Re: Campaign Story

[Dave Fancella <davidfancella@davefancella.com>]

On Tuesday 17 August 2004 12:18 pm, Jens Granseuer wrote:
> > Hmm, not sure about the setbacks, but you probably don't want to have the
> > story later on tell the player that battle wasn't important after all. 
> > ;) Better to have the player start the map knowing what he's up against
> > then tell him later on "Oh yeah, that map you did such a job on?  Doesn't
> > matter at all, don't know why you even played it".  ;)
>
> What's the difference?

The difference is that it makes the player feel bad.  ;)

> > I'm not really sure how to make setbacks happen for a player that has to
> > literally win each map to play the next.  On the other hand, allowing for
> > one side or the other to win each map either takes us back into branching
> > campaign stories, or finds us with some maps that just plain don't make
> > sense in the story.
>
> Isn't having scenarios the player must _lose_ really pointless? And yes,
> the branching stuff scares me.

Yes, you're right, but luckily I have solved the problem.  ;)

We don't have to play *every* map in the storyline, just the pivotal ones.  So 
the first couple of acts the maps played should mostly amount to "If you win, 
we hold our position, but if you lose we get overrun", and we flesh out the 
reasons in the story.

The problem with having maps that you have to lose, assuming for a moment that 
we did that, is that the game then becomes a role-playing game rather than a 
tactical wargame, where your role is to just play the story we've assigned 
you.  But players don't want that, and we don't want that, so you're 
absolutely right that each map must be won in order for the campaign to 
proceed.  So I suppose the trick is to write the story right.  ;)

I pulled this solution by considering the new Star Wars movies.  Have you 
considered that the new Star Wars movies represent a story which concludes 
with the bad guys winning?  Yet at the end of each movie (so far), we're 
still seeing scenes where the heroes are prancing around victorious.  Because 
the victories they have achieved have amounted to holding their position, 
without advancing, and the enemy is still advancing around them.  Make sense?

Dave

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