Late Night Blather on the “Rise of Tyranny” Campaign

Hi Readers,
I was going to title this post something called analysis/breakdown/post-mortem, but all of that seemed too pompous. So, simply here are my thoughts:

What Worked
Well, the campaign in general. The first rule (written by someone much smarter than me) is that:
YOU MUST FINISH THE CAMPAIGN!
Through everyone’s dedication, we certainly did that. There was an ebb and flow as to how many battles were fought each week, but the last week had just as many battles fought as the first week.  We maintained momentum.

It had a storyline.  Nazi’s get ahold of a planet and advanced weaponry, attack the crap out of the local Imperial forces. Imperials fight back. I put in a fairly large amount of world-building, and by soliciting for even more material from the players, certainly Malathorne and Telebrainia became very real.

What I Don’t Know
Did the narrative translate to the casual readers?  Was there a sense that the Nazi’s attacked with overwhelming force, but were eventually ground to a halt by a painfully slow positive winning curve from the Imperial side?  Is it clear that Telebrainia is a devastated wasteland (having been fought over 3 times as much as any other planet)?
…or did it just seem like record keeping with a thin veneer of fluff?

What Did Not Work
My vision for the Sector Six blog is to tell the stories I see in my head using toy soldiers as the medium. Also, I like to express my thoughts a little about the hobby itself.

I’m not sure I accomplished that.  I look at the posts and I see progressive maps, random pictures, (and a few links to cool Battle Reports), but the toys themselves are not guiding the reader through a narrative.

I think I traded focus for scope.  There were a whole bunch of people playing a whole bunch of games and contributing a great deal of well thought out background, but I was weak on providing the type of content that could harness all of that awesome sprawling material into one cohesive epic.

My Takeaway
This was A. TON. OF. FUN.
A TON
I met new friends, collaborated globally, and the back story was advanced.

I would do it again, the exact same way, in a heartbeat.
BUT
When (not if) it’s time to invite my fellow gracious and generous hobbyists to chronicle the next major war in Sector Six, I want it to be BETTER.

I certainly will provide more source material and get ahead of the story. Things like Strategy Briefs (what is your side really trying to accomplish?), maybe appoint Commanders to play a strategic game and assigning battles to captains in the field to generate context ( and actual mission scenarios)?

I welcome your input. How was your experience?

What do you think could be improved?

Comments

  1. We'll start with your take away Will, you had fun so to did the people that took part you will fined, so win.
    You met & made new friends, so win.
    Your campaign was played out on a global scale, so win.
    The story was advanced, so win.
    The campaign was completed, so win.

    When running on a big scale its a lot harder to handle then a campaign between 2 players, things like given little bonus to the player who's getting the upper hand or linking one mission into another is a lot harder to do, more so when it across several planets.

    Trying to do something like splitting the players up so that player xyz are fighting on planet abc is a doubled edged sword, yes you can link games & give bonus even make the terrain affect the game, but the danger is if the players fighting on that planet go missing for awhile (like I did in the middle part) then it can mess things up a bit.

    You run a great blog here Will & Sector Six is a great place to while away some time, that you want to try to improve things is a credit to you & is something we should all be aiming for in our hobby, something that might be worth trying in the next one would be one or two small sabotage games like a small force in behind enemy lines up to no good, like they've to blow up a arms factory or a dam or kill a VIP The Eagle has Land.

    How was my experience ? I really enjoyed it & was just sorry I couldn't play more games.

    What do I think could be improved, things can always be improved that how things advance, if I would pick something it would be to try in some way to link the games (hard I know) but nothing inspires hero's more then when their backs are to the wall, thing haven't been going well for the 367th time to stand up & be counted men.

    I'll finish by saying this Will, Sector Six is your's we all love dropping in but it's your's where every you want to take it we're all more then happy to help out what ever way we can.

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  2. Thanks for the encouraging words Frank,
    I agree it all comes down to giving the players a "stake" in participation and their games. Whatever of the many options chosen, it has to be clear to the players.
    Thanks for the insight!

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  3. I definitely got the feeling that the impressive early Third Reich victories had ground to a halt, and even been slowly reversed. It was clear enough that Telebrania had suffered deeply from the amount of fighting and your brief mentions of as much. Pictures of smoking ruins might have given more of a feel, but neither do I think they were needed nor would they have been practical unless they played some role in the game. You have a gift for narrative, and I can see where the cursory battle reports necessitated by the scope of the campaign might have felt a little stifling: too much happening too quickly to really tell the story the way you wanted. But I think you did a bang up job of making it feel like this was truly an important moment in the history of Sector Six. The only thing I'd like to see added is a bit more of an excuse for you to put your lovely ships into the vast emptiness of space where they might kindle the hulks of their enemies into brief new stars.

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  4. Thanks for the perspective and kind words.

    I think your suggestion about showing the ruins of Telelbrainia is an excellent suggestions. All I could think of for the interstitial scenes were shots of Staff briefings. A picture and scene among the ruins would have been perfect.

    Thanks

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  5. Thank you for running the campaign. I think it was great, just wished I could have had been able to get in more games to help.

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    Replies
    1. Hi TJ
      I think you and the guys at Goldmine helped a great deal. If you want more games, don't worry, Sector Six is a very violent place, there will be opportunities very soon. :)

      Will
      aka Guiscard

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