Campaign lengths?

[silentarcher00]

I've just picked up the rule books for this game and want to run it for a few friends. I was wondering how long session wise people have made their campaigns with regards to destiny steps fulfilled etc. The Fatemaster's guide says each session should complete a player's destiny step so campaign length should be no. of players x 5 sessions which made sense to me at first, but I'm a little confused about how advanced pursuits are achieved if the campaign will only focus on a player 5 times. As you can't start with an advanced pursuit, unless the player takes it as soon as possible they are never going to get very far up the ladder. So I was wondering, how are other people setting out their campaigns? I was thinking of having a destiny step completed every 3rd session, with each adventure being 3 sessions long (I have 3 players) so each little chapter has a session focussed on each player with one player completing a destiny step at the end. It also give plenty of time for people to go off and do their own little things (all my players have very different goals).

Any thoughts on this?

[Brewmaster]

Congrats on picking up the book! I can understand how the sessions thing is a bit hard to follow, so let's see if I can help:

EVERY session, people progress once down the pursuit track. If you have 5 players, and 5 Destiny steps each, that means there will be 25 sessions. That's 2 1/2 pursuits the players can complete by the time the game wraps.

[CougDyver]

I do this the same way Brewmaster mentions... Each session I have them progress a step on a pursuit track.  We have a large group (7 players), so I try and do 2 Destiny steps per session, though it doesn't always work that way.  My goal is to have the characters be able to finish an advanced pursuit fully, as well as their starting pursuit fully, so ~20 sessions.

[Brewmaster]

Yup... Over in the Game Sessions thread, I hit a little bit on my ideas for tying double destinies or more together to help dial the campaign length down.

[orcface]

We want to really explore and become part of Malifaux with our characters. So, two things here.

1. Does the campaign have to end when all the destiny steps are completed? I don't think so....

2. We absolutely do not fulfill a destiny step every session. Some of our sessions end as just part of a big adventure, to be continued next time. I expect our 5 player group to go 35 sessions or so.

[Omenbringer]

@ Silentarcher00

 

Taken from the Fatemaster's Almanac, page 209 under "Gaining an Advanced Pursuit"

 

It is a fairly simple affair for a character to gain access to an Advanced Pursuit. The process should be the focus of a story, much like resolving a step of Destiny. During these stories. the Fated who is gaining the Advanced Pursuit is the focus of the story, as if one of his Destiny steps was being resolved.

 

and from "Steps Along an Advanced Pursuit" on the same page

 

A Fated never chooses his Advanced Pursuit as his current Pursuit. Instead, the character takes a step along his Advanced Pursuit only when the story focuses on his Advanced Pursuit, much like his Destiny.

 

To me this strongly implies that gaining an Advanced Pursuit and moving along its steps will add sessions to the Campaigns length due to replacing the normal Destiny resolution with Advanced Pursuit step resolution.

 

I agree though that in small groups, spreading Destiny resolution across a few sessions is also a good idea.

[silentarcher00]

Thanks for the input everyone, I think I know what I'm going to aim for in campaign length. Now I just need to read through all the books and write a campaign before Friday...

[Ad1]

Sorry to post late, we have a game with 8 players.

 

We alternate 1 game that focuses on a pursuit step. These are focused games that we simply play on through in a quite linear fashion.

 

The next game is just us hanging out talking, exploring a little about Malifaux and the community and getting a few tips and hints on the meta plot. We might also tie up some loose ends from the previous game like dividing any loot or negotiating what we're going to do with stuff.

 

Our FM has removed Advanced Pursuits so we won't be getting into them at all.

 

Yeah it's a long campaign but we're happy with it and enjoying it immensely.

 

I'll also say we use two fate decks with 4 players drawing from each one and you only get a twist card if the FM shuffles the deck you draw from. Means we don't cycle through a deck as quickly as we would otherwise. Didn't want to end up with players getting too many twist cards

 

Kind Regards,

 

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