What's a Campaign? (Part II)

Yesterday, I pointed out a section in The Traveller Adventure that describes it as a campaign and then defines a campaign as "a complete set of adventures which provides a slowly unfolding drama to explore, investigate, and conquer." As I reflected on this, I was reminded that the subtitle for Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, the first stand-alone adventure for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, is "A Global Campaign to Save Mankind." So, what exactly is a campaign, at least in the view of Chaosium, circa 1982 (a year before the publication of The Traveller Adventure)?

The introduction to Shadows of Yog-Sothoth includes a "How to Use This Book" section that provides some insight into this matter, though, as we'll see, there are still complexities to be explored.

Shadows of Yog-Sothoth is divided into two main sections. The first part is a lengthy campaign of seven scenarios, from which the entire book takes its name. The second part is much shorter, and is a pair of bonus scenarios; unrelated to the first part, or to each other.

The first part of the book is meant to be played as a fully campaign, and those scenarios should be followed in the order that they are laid out in this book ...

As with The Traveller Adventure, we say a campaign as being defined as a collection of linked scenarios built around a common focus, in this case defeating the plans of "a sinister occult organization, led by the evil Lords of the Silver Twilight," as the introduction goes on to explain.

Speaking of the introduction, a later paragraph sheds some further light on the meaning of a campaign. After discussing how the campaign is structured – seven scenarios, each of which leads into the next one – it goes on to say:

If your particular mode of play is not suited to a series of linked adventures, such as this book consists of, the individual scenarios may certainly be played by themselves.

This sentence suggests that Call of Cthulhu has two "modes" of play: one based around individual scenarios and one based around "a series of linked adventures," which is to say, a campaign. Interestingly, the back cover of Shadows of Yog-Sothoth describes itself as a "scenario book for the CALL OF CTHULHU role-playing game. SHADOWS OF YOG-SOTHOTH is a seven-chapter tale of horror and suspense." Here, each integral scenario of the campaign is likened to a chapter, the whole – the campaign itself – being called a "tale of horror and suspense." 

Chapter VII of the second edition of Call of Cthulhu bears the title "How to Play the Game." Here, we once again see that a "campaign" is defined as being made of several scenarios that 

ought to be arranged like the branches of a tree. The players start out fooling around with the very tips and edges of the mythos, where there are dozens of myths, legends, clues, and adventures. As they gain knowledge and experience, the investigators will work their way inwards, where there are fewer happenings, of greater importance. At the center of the mythos reside the hideous Elder Gods in all their reality. The final goal of play may well be to save this planet and force the retreat of Cthulhu and other space beings. Becoming powerful to do that may take years.

Words like "scenarios," "adventures" and even "play" are used without precision. Are they all the same thing or are there fine distinctions between them? Where does a campaign fit into all this? That's why I find myself wondering whether anyone at Chaosium at the time had a clear sense of it themselves or whether we, in the present, are expecting a degree of clarity that no one at the time needed, let alone expected. Still, it's yet more grist for the mill as I delve more deeply into campaigns, their meaning, and how they were run during the first decade of the hobby.

Pretenders to the Throne

Like most people involved in the hobby of roleplaying, Dungeons & Dragons was the first RPG I ever played. Furthermore, it's probably the RPG I've played the most over the decades, even though it's not my favorite. I do like it and would even go so far as to say that most versions of it are fun to play. This isn't a controversial opinion. Indeed, if history is any guide, most roleplayers feel similarly, because some version of Dungeons & Dragons has been the most popular, most played, and most profitable roleplaying game pretty much continuously since 1974. 

I say "pretty much," because there have been times and places when this was not case, but most of these instances have been unusual in one way or another. I was thinking about this topic for reasons I'll explain in an upcoming post, but my present point is that, with only a handful of exceptions, D&D has always been the King of Roleplaying Games. That was true in 1974 and it's still true in 2024. That's a truth that a lot of partisans of other RPGs don't like to hear. While I'm sympathetic to their feelings, I'm not going to pretend as if it's not the case that D&D's reign has not been a largely secure one.

There I go again with my quibbling adverbs – largely. I'm old enough to remember several moments in time when it seemed as if the fortunes of Dungeons & Dragons were on the downswing and another roleplaying game was on the ascent. Whether that was actually the case is another matter. For now, though, I'd simply like to focus on three occasions when it seemed to me – perhaps mistakenly – as if D&D was in danger of being pushed aside by a competitor. 

The first time was in the mid-80s, once I had become a subscriber to White Dwarf. One of the things I very quickly noticed was that the magazine frequently carried content for Chaosium's RuneQuest, then in its second edition. This was in stark contrast to Dragon magazine, the gaming periodical with which I was most familiar, which scarcely ever included articles, let alone adventures, for RQ. At that time, AD&D was in its late 1e doldrums, so I took the appearance of so much RuneQuest material in White Dwarf as evidence that its star was on the rise. I would eventually learn that this was mostly a British phenomenon, where RQ's popularity met or even exceeded that of D&D. So far as I know, this never extended to North America, but I still started contemplating the possibility that Dungeons & Dragons might one day be toppled from its position as King of the Hill. 

The next time I saw what I thought was a serious challenger to D&D was about a decade later, in the mid-1990s. That's when White Wolf's "World of Darkness" games were all the rage, particularly the first game in that line, Vampire: the Masquerade. While I didn't get into any of "World of Darkness" games until a few years later – I'd eventually even write for a few of them – I was nevertheless quite familiar with them, thanks in large part to friends who were regular players. What I learned from them was that Vampire and its companion games had proven popular with many people who'd otherwise not played RPGs. The "World of Darkness" was bringing in new players and those players were very devoted to it. It probably helped, too, that Dungeons & Dragons (and indeed TSR itself) was in the midst of another period of doldrums, which made White Wolf's offerings seem even more vital by comparison.

Finally, there was Paizo's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Pathfinder came out shortly after Wizards of the Coast announced that the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons – Fourth Edition – would not, unlike its immediate predecessor, being an "open" game. Instead, it would use a much more restrictive licensing scheme. Likewise, the new edition's rules would be rather different from those in 3e, making backward compatibility an issue. For a lot of fans of the Third Edition, this was dreadful news and Paizo saw an opportunity to serve them by producing its own version of 3e, which it called Pathfinder. Pathfinder proved quite successful and, for a brief time, appeared to have snatched the RPG crown from Dungeons & Dragons. Ultimately, that proved to have been an illusion, but that doesn't change the fact that, for a brief moment, I felt otherwise.

In the end, none of the aforementioned roleplaying games were truly successful in knocking D&D off its pedestal, at least not for long. In each case, the plausibility of this belief rested on the same thing: the perceived weakness of D&D. Whenever the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons was in its late, decadent phase, disenchantment with the direction of the game or the perception that it was on the wrong track made me feel that some other RPG might have a shot at the Throne of Gygax. That's not to say that none of these games enjoyed a genuine popularity boost when D&D was "weak." In the case of Vampire the Masquerade, I'm pretty sure it did enjoy a period of wild popularity and good sales and that might well have been true of Pathfinder, too (RuneQuest in the UK is more of an edge case). Yet, for all that, D&D always came roaring back, its place as the hobby's top dog secure for another decade or so. 

I can't predict the future, so if another roleplaying game will ever succeed in displacing Dungeons & Dragons, I have no idea. Judging by the past, however, it seems quite unlikely, which is why, for good or ill, in most people's minds, tabletop RPGs will always be synonymous with D&D.

What's a Campaign?

Before returning to Boot Hill and its section on campaigns, I wanted to share a few paragraphs from The Traveller Adventure that seem relevant to this larger discussion. At the very start of the book, in its introduction, we find this:

The Traveller Adventure is a vehicle to transport you and your friends on a journey into the far future. Together as Traveller players you will experience a small part of the vast, star-sprawling Imperium, its societies, cultures, and technology. Contained in these pages is an intricate and varied Traveller campaign [italics mine], a complete set of adventures which provides a slowly unfolding drama to explore, investigate, and conquer.

Take note of the use of the word "campaign" above, which is taken as a synonym for "a complete set of adventures."

This adventure is intended for use by a group of from 3 to 8 players. Fewer than three players will probably not provide enough variety and group interaction to make the game as much fun as it should be. More than eight players will present the referee with problems in control and may make it difficult for all players to participate fully. It is not necessary for all players to show up at every game session. Those who are absent will miss some of the fun, but the other players can be depended upon to manage the characters belonging to anyone not there for the evening.

Whereas the first paragraph used "campaign" as a synonym for a "set of adventures," the second one talks about "this adventure" in the singular. This makes me wonder if perhaps the author(s) were, either intentionally or unintentionally, conflating the words "adventure(s)," "campaign," and even "session." The other notable thing here is that the text suggests The Traveller Adventure is best played with no fewer than three players and no more than eight. This is, more or less, in keeping with Book 1 of the original 1977 edition that suggests that optimum "game size" is between three and ten players.

This campaign can span a great amount of time. Dedication and nightly Traveller sessions can probably finish the events in this book off in a little more than week, but a better course is to spend the time to enjoy the events and their ramifications. One of the enjoyable parts of Traveller is thinking about what is going on and then making plans in the intervals between game sessions. This campaign can be played in about six weeks of conveniently space sessions. Take the time to enjoy it.

Once again, we see the word "campaign" being used to describe the contents of The Traveller Adventure. Why? Book 1 describes a Traveller campaign thusly:

While the scenario is like a science fiction novel, the campaign is like a continuing S-F series, as the same characters continue to act together through a variety of situations.

Using this definition, The Traveller Adventure could indeed be called a campaign, but I must confess I find this usage idiosyncratic. However, as I've noted before, the meaning of "campaign" shifted over time and probably continues to do so. The Traveller Adventure appeared in 1983, nearly a decade after the inauguration of the hobby, so it's perhaps not that surprising that we might see such a shift in its text. Even so, I find myself wondering if there's more going on here.

Mind Over Matter

From issue #165 of Dragon (January 1991):

Retrospective: The Complete Psionics Handbook

The Complete series of rules supplements for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition was, at the time of its inception at the tail end of the 1980s, a genuine innovation – supplements specifically focused on a particular character class or race and providing new ideas, rules, and options for use with them. Later, thanks in large part to White Wolf's "World of Darkness" games, this type of book would become commonplace in the hobby, but, when the Complete series first appeared, there were few prior examples of these "splatbooks," as they'd become known in the gamer argot.

Despite my TSR fanboy proclivities, I never embraced the Complete books. I liked them in principle but was never impressed with their actual content. I also recognized quite early on that their mere existence would likely place a lot of pressure on Dungeon Masters to adopt them, since many players would want access to new options for their characters. Furthermore, I anticipated an inevitable power creep in these options, as each new book in the series tried to outdo its predecessors.

Because of this, I didn't consider the Complete books must-buys and, after the first two, intended to avoid them entirely. However, early in 1991, TSR released the fifth book in the series, The Complete Psionics Handbook, and I was sufficiently intrigued that I bought it as soon as I saw a copy. Written by Steve Winter, this 128-page book presents a completely new system for introducing "extraordinary psychic powers" – psionics – into AD&D, with an eye toward making their use clearer and easier to use for both players and DMs. Psionics had been a part of Dungeons & Dragons since the publication of Eldritch Wizardry in 1976. That original version, created in part by Steve Marsh, served as the foundation upon which the AD&D Players Handbook would later build its own expanded version of psionics. Neither version was, in the opinions of many, clear or easy to use, so a revision was definitely needed.

Winter's psionics system took a lot of inspiration from the earlier versions but was nevertheless its own thing. He carried over a lot of the names and concepts found in Eldritch Wizardry and the Players Handbook, like ego whip and tower of iron will, for example, and placed them within a large, better conceived mechanical framework. One of the biggest problems with the earlier systems was that they felt very ad hoc and unbalanced. There was scarcely any attention given to how psionics would work in relation to other aspects of the AD&D rules. By contrast, these concerns seem to have been at the forefront of Winter's mind as he wrote The Complete Psionics Handbook and it shows.

First and foremost, psionics in this book are primarily the purview of a single character class: the psionicist. While it's still possible for members of other classes to possess a "wild talent," that's unusual. By taking this approach, Winter analogizes psionics with spellcasting and indeed could be said to have reimagined psionics as an alternate magic system – the points-based system that so many D&D players had been desiring almost since the game's beginning. One of the advantages of this approach is that it enabled psionicists to operate as just another character class alongside all the "standard" ones rather than being these weird – and potentially overpowered – outliers whose presence was likely to upset a campaign.

Reimagined as members of a new class, psionic characters' powers and abilities are now tied to level, just like all the classes. As a psionicist advances, he gains new psionic disciplines, devotions, sciences, and defense modes, as well as more psionic strength points (PSPs) in pretty much the same way a cleric or a magic-user gains new spells with experience. This is a simple and frankly obvious change that turns psionics into something that's workable even at low levels of play, something that was often not true in previous versions. In additional, all psionic powers are better detailed and described, giving players and DMs a better handle on what they can and cannot do within the game. It's all very well done.

At the time of its release, I had nothing but praise for The Complete Psionics Handbook. It had managed to take a strange edge case within the rules of First Edition AD&D (and OD&D before it) and convert it into a system that I could actually imagine myself using and enjoying. Not only that but I found myself actively thinking of ways I could do so. Winter's version of psionics felt fresh and fun and, above all, playable, a word I'd never have used to describe any previous version of psionics. That's no small feat and one of many reasons why I am ever more convinced that, despite the distaste many show for it in this corner of the hobby, I can't bring myself to say that Second Edition was an unmitigated disaster. If it was capable of fixing psionics, how bad could it be?

More "GDW" News

Over at the Mongoose Publishing forums, Matthew Sprange made the following announcement about two other roleplaying games originally published by the late, great Game Designers' Workshop:

We are both very happy and proud to announce that Twilight: 2000 and 2300AD have been acquired in their entirety by Mongoose Publishing, joining our library of games alongside Traveller.

All three are games I read and played as a teenager, and so it is both awesome and humbling to become their stewards.

So, what does this mean?

Twilight: 2000

Twilight: 2000 is currently published by the frankly stellar people at Free League. We have had conversations with them and not only will Twilight: 2000 continue to be published by Free League for the current licence period, as things stand we have every expectation it will stay in their capable hands beyond that.

2300AD

You will be seeing more 2300AD material coming in the near future, and we have manuscripts due for both Invasion and a brand new book of adventures. In addition, we will be bringing 2300AD to the TAS programme on Drivethru, likely within the next few months – so get writing! Classic Traveller will be appearing on TAS within the next month or so, and once that is up and running we will get cracking on 2300AD.

At the moment, past editions of both Twilight: 2000 and 2300AD are available on Drivethru (https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/45/) and will soon be appearing on our website. Of course, Free League have the current edition of Twilight: 2000 (seriously, check them out, they have done excellent work)!

In addition, both 2300AD and Twilight: 2000 have been added to the Fair Use Policy.

That covers our immediate plans for both games, but both properties clearly have immense potential and we hope to be able to bring you more news in the near future.

Very interesting stuff! I suspect this is connected to the other recent news regarding the future of Traveller. Seeing as I've been refereeing a Twilight: 2000 campaign for just shy of three years now, I'll definitely be keeping an eye for further news on that front, since there's potential, albeit small, that this might impact the subsequent development of that game. As for 2300 AD, I haven't played any version of that game in close to thirty years(!) now, let alone the Mongoose version, that this doesn't much impact me. In any case, it's fascinating to see the way that Mongoose Publishing has become the inheritor of a significant portion of GDW's gaming legacy, something I'd never have expected.

REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: "Character Classes to Consider"

Issue #65 (September 1982) of Dragon saw yet another "From the Sorceror's [sic] Scroll" column by Gary Gygax that I will long remember. At the time, I was an avid AD&D player, having largely cast aside the D&D line as "for kids" (despite my being only just shy of 13 at the time). So, anything Gygax wrote about an "expansion volume" for the system was of keen interest to me. In the article under examination today, Gary laid out his plans for some new sub-classes, a topic sure to cause me to catch my breath.

According to Gygax, there would be seven new sub-classes, in addition to an additional level for druids beyond 14th. Of these sub-classes, we only ever saw three: barbarian, cavalier, and the thief-acrobat, in addition to the 15th level Grand Druid (and the Hierophant levels), each appearing first in the pages of Dragon and then in Unearthed Arcana. The others never appeared under Gygax's name in any form. They were:

• Mystic: A cleric sub-class "concerned more with prediction and detection than are other sorts of clerics."
• Savant: A magic-user sub-class "specializ[ing] in knowledge, understanding, and arcane subjects." Because of their deep learning, they can even learn some cleric and druid spells and, at high levels, use scrolls of other classes as well.
• Mountebank: A thief sub-class "specializ[ing] in deception, sleight of hand, persuasion, and a bit of illusion." 
• Jester: Whether this was a sub-class or a new class all its own Gygax never explains, though he does reference Roger E. Moore's NPC jester class. Amusingly, he has already worked out the class's level titles in this article and presents them.

At the time, I was salivating at the thought of so many new sub-classes for AD&D, though, in retrospect, the only one I now think was a good idea was the mountebank and it's one of the classes we never saw. Regardless of my present feelings, the article caused quite a stir at the time, leading many to believe that the next volume of AD&D was about to appear imminently. As it turned out, it would be several more years before we saw Unearthed Arcana and that book was not at all what we were expecting.

The article also covered a handful of other topics. First up was about personalizing one's character, a key facet, Gygax claims, in a role-playing game rather than a "roll playing" game. I'm not sure if this is the first ever instance where this pun was used, but it's certainly an early example of it. Of course, for Gary, "personalizing" meant one of a wide variety of adjectives to describe one's character's complexion, skin, hair, and eye color. It's both an odd thing to include in this article and a strangely literal understanding of "personalizing."

Gygax also notes that he is "retir[ing] from the position of 'sole authority' regarding the D&D game system," making way for Frank Mentzer as his colleague. He also notes that he is working closely with Francois Marcela-Froideval on several AD&D-related projects, including two "volumes." One of these is presumably Oriental Adventures but the other could have been any number of things. Finally, Gygax once again inveighs against "cheap imitations" and "knock-off" products, urging his readers to "avoid all such fringe products." I'm not certain which products he specifically had in mind in 1982, but it's unlikely to have been the Arduin series, since they were several years old by that point.

Dungeons & Diplomacy

In light of my theorizing in my earlier post about the influence of Diplomacy on the development of Dungeons & Dragons, there's this paragraph from Jon Peterson's magisterial Playing at the World:

By the end of the 1960s, both Gygax and Arneson had long histories with Diplomacy; some of their exploits receive consideration in the later sections of this chapter. The influence of Diplomacy on Dungeons & Dragons is subtle, but not insignificant. In something of the same matter as Diplomacy, Dungeons & Dragons stipulates the existence of coalitions of players – that is, parties – but without in any way defining how players might ally and cooperate in a party.

Anyone interested in a more thorough examination of this topic should probably check out Peterson's book, which goes into far more detail than I ever could. Still, I think it's worth remembering that Gygax, Arneson, and their contemporaries were playing a wide variety of different wargames in the years leading up to the creation of D&D and all of them probably contributed in some way, often unconsciously, to the game that would ultimately be published in 1974. 

Boot Hill: Campaigns (Part II)

Boot Hill's section on campaigns continues with a brief aside about the maps included with the boxed set. Because I don't see anything especially worthy of comment in this section, I'm going to pass over it and move on to the much more relevant section devoted to "Campaign Time."

At the referee's discretion, campaign turns can be weekly or monthly or of any specified duration. Each turn, the players relate to the referee what their character's actions and undertakings will be, and the referee moderates the resultant occurrences. The gamemaster takes all actions into account, and relates the appropriate information on various happenings to the players as seen through the eyes of their characters.

When characters' actions are appropriate for moving the action to the tabletop, the time frame changes to the lower level, and the larger campaign's goings-on are suspended until the tabletop action is resolved. Once that is done, the rest of the whole moves on, with the results of the tabletop action reflected in the ongoing and ever-changing situation.

The mention of a "campaign turn" immediately caught my attention. From context, it would seem that the actions of such a turn are "high level" actions distinct from those capable of being adjudicated on the tabletop, like combat or movement. Unfortunately, there's no explicit discussion of the precise nature of these campaign actions, though one can somewhat intuit their nature from other discussions in this section. For example,

The roles and objectives assigned to the participants should be commensurate with the scope of the campaign. Thus, if the map covers a large area and the duration is expected to be several game years, players would represent major characters: large ranchers, outlaw leaders, sheriffs, Indian chiefs, cavalry commanders, and so on – each with many figures to operate or command. Objectives would likewise be broad. On the other hand, a campaign taking place in a small county with but a town or two would have participants cast in less grandiose roles and with smaller objectives – i.e., an outlaw's objectives might be to lead a gang of desperadoes into town, rob the bank, escape to a hideout, and lay low for a month before pulling another job.

Again, there are few specifics here and the specifics that are offered belong to the "small county" campaign and, even then, they strike me as the kind of thing that would be more likely to be played out on the tabletop than through a "campaign turn." 

The referee should keep copies of all starting statistics and changes made by all pertinent characters in the campaign, with special care taken for the player characters (who may also want to keep suitable records of their own). For example, the referee may inform each player at the start of the game as to his characters' cash on hand, equipment, animals, and possessions owned, hirelings/associates/friends, and so on. Thus, rancher Longhoop starts with $671 and a herd of 600 head of longhorns. During the course of the first couple of game months he hires three extra hands, makes a cattle drive which mysteriously picks up several hundred additional doggies along the way, and sells off the lot. At that point he could then have $9,004 and 325 head of cattle.

Orders for the actions of characters in each campaign turn can be given orally, but referees may wish to consider requiring written orders from each player to have a record of all desired undertakings.

I am absolutely awful when it comes to campaign record keeping. I frequently rely on my players to remind me of many details, which is why I think the idea of keeping written records of campaign actions is probably a good idea. I'm reminded once again of Diplomacy, whose play demands written orders from all the players each turn. Indeed, I continue to suspect that, for all the talk of the importance of Braunstein and its derivatives, Diplomacy may well be an equally important (and overlooked) component in understanding how early RPG campaigns were played. 

David A. Trampier and David C. Sutherland III Memorial Art Contest