"The passage of time ties these elements together. Travel, training, and other downtime activities gradually advance the campaign calendar. When enough time has passed, a new High Struggle cycle occurs, reshaping the political and economic landscape of the sector. Sometimes these changes take place while the characters are traveling between systems. A crew might depart one world during a period of fragile peace and arrive weeks later to find that a rebellion has erupted or a major trade route has collapsed."
This sounds extremely innovative to me and I am confident that this line of development will bear a great many unexpected fruits. Especially this bit about the steady advance of time creating a sense of a legitimately living campaign universe. Very exciting, James!!
Love the concept. One immediate concern I have is regarding the ability of the GM to stay ahead of the players for planning purposes, given the significant upheavals that could occur at any time. Any thoughts on how GMs should best prepare in advance in order to stay as much ahead of the curve as possible?
I'm the worst person to ask about this, because I'm generally a very lazy referee, who stays, at best, about 10 or 15 minutes ahead of the players. :) My main bit of advice is to be flexible and not committed to any particular outcome or path as the campaign unfolds. Just roll with the punches, because players do unpredictable things.
Fair enough, thanks James. I can do that more easily with fantasy than sci fi, just based on amount of experience. But, I guess there’s no reason I can’t fudge rolls or delay implementing them if I truly don’t feel prepared for the results.
Players don't know what the GM doesn't know, unless the GM tells them. I tend to be in the "lazy" camp with James; as long as the GM remembers what he did, decided upon, or what happened, and can flip that into the next event, it looks clean and planned. Unless it doesn't! In which case, well, that's how actual history moves (notice I didn't say progresses, because it doesn't. It just moves, and we along with it). Lots of GMs will think this anathema, and that's fine. Run it how you run it.
"The High Struggle advances in three-month cycles, representing the slow but constant maneuvering of political, economic, and military forces to achieve their goals and prevent competing factions from doing the same."
James, if there were rules for playing this 'High Struggle' aspect of the game, then a GM could simultaneously run two separate tho inter-meshed groups of PCs thru a TS campaign .. one a slower paced/ less frequent 'Diplomacy' style group, whose actions set the macro scale game environment of the second, adventuring group (whose activities correspondingly create ripples which the first group must account for in their schemes of the 'Great Game'.
I find this possibility fascinating, and wonder: has it been previously attempted this century? (I vaguely recall this sort of gaming in the 1970s).
Right now my friend is coordinating a multi-referee campaign where a faction tier of play is being adjudicated by one referee while another referee runs more conventional style session roleplay adventuring. The downtime actions of all parties involved influence the generation of relatively large battle scenarios... which feed back into a continuingly developing campaign state. There are some issues one will face trying to make these sorts of efforts sustainable-- both so as to maintain player engagement and also as to not burn out referees. Another fellow that goes by the name of SeriousDM has just managed a year-long demonstration game of about 30-50 players that demonstrate the fact that sustained play is possible even under so ambitious a campaign. The sessions and campaigns that these ideas have been developed in during this decade are very well documented.
Thank You for taking time in reply to my above query, Jeffro! It is this sort of kind camaraderie that enriches Grognardia, and keeps me engaged with the blog. *
Some of SeriousDM's efforts are familiar to me, but (rather than massive multi-player games, such as at GenCon, online, etc) I was particularly interested in much smaller scale examples: a single GM running two groups of about 5 players each (ten PCs total) operating independently, simultaneously, albeit at different scales of a unified campaign. .. My father ran simulations of this sort for regional governments in the 1960s, and I did similar for my university students in the 1990s. Such 'serious games' in academia and think tanks informed the early days of TTRPGs, and I vaguely recall fantasy RPG campaigns of the 1970s structured in this integrated dual-scale way, but (as I stopped playing RPGs from about 1984 until 2020) I am unfamiliar if the style continued for more intimate sessions .. and it seems that Thousand Suns could benefit from rules structuring this sort of play.
In the last few days, I have learned the 'Wake of the Icons' supplement for 'Coriolis: Third Horizon' by Free League includes "A metagame where the Gamemaster and the players can play out the fleet movements and clashes of the war" but I have not read the book. Does anyone have more knowledge and/or experience of that rule set?
With Abiding Gratitude to All the Grognards, Matthew.
* particular Appreciation also to Daniel (and his many notes of support starting from 20 September), ...m... (for their’s on 07 November), and of course James for you all making me feel welcome and tolerating my probably overly verbose and philosophical ideas since my first comment on 19 September 2025 .. wow these six months have flown by!
"The passage of time ties these elements together. Travel, training, and other downtime activities gradually advance the campaign calendar. When enough time has passed, a new High Struggle cycle occurs, reshaping the political and economic landscape of the sector. Sometimes these changes take place while the characters are traveling between systems. A crew might depart one world during a period of fragile peace and arrive weeks later to find that a rebellion has erupted or a major trade route has collapsed."
ReplyDeleteThis sounds extremely innovative to me and I am confident that this line of development will bear a great many unexpected fruits. Especially this bit about the steady advance of time creating a sense of a legitimately living campaign universe. Very exciting, James!!
Love the concept. One immediate concern I have is regarding the ability of the GM to stay ahead of the players for planning purposes, given the significant upheavals that could occur at any time. Any thoughts on how GMs should best prepare in advance in order to stay as much ahead of the curve as possible?
ReplyDeleteI'm the worst person to ask about this, because I'm generally a very lazy referee, who stays, at best, about 10 or 15 minutes ahead of the players. :) My main bit of advice is to be flexible and not committed to any particular outcome or path as the campaign unfolds. Just roll with the punches, because players do unpredictable things.
DeleteFair enough, thanks James. I can do that more easily with fantasy than sci fi, just based on amount of experience. But, I guess there’s no reason I can’t fudge rolls or delay implementing them if I truly don’t feel prepared for the results.
DeletePlayers don't know what the GM doesn't know, unless the GM tells them. I tend to be in the "lazy" camp with James; as long as the GM remembers what he did, decided upon, or what happened, and can flip that into the next event, it looks clean and planned. Unless it doesn't! In which case, well, that's how actual history moves (notice I didn't say progresses, because it doesn't. It just moves, and we along with it). Lots of GMs will think this anathema, and that's fine. Run it how you run it.
Delete'Diplomacy' meets 'Thousand Suns' (intentional?):
ReplyDelete"The High Struggle advances in three-month cycles, representing the slow but constant maneuvering of political, economic, and military forces to achieve their goals and prevent competing factions from doing the same."
James, if there were rules for playing this 'High Struggle' aspect of the game, then a GM could simultaneously run two separate tho inter-meshed groups of PCs thru a TS campaign .. one a slower paced/ less frequent 'Diplomacy' style group, whose actions set the macro scale game environment of the second, adventuring group (whose activities correspondingly create ripples which the first group must account for in their schemes of the 'Great Game'.
I find this possibility fascinating, and wonder: has it been previously attempted this century? (I vaguely recall this sort of gaming in the 1970s).
Cheerio, Matthew.
Greetings, anonymous.
DeleteRight now my friend is coordinating a multi-referee campaign where a faction tier of play is being adjudicated by one referee while another referee runs more conventional style session roleplay adventuring. The downtime actions of all parties involved influence the generation of relatively large battle scenarios... which feed back into a continuingly developing campaign state. There are some issues one will face trying to make these sorts of efforts sustainable-- both so as to maintain player engagement and also as to not burn out referees. Another fellow that goes by the name of SeriousDM has just managed a year-long demonstration game of about 30-50 players that demonstrate the fact that sustained play is possible even under so ambitious a campaign. The sessions and campaigns that these ideas have been developed in during this decade are very well documented.
Kind regards,
Jeffro
re: 'Diplomacy' of Thousand Suns + Coriolis
ReplyDeleteThank You for taking time in reply to my above query, Jeffro! It is this sort of kind camaraderie that enriches Grognardia, and keeps me engaged with the blog. *
Some of SeriousDM's efforts are familiar to me, but (rather than massive multi-player games, such as at GenCon, online, etc) I was particularly interested in much smaller scale examples: a single GM running two groups of about 5 players each (ten PCs total) operating independently, simultaneously, albeit at different scales of a unified campaign. .. My father ran simulations of this sort for regional governments in the 1960s, and I did similar for my university students in the 1990s. Such 'serious games' in academia and think tanks informed the early days of TTRPGs, and I vaguely recall fantasy RPG campaigns of the 1970s structured in this integrated dual-scale way, but (as I stopped playing RPGs from about 1984 until 2020) I am unfamiliar if the style continued for more intimate sessions .. and it seems that Thousand Suns could benefit from rules structuring this sort of play.
In the last few days, I have learned the 'Wake of the Icons' supplement for 'Coriolis: Third Horizon' by Free League includes "A metagame where the Gamemaster and the players can play out the fleet movements and clashes of the war" but I have not read the book. Does anyone have more knowledge and/or experience of that rule set?
With Abiding Gratitude to All the Grognards, Matthew.
* particular Appreciation also to Daniel (and his many notes of support starting from 20 September), ...m... (for their’s on 07 November), and of course James for you all making me feel welcome and tolerating my probably overly verbose and philosophical ideas since my first comment on 19 September 2025 .. wow these six months have flown by!