Campaign's to gm or not to gm? this is the question that i pose to you.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Okay so trying to look at this from all parties and all angles. To Gm or not to have a Gm in a campaign that is both narrative and map based. I'm sure some of you are scratching your heads and saying what is he talking about. So here is what i am getting out. The campaign will be played in 3 fronts. it's meant to functrion this way to give people a break as well as a chance to build and paint up new forces or to adapt and change. Lets face it no one wants to constantly loose a campaign every single time. but there will be winners and their will be losers thats just a fact.

So what are the 3 facets of the campaign well for starters there is a 40k element that will be fought out over a campaign map. each planet will have its own representation with in each sector. So you will have a familiar map between the might empires tiles and the 40k ones as well.

Battlefleet gothic is the 2nd part of the campaign. before you take a city let alone a planet you have to get there. So to represent this there is a gothic component to the campaign where you'll defend and attack planets and sectors.

The 3rd facet is a roleplaying component. so while you might be part of the ever growing waagh trying to conquer a specific planet or system in the RP aspet you'll be on the imperial side wether in control of a guardsmen if playing total war or a space marine in a death wath senerio or even part of an inquisitorial warband sent to ensure the campaigns completion.


With so many moving parts and complexety to the campaign i am strongly looking at it as having need of a Gm but once that starts then you really loose out on a player. the gothic stuff is an easy sell as well as the 40k component and honestly the group would be okay floating through Gm's for the RP portion i'm just wondering if i am deluding myself into thinking that this will work with out someone guiding everything and making sure everyone writes down what they gained or lost as well as making sure that any book keeping is completed.

So have at is BOLS crew!

[Katharon]

So you're basically asking for a BoLS member to step up and do your number crunching and such for you? Altogether your campaign seems pretty cool and stuff that I've done before. I once did a campaign of 40K that involved regular 40K, BFG, and then Deathwatch. Everything was connected to each other, events in one game having an impact upon another part of the game. For instance, if Team A won a game of BFG against Team B, then the next 40K game a Team A member had they were allowed to have 1 orbital bombardment, to show that their fleet had momentary supremacy over the world they were fighting over. Or when a group of Deathwatch space marines infiltrated a Chaos base and destroyed their supply depot, causing another army in 40k regular to have a -1 modifier to their reserve rolls.

If you're going the narrative-map route, then make sure you have a strong and descriptive setting -- then let it go from there. Don't create any NPCs that are expected to live to the end. Expect things to go against your wishes at one point or another.

I personally am a writer, so if you want some of that done then I can give you a world to step into and use and abuse at your own descretion. As for book-keeping, I hope you can find someone. My advice, make whatever point or scoring system simple as you can make it. The more complicated, the worse.

[Kaptain Badrukk]

Anything that complex needs a GM, someone who can get it all together, been there without and it doesn't work.

[Wolfshade]

Especially if it is a long campaign and one player makes an early unasailable lead.

[phil035]

simply put yes you do, you need someone who isn't taking part in the campaign except to fill a game if and when required he should be able to attend most event nights and be kept informed of all game results(and losses of ships in bfg so blown up ships stayed blown up) and he can say who is fighting who as well as keeping all rp sessions on track and moving. he can also implement some special rules like i you loose a bfg game the next battle the loosing side can't use fliers stuff like that

[Gutzmek]

Simply for the RP itself can turn into a complicated mess not to mention keeping track of who beats who and what planet has the waaagh!!! Has been contained and where it is still running a muck!! All the battle fleet stuff just compounds the problem further. Get your self a manager not necessarily a DM but some one to keep it all straight, but hey if he can run your RP as well all the much better. Just my thoughts good luck with this endeavor, it seems ambitious.

[Mr Mystery]

And here's a top-tip about GMing a campaign.

If you're the GM, you're best off not being a player as well.

If you're a player, and also responsible for rules and that, there is the temptation, and worse, the perception from your players, that rules questions will benefit your army first and foremost.

Sitck to one or the other!

[Veteran Sergeant]

So you're basically asking for a BoLS member to step up and do your number crunching and such for you?

I don't think so. I think he's just asking if people think that a GM would be needed.



If you guys structure the tabletop portion ahead of time, you don't really need a GM. I guess it depends on how competitive everyone is. If people really, truly want to "win", then you might have problems. But if people are more interested in having a good time as "winning", then you might not have to worry so much. Just play the games out, and tailor the narrative of those campaigns based on the results.

I think that obviously you need a GM for the roleplaying portion. As much as my opinion of WH40RPG is fairly low, you shouldn't have a problem roleplaying it I imagine. Somebody playing one of the xenos or Chaos armies should be able to fill in at the very least. The GM probably shouldn't be a player character too. He has enough to do, typically. But he could easily be a participant in the tabletop campaigns.

[SotonShades]

I have run far simpler campaigns than that that needed a GM. No matter how well you think you've written the rules, players will try to break that system and find ways to exploit it. At some point you will have to make a decision that will affect some aspect of the campaign; it is far easier to convince them your decision is impartial when it won't actually affect you because you aren't taking part. I've also found that, unless you are going to play your whole campaign over the course of a weekend, most campaigns need someone to be a focus, a driving force, a leader who keeps the other players in line, interested and excited to take part. Of course you are going to be excited about the campaign; you know the potential outcomes, you spent ages thinking about and tweaking the rules (and probably maps and background as well), you have an emotional investment in seeing it reach a conclusion. As passionate as they may seem at the start, not all of your players will have that conviction. In fact, most won't at all and will probably want to just play a regular pick up game towards the end of the story arc, particularly if it looks like their side will be struggling to win.

One final point to make pertains to secrets, which sounds like something you're likely to involve if there is a role play aspect. Even just knowing there are secrets to be discovered or artefacts yet to be unveiled can be an enticing hook to keep players interested. But someone has to keep them. Someone has to decide how and when they are revealed. If you have a group of players rotating through being the GM for your RPs, then they can't really reveal much because they can only be told so much of the story arc (ie the bit they'll be GMing) and they can only be told a short time ahead of the reveal, lest they influence their faction's choices because they know in advance what will be most beneficial to them. At the same time, as the writer of the campaign, you do know those secrets and must try to play as if you didn't know them or else risk alienating the other side(s) who have to fight an uphill battle against a better informed foe (actually, that could be a really interesting campaign, but only if both sides understood that ahead of time).

In short, even the simplest campaigns often require an impartial GM to keep things going. Each added complexity takes more of the GMs time away from actually being able to play games, and the one you described seems to have plenty of those. I would certainly suggest stepping up and running a campaign though. They can be stressful, hard work and at times at least some of your players will hate you for decisions you've made, but at the end of the story everyone will have a shared experience that reaches far further than a pick-up game ever can and YOU will be the one responsible. That's a good feeling