Chapter Ten: Campaigning
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The Campaign
Don't Try This at Home
For those of you that missed my warning in the introduction, let me
repeat: the BrikWars universe is not particularly well suited to
large-scale campaigning. There are no rules for maintaining economies
on a Civilizational scale, or keeping track of imperial resources and conquered
lands. Trying to keep a BrikWars campaign going involves a lot of
flying by the seats of players' pants. It also involves some hasty
scribbling of vague notes, and an absolute lack of any sense of propriety.
Only an idiot would want to try campaigning (or God forbid, roleplaying)
with the BrikWars system. But, if you're determined to ignore my
advice, here are the rules I fly by when I'm going against my own better judgement.
The Campaign Universe
BrikWars campaign universes aren't very detailed. A gut feeling
is usually good enough to tell how well a Civilization is doing.
A Civilization that has just conquered five planets and quashed all incursions
gets just as many points to spend in a battle as a Civilization that has
lost three colonies to Awful Green Things. The difference is in what
kind of battles they will be fighting: who will be moving to conquer who,
and who will be running desperate raids to get the resources to stay alive.
Battles in a BrikWars campaign cause a couple of lasting effects.
First, for every 100 points spent in a battle, there will be one 1d10 rolled
at the end to improve Characters. These dice will be divided between
the players depending on how well they do. In an utter rout, all
the dice go to one player, but otherwise each player will get at least
one. Secondly, any special objects obtained in a battle can be carried
on to later battles. Finally, any important victories by a Civilization
can be kept track of on your Things That Happened list, to keep a general
sense of who has grudges against who.
Characters
If you don't try any other aspect of campaigning, you should at least
keep track of a few Characters. Good Characters add personality and
charm to otherwise senseless and brutal violence. (Not that there's
anything wrong with senseless and brutal violence.)
Characters start out as normal minifigs (or occasionally Setvian Robots
or other intelligent machines). They might be created as Characters,
or they might just be an anonymous bystander in the right place at the
right time who does something so stupendous that the player decides to
make him a Character on the spot. Characters get no special bonuses
right away; they just get a name and a personality. They eventually
get the opportunity to improve themselves, but usually they are killed
off before they increase any stats more than a point or two. That's
the way it goes.
At the end of a battle, players divide up a certain number of dice,
for however many hundreds of points they spent in that battle. The
way the dice are divided depends mostly on which player wins, and by how
much. If a certain minifig had a particularly amazing performance,
that should affect the dice allotment as well.
A player can then spend these dice to improve their Characters.
The player rolls d10's against whatever stat he wants to improve.
For instance, if a Character has an AV of 1d6 + 2, a player must roll high
enough on 1d10 to beat a roll on 1d6 + 2. If he succeeds, the stat
is increased by +1. +3's can be increased to an additional 1d6, and
+5's can be increased to an additional 1d10. To increase very high
stats, a player may need to spend more than one d10 at a time.
A Character may try to use d10's to improve other things. For
instance, a Character who wants to gain one Stupendous Feat per turn must
roll a 10 on a 1d10. Other odd abilities, such as Amazing Leaping
Ability or Immense Lifting Power, can be assigned some number as agreed
upon by the players, and then that number must be beaten on a 1d10.
A player should keep track of all his surviving Characters on paper
(or in a computer file). The important things to write down are the
Character's name, his troop type, and all his modified stats. To
include old Characters in new battles, a player only has to spend the original
point cost of the Character's troop type.
It is possible to base a Campaign around the actions of a few Characters
rather than a Civilization. This ends up being less like miniatures
wargaming and more like roleplaying than BrikWars is really intended to
be (unless one of those Characters happens to command a battalion of hardened
troops), but some people go for that kind of thing. I won't try and
explain this kind of degenerate behavior.
Don't get too attached to a Character - survival rates are pretty low
on the BrikWars battlefields. If you're really determined, make sure
you have an Ambulance, a SickBay, and a team of Medix on hand in any battle
in which your Character is participating, and make sure you don't lose
the battle!
Objects
It is common in the BrikWars universe for someone to discover an unexpected
object. A small percentage of these objects eventually prove to be
useful. A much smaller percentage of those are so outstandingly stupendous
that a number of Civilizations immediately send troops to fight over them.
These objects range from the Enormous Golden Sword of Galdan Prime to the
Holy Grail of Deneb II, each with its own special abilities.
Whichever minifig ends up with the special object automatically becomes
a Character. The Character then carries the object with him into
later battles, at no additional point cost. Make sure he doesn't
lose it, or it might fall into enemy hands!
Empire
Trying to keep track of all the comings and goings in your Civilization
would take a lot of paper and not do you a whole lot of good, so don't
try it. But, you can keep notes on who you've angered lately, and
whichever of your recent deeds are causing the Galactic Media to hound
you. This will help you when you go through the absolutely unnecessary
process of thinking of justifications for battles you would probably be
fighting anyway.
Some of your conquests will give you special options in later battles.
For instance, Johar armies have limits on how many large weapons they can
deploy in a single battle, but if they just made a successful raid on a
Meikon heavy weapons factory, they can choose to use a bunch of their heavy
weapon booty in their next battle. Take note when you capture special
equipment or resources that would not normally be available to you.
You may also want to keep track of Things That Happen outside the day-to-day
battles, like Civilizational treaties, natural disasters, new technological
discoveries, or random political maneuvering. Keeping a vague sense
of galactic history gives a campaign continuity, and a single event can
start all kinds of ridiculous storylines. For instance, if the Kraan
Empire develops a new superweapon, the Doom Planetoid, the Riotians are
going to try and steal the schematics, and the Kirsitians are going to
try and buy it from them and discover the tactical weakness in the Executive
Sewage Duct. But first the SpaceCouriers have to break through a
Kraan blockade to deliver it - and so on. The scenarios that result
from Things That Happen can be a lot more satisfying than regular battles.
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