Sorry about missing the last month, and thank you for your forbearance in that issue. That being said, let’s get back in the saddle and start looking at campaigns again, and what better way to do that than to examine some successful examples of campaigns that have been run in the past?
To start us off I can think of no better example of a successful campaign than that run by the International Campaign Day! For those who don’t know what this is, the International Campaign Day is a worldwide event that runs for 24 hours, and is run through 3 different areas of the world. The games kick off usually around 10 or 11 in Australia’s Saturday morning, and finishes off around 7 or 8 Pacific Time in the US’s Saturday night. There are 3 time zones that the games focus around, each time zone getting 4 games to be played during an 8 hour shift. The first timezone centers around Australia, the second block is the UK, and the third is the USA.
There are no rules about what time zones you can play in. In fact when I run my local event for this we usually start with the Australians, sleep during the UK timezone, then start back up with the US games in the morning. But there are some players who go the whole 24 hours in one chaotic, sleep-deprived craze of gaming.
What binds these games together is a narrative that the players help decide how it turns out. Much like a choose your own adventure story, players are divided up into the side of good and the side of evil. Each game a player wins is given to an overall tally for their side and depending on who wins each battle, the narrative is prepped to go in either direction so that at the end there is a conducive story that the players have worked to create together.
In this way it becomes this wonderful celebration of the community as a whole, really. There are no real competitions, no prizes given out, nothing more than stories being told by players across the globe, and yet we are approaching the fifth iteration of these campaign days (weekends, really) and the event continues to grow each time. Talks are in the works for the next one, so keep your eyes posted on their facebook group if you want to take part.
You can request access to the facebook group here.
Now, after that lengthy introduction of what the International Campaign Day is, let’s take a look at some reasons as to why it has been successful and how you can apply that to your own campaigns.
Firstly, it is a low time commitment. Literally it is one day, or even one game. It doesn’t matter how much your players play and they can come and go as they please. The system is built around that level of commitment with the ultimate goal of just getting players out to roll dice. If you can design your system around that idea you will find success.
You may want to experiment with a one-off, single day campaign like this. This method makes the campaign into more of an event where you can have fun for a day and then you’re done. It decreases some of the stress for you, especially in the area of tracking a campaign. Just set up your tables and a space for you to keep your notes and records and let the game day march on. Ultimately it’s about getting people out to play games and if you can get players out to play one game, chances are that they’ll want to play another. This goes for double if you can get them invested in a campaign and they want to see how it turns out, which leads to our next point.
Give your players some skin in the game. Make their games impactful in the overarching storyline, or the leaderboards. When they report a win, they should feel like they are contributing in some way to what is happening. This little reward that our brains activate when we feel like we’ve accomplished something is the reason that video games can be so addictive even though they are just, essentially, the same repeated behavior over and over. We love that little sense of accomplishment, even if it’s just watching the win meter tick over to our side because of our contributions. If you make your players feel as though their games are important and the campaign needs them, they will want to play more games.
Not every campaign needs to have a complex narrative, in fact the opposite is usually true. But if you run a narrative campaign, then your players should have regular updates and should also be able to see how their contributions have factored into the story. Otherwise they may lose interest and wander off if they think their games are just there as a filler between your story updates. Always remember that these campaigns are about your players and less about the organizers.
If you decide to run a non-narrative based campaign, such as a map or base-to-base kind of campaign, then there are some already built in mechanics to help reward your players, such as when they win a new territory on the map, or conquer another player’s base. However, these will still require regular updates from you as the organizer to make sure that these victories are acknowledged in a timely matter.
Lastly, and this I feel is an important aspect of the ICD, is being inclusive with your campaign. With the International Campaign Day, this is an opportunity for every player to come out into a low-risk setting and throw some dice in an environment where there’s little to no pressure to win (other than the story element) and players of all levels of skill are invited to participate. I’ve seen dads bring in their 10 year old kids to play in the campaign. These kids are generally somewhat nervous about playing with all the adults but generally speaking that wears off after the first game and the kids start having fun. Campaigns should not be stressful for the players, they should not have to worry about whether they are playing the game right, or whether they should be there at all. This should be a fun experience that is welcoming to players from all walks of life and all aspects of the game, fluffy or gamey alike.
That should wrap it up for us this week. I’ll leave you with the series of videos that was put together for the last International Campaign Day by Mr. Kyle Przelenski himself (bonus points if you know who’s sultry voice is carrying that tightly driven narrative across the internet to caress your earbuds….). Next month we’ll be looking at more examples of campaigns to help you build the right one for you and your gaming group!
