robert4818

I understand your problem. I meant to have the solution in there but apparently missed that. In a situation like that you simply draw cards for initiative. The first player may issue a challenge then the next etc. At the end of a turn a crew can only do one fight unless they agree to do more.

Could you explain what you mean by complex situations?

Like a good ressurectionist, I'm practicing some Necromancy here. Has anyone tried the idea out? How did it work?

I have to say I'm glad that the idea of mine has at least not just faded into the dustbin. Have you tried using it yet? My group hasn't just due to lack of malifaux players, and an overall RPG focus Taking my TTB over there soon to be looked at.

I've decided to bump this back to the top and see how it goes.

I don't see anything preventing same faction fights. Though, I will admit that the base assumption is that players will play different factions. In the case of same-faction, each player should have their own copy of plot/grand strategy cards, playing as normal. Same faction fights might make more sense for some factions more than others though. Neverborn and the Guild seem more unified than the others, so it might seem odd to me for them to be competing. As for masters/multi-masters. I'll leave that concept up to you. I've made the assumptions that the standard "campaign" rules put forth in the Chronicle would cover the nuts and bolts of fights/growth, while my stuff covers the "meta" level (i.e. map and goals).

Ideally I hope someone at Wyrd takes a look at this idea and perhaps comes out with something official. I don't have the grip on the lore and the individual factions required to come up with plots and grand strategies that fit each faction.

Even with the grand strategy, you want enough potential pre-reqs that players can pick and choose their own unique set of plot cards. This gives players enough freedom to still choose their own way through the game, and it also prevents other players from simply recognizing the "Grand Strategy" based off of a plot card and moving to stop it. After all, the concept behind the grand strategy is that you see all these minor things happening, only for them to all come together in the end. This doesn't work if someone is able to go "Oh look the neverborn player is holding the well, must be doing the 'Poison the water supply again"

A GM is largely unnecessary for the campaign, though having one could definitely help bring some extra narrative spice to the campaign. The strings and plot cards pretty much take care of themselves without a need for outside interference (so to speak). That being said. The plot cards are part of the "Seed" concept of this idea. There is a ton of different tweaks and ideas that can grow from the bare bones idea provided in the seed post. I like your idea of verbs, and the idea of campaign effects from different plots. Another idea that LITERALLY came to me while typing this up is the idea of the "Grand Strategy" for a game with a stronger narrative twist to it. Here that is: Grand Strategy: Each player chooses a Grand Strategy that sums up their factions primary goal for the campaign. Its basically a "super plot card" that works as an end-game climax to each factions story for the campaign. The first player to complete their Grand Strategy wins the campaign. Each Grand Strategy card would be similar to a regular Plot card. However, it has prerequisites that must be met before it can be played. The card lists a number of potential plot cards on it that work for Prereqs. It then lists the number of plots (or VP if using variable VP plot cards) that must be completed before the grand bargain can be played, with the numbers being listed for short, medium, and long campaigns.

I have. A few posts up I talked a bit about how the plot cards in the original post are fairly "bland". There are a number of ways to spice them up. First, plots can award VP instead of simple completion. This would allow for some more complicated plots that take more time, but award more VP. And also completion of specific plots could do more things. For example, one plot might shut down the random generation of soulstones onto the map. My hope is that this basic foundation, combined with the campaign rules in malifaux Chronicles 5, it will inspire people to expand this and run some awesome campaigns.

The reason I didn't want to do something unifying like that is that each faction has their own agendas in the world. Fights happen when when two different factions have competing interests. While soulstones are generally wanted by all factions, not every other goal is. I originally was thinking of giving each faction an "end game" with different mechanics, but realized that this would be very hard to do and harder to balance. That's where the plot cards came in. It allows a fairly unified mechanic in the form of plot cards, but flavor text, exact hotspots, and possible tasks can be tailored to fit each faction. Unfortunately, I'm about as far developed on this idea as I'm likely to get in a while. (Hence why I've called it an idea seed instead of a full proposal). I'm actually very new to malifaux, and am not well versed in the lore at all. This makes it hard for me to come up with the nitty gritty details for each faction on their cards. Plus, absolutely 0 playtesting has been done. Its why i've tried to put hard numbers in whereever possible. I have no idea how much a soulstone pickup should be worth in scrip. I have no idea how long a campaign should run, or how many plots that would be.

I think I used the wrong word (Given that schemes are a keyword in Malifaux). The campaign "schemes" are not the same thing. I have decided call them Plots. I've been thinking on them since the post originally went up. I described something rather basic for the Plot Cards: Go to hotspot, Declare plot, wait 1 term. If someone shows up, fight via scenario rules on card. If your plot is not stopped, (i.e. no one shows, or you win the fight(s)) you complete the plot. There is always room for expansion here. A plot could also be: Go to X, declare plot, pick up token. Next turn, take token to X. If not stopped, complete the plot. Also, plot tokens are really another form of campaign Victory Points. This concept could be used to create higher value plots that take more time to complete. Finally, its possible to have plots that upon completion, also affect the campaign itself, instead of simply being an objective. For an example a plot "Shutting down the mines" might award victory points, and also stop random soulstone appearance for the rest of the campaign (unless someone also has "reopen the mines" as a plot.

Thanks. I liked the string route concept as well, it solved a number of issues with me when it came to figuring out the map based campaign. Instead of dealing with regions, the game focuses instead on the travel. Just as a side note, The map used is purely for ease of example. It might in fact be too zoomed in, making the string route concept seem rather odd. This idea probably works better with a more zoomed out map, up to and including the official malifaux map itself.

First a Caveat. This is an idea seed, not a full blown set of rules. As such, most of the details are left out (mainly because I haven't figured them out yet.). Instead, the idea here is to get a very basic foundation set up for how to do a "malifaux-style" map based campaign. Now on to the discussion. One last note: This is designed to work WITH the campaign mechanics in the Malifaux Chronicles Vol 5. I like your standard map based campaign for most games. Capturing Territory, moving your forces across the table, capturing more territory, and most of the fighting coming out of competing over the same spot on the map. Unfortunately, I simply don't think that works well for malifaux. And by "that well" I mean it really doesn't fit with malifaux at all. You don't have 6 factions in an all out war, or even competing for territory. You have 6 factions active in and around a city each doing their own thing, and often competing over resources. In fact, Malifaux's scenario creation system reinforces this idea with the individual schemes. As such, a map based campaign needs to reflect these differing goals, while still allowing for a fight. I got to thinking about how that would work in a map based campaign. Instead of coming up with regions and zones, I came up with something more of a spider-web and nexus idea. Here's a VERY ROUGH outline of the concept. First you design a map, and on it, you place important locations. Ideally you print this map and glue it or draw it on a large piece of foam board, placing a push pin or something into each hot spot. I've stolen a map from an online malifaux rpg to demonstrate this idea. The small black circles represent these pins. Each player starts in a home hot spot of their choice or one made for them during the design of the game. Each player draws (or chooses) a number of Plot cards from a faction specific deck. Each deck lists a hot spot, and scenario type. Also, soul stones pop up at random locations on the map. (This can be determined by die roll, fate card draw, or even a custom deck of cards). Then at the beginning of every round of play, a player either makes a move or chooses to do nothing. (Doing nothing involves staying in place while participating in a plot.) Players who decide to move, plan the move in secret, and ideally reveal the move at the same time. (This works best if everyone is present at the beginning of a round, or their is a neutral proctor). Players who move, use a bit of colored string and stretch it between two push pins on the map. Those two push pins are their current location and their destination. See map below. Any place two lines cross, their is a chance for an encounter, and hence a "street battle". Either player at the cross chooses whether or not to challenge the other, if no one challenges, no fight takes place. If a challenge does take place, the "Street battle" occurs. (In this instance, street battle is a standard malifaux set up, discarding any locations that make absolutely no sense. Extreme leeway should be given as to whether a scenario does or does not make sense. (I.e. a bayou battle on this map makes no sense, but an opera house, even if the crossing is "over the river" could be stretched as a small detour over something important) The winner of the battle continues on to their destination, while the loser must return to the location they tried to move from. Once all movement is made, each player may choose to reveal a plot card, or collect a soul stone. A soul stone counts as either (X) scrip, or is added directly to a factions soul-stone pool. If a player reveals a plot card, he must skip his next turn as he is actively pursuing that plot. However, during that turn, other factions may move to that location to counter that plot. If so, the scenario on the card plays out. If the faction who started the plot wins, they collect a completed plot token. If they lose, they must discard that plot and draw/choose a new one from their pile. The first person to complete an agreed upon number of plots wins the campaign. What do you think? Edit: For clarification, the word "Schmes" when referring to the campaign, has been replaced with the term "plots".

So far, it appears that, overwhelmingly, the preferred option is to have players create human players, with the factions having no role in creation. This of course doesn't mean that players can't join/fight any of the factions, simply that they aren't in one from the get go.