When Campaigns Takes On Lives Of Their Own
Letting The Players Take Turns In The Big Chair
It began with a question: “What in the hex north of Ruina?”
I didn’t know. I said as much. “Find out.”
Then I had to handle my annual Old Man obligations, which put me out of the loop and they carried on without me. Thus did I have my own experience with what Jeffro and BDubs recently posted out.
That was the entire Wolfwald Expedition. Allow me to summarize:
Ruina decides to head north overland towards the Tower.
Ruina has no idea what’s out there and hasn’t for a long time. Sends an expeditionary force.
Ruina goes one hex north and finds something right out of Shadow of Mordor.
The Halflings get called in. Hijinx and Favorite Son ensue.
Ruina ends up making nice with a Ki-Rin, surviving local populations, and take out some hostile goblinoids. Thus this turned into a conquest/liberation operation.
There’s some Criosphinx-on-Criosphinx relations, which is difficult because one of them is dead.1
Some sort of Cosmic Horror gets a mention in passing; no one (including the players) have a clue as to what it is or anything else.
This was my reaction to reading the Discord thread when I got back to checking up on it.
Which has then prompted others to just sort things out. Dorrinal’s been handling the action related to New Zurich’s push south towards the Tower. Dave’s taken up what’s going down in and around Al Shadam. I’m reading the results and ensuring that what can be SEEN is, and putting results in the News Channel.
This is what a campaign should aim towards. It’s why BDubs coined the top position as the Booker and not the Referee; it allows others participating in the campaign to take a turn behind the screen when the primary man is unavailable. Other Clubhouses have done similar, such as the guys running Dolemwood three or more nights a week, and it’s been fantastic to just see how they’re making it all work.
There is one thing that needs to be present for this to work, and that’s a lack of attachment to any particular outcome. If I were to get hospitalized again2 and thus put out of action for a while, I know that the gang could keep things going while I’m laid up. If they manage to somehow invent thermonuclear weapons and blow up the entire Isle while I’m in traction, I would not only not care I’d laugh and ask how they did it.3 Then I’d set up a new campaign when I got home.
The reason I can do this is because I use a game that, when used as directed, cannot help but to reliably produce satisfactory gameplay results. I don’t need to handhold, hand-craft, or otherwise intervene or substitute. The game runs itself; all you need to do is let it, to get out of the way.4
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some shenanigans to get up to.
In that Ruina’s former ruler had lost contact with the one in the Wolfwald, meaning that what would have been a reconnection moment turned into delivering a delayed death notice.
In case you don’t know, I’m a cripple in a wheelchair. It could happen.
I broke White Wolf’s World of Darkness setting before to get a result other than what they were attached to, and I would do the same for Exalted if I cared enough to try. You better believe I’d be amused to see someone else do it to something I came up with.
That is what defines a game vs. a product. You can’t do that with a product.
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