Hey folks,
I’ve been working on a minis wargame for quite some time now, and need help with the backstory (it recently changed). My game is a fantasy skirmish game, and I want it to include a campaign mode, so that players can play multiple games with the same party.
My goal for the campaign mode is that players will play a series of games. However, during the campaign, some players will drop out. This can either come from losing too many characters in battle, or from losing too many games (i.e. not acquiring enough victory points, resources, etc. so that you are killed, even if your party is still strong). In the end, my goal is that only a few parties survive any give campaign.
The skeleton of the new backstory that I came up with is that the characters start on the island of Illeria. Illeria was once akin to Atlantis. It was hailed by many to be the center of magic, art, science, and culture for the world. However, something has happened. Because of this, all of the inhabitants now have no choice: flee the island or perish. Rather than work together, instead this breakdown of society has produced roving gangs, who kill off the defenseless, and who battle other gangs, just in the hopes of survival and escape.
I guess I should also add in, a major theme of my game is that characters can channel into the spirit realm to invoke powers, and even attack the spirits of others. This doesn’t NEED to fit in with why everyone is dying, but I feel like it would make the story better if it did.
The main problem I’m having right now are the what’s (well, and I guess a how).
-What cause Illerian society to break down?
-What would cause people to break into small parties, rather than ally around a common cause?
-What are the parties fighting over, and what could cause an otherwise healthy party to die because they retreated from too many battles?
-How are the character’s escaping, why can’t everyone do it, and how are winning battles contributing to a character’s ability to escape?
I have some ideas, but I’m not sure if any quite seem to fit. I will probably share some of them in a future post, but for now would like your thoughts.
Thanks in advance!
Simon
Hey everyone,
Sorry for not writing back sooner. The day after I posted this I took a long weekend to visit friends, and am only just getting back to reading these. Very good responses so far.
Lets see...
Jeff- To be honest, I almost want this game to feel like it could be a novel. And I know that the game is the most important part, but I’m in sort of a period right now where all I really need to do is playtest it (but am having trouble finding playtesters), so I thought now would be a good time. And the one thing I would say is that the basic outline of the story will affect how the campaign mode is set up. For example, originally Illeria was a prison island, where the prisoners overthrew the guards, and are now trying to get off the island. Because of this, most of the game was just about trying to gather resources (or steal them from others) in order to escape.
GrimFinger- I like the idea that either fear or disease could cause people to break into small groups. I’m seriously going to consider food as the limiting resource people are fighting over, however it seems just too plain. And I guess I want something more concrete and unavoidable than suicide for lack of honor.
JuggernautJ- The thesis in Collapse was more or less that the people over exploit their environment, then it collapses, and they have no natural resources left to live on, right? I’m less sure about Rome, though I think it had to do something with military over-expenditure and the people of Rome growing fat and lazy. And I think your idea for a backstory would work if it was a more faction-based game. However, one of the things I want to build into this game is that you can make an army of anyone (I guess I’m trying to make it like Magic, that you can put any card together that you want, though some cards will work better than others). I’m also not *quite* sure if I want something that’s that much of a statement on modern times.
The Magician- I guess I still sometimes confuse the basic terminology. Thanks. And I think I do know what you mean. Basically everyone (or just enough of them) suddenly becomes to scared or angry to go about life as normal, and everything falls apart. I remember a high school English teaching saying that from everything he had read, there were two big signs that a society was falling, 1) they spent a lot of time discussing what the moral or right way to be is, and 2) there is a large amount of political satire. Out of curiosity, I hadn’t heard the point about music. What changes about the music of great societies right before they collapse? I guess I’m a little bit confused about your Atlantian/Lemurrian story. Which one would Illeria be?
Simon