Exploring The Narrative Campaign

A while ago now I was exploring the idea of having more narrative focus on my campaign. I used a D&D story and acted out the encounters with a Skirmish Ruleset, Songs Of Blades and Heroes. Now this year has been quite frustrating in terms of my "regular" RPG group meeting up. Click on the RPG tag and see how few session reports there have been. One silver lining may be that I've had alot of fun with a few games Star Wars Pod racing, but I missed the regular RPG sessions.

We had managed to start a D&D 4e campaign, which a many readers will know/complain about is very focused on the miniature battle side of things for an RPG. I thought I'd try and take it from the other side, and play a skirmish level wargame that had a bit more character definition and the chance of a story campaign. Being a Two Hour Wargames fan I bought "Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures" (hereon WHAA) , as this offered up the promise of such an experience. Other attractions were the prospect of everyone playing on the same side; a random (but linked) encounter generation system; and an system defined opposition that was based on the player force strength. This last feature is hopefully a winner, as it will still allow us to play if someone (or even everyone except me) call off.

So three of us gathered on Tuesday Evening (predictably there had been one reluctant call off due to work, MacSver) to roll up some forces and our first encounter. WHAA includes the defined world of Talomir - with different nations, races, and army lists. It also allows each Player Character (or "Star" in rule-speak) to have an accompanying force, should they wish. I'm sure as player numbers fluxuate we can include these extra grunts or not as we see fit. After reading the country descriptions, etc and what seemed like an age rolling on force generation tables we ended up with the following character forces (some extra fan made attribute rules were used):

Arabianknight:
Melee Adventurer/Warrior from Ekra (Setting Sun alignment)
Rep 4, Hardiness 1, Weapon: Long Sword, Armour: (4) Chain w/some Plate
Social Standing: 0
Combat Value: 2
Attributes: Slow, 1HW Master
Recruits: 0 (due to a social standing of 0)

Azhdeen:
Skirmisher (Missile) Adventurer/Healer from Mirish (Rising Moon alignment)
Rep 4, Hardiness 1, Weapon: Long Bow, Armour: (2) Partial Leather
Social Standing: 1
Combat Value: 2
Attributes: Dimwitted, Loot
Recruits: Skirmisher, Clibnari (x2), Hykar Cavalry

MysteriousPaul:
Archer (Missile) Adventurer from Capalan (Twilight alignment)
Rep 4, Hardiness 1, Weapon: Long Bow, Armour: (2) Partial Leather
Social Standing: 1
Combat Value: 2
Attributes: Agile, Coward
Recruits: City Spearman, Archer, Knight (x2)

As we were all from different countries of origin a central country was picked with a vague background story. After another age rolling on tables to generate a opposing force we were away to try and get at least a small amount of gaming in. In the future I'll have to try and prep the games by rolling up the opposition before everyone arrives, as it not only takes time to generate the force, but you have to look out appropriate figures etc which is bit of a waste of our precious time when assembled.
 
We managed a few turns of the battle, but all the table rolling had taken it's toll on the clock and we had to wrap up. I'll not document the battle until after next time as I attempt to chronicle the story as it unfolds. We'll see out a few campaign turns and see how we are enojying the whole experience I'm sure.