keywords. Keywords you needed to come up with yourself at the start. I still suggest it, it is more of METHOD then anything else, and the method might be useful to you
3) TAKE the prep time, drop a session!
Instead of having your campaign fall apart from session to session, pull the breaks. Tell your Players that you Need some prep time, and that the next session will not happen since you are going to sit down for 3 hours, preparing a session. Your Players might balk about this, but if it heightens the quality, they will accept it. Tell them in ADVANCE, so
4) As already suggested, ask for help by your Players
You and your Group are connect via email, right? Ask each of them for a Scene they would like to have happen. Tell them all up front that you Need to milk them for ideas, and that they shall Keep their mouth shut about the Scenes to one another. Have them send their Scenes by email. Take them, edit them a Little, especially regarding the solution. Or simply, add ONE complication to each of them. If you have three Players, these are three Scenes you get and thereby between 15 and 30 minutes of Play time. Perhaps even 60, depending on how much in-character interaction is going on, how good you are in improvising further Details and the like
5) If desperate, state your Problem to the Forum and plead for help
WHAT is your current campaign? WHAT is exactly "going south"? What do you Need? Put this out as a "help!"-Topic here somewhere, and see what happens. With a Little BAD luck, you only get a lot of "depends-on" answers that offer no solid advice but a lot of People explaining why you are asking the wrong way. If you are lucky, somebody provides something that you can print out to fill between 5 and 30 minutes worth of game time.
6) I repeat, take yourself some prep time, drop a session
Would you let those new characters start with the same amount of XP that their now KIA character had, or not?
Yes, I would, assuming all the characters are part of the same regiment and have had (offscreen) the same experiences. It could easily be different in something like Dark Heresy, where you have characters from all over, some of whom have been in the band for decades and some of whom joined last week. Unless your regiment has a mix of experience (say, a combined unit), I'd stick with the fluff -- which is that regiments rarely recruit from home, but rather dwindle into more veteran units.
I give them half as much experience as their deceased character. Doing so actually penalizes them for dying beyond just losing their character, and discourages suicide for better stats or something.
Or do something inbetween, like roll a d100/2 + 50 (round up). That's the percentage of experience they'll receive.
Hm, hadn't thought about that. Perhaps leaving with the same or most, but narratively make them junior? If they're in command of the squad at death, for example, have their next PC be a trooper and whoever was playing 2inC gets to be Sergeant next?
Aze, in what way did the game fall apart?