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.