Last week I wrote about how I wanted to design a campaign style roll and write game. There are roll and write games that are out there, Welcome to the Moon and Paper Dungeons that offer that to some extent. I want to take it further, push for a campaign game that lets you unlock things as you go. Non-destructively, most likely, but still something that grows and progresses as the game goes on.

So let’s talk about the different options that I am considering. I think that there are a few interesting ways that you can improve or change as a game goes on.

Possible Campaign Elements

Character Progression

The first one is character progression. I think that is fairly important if you have characters in your game. I don’t find it a major knock against Paper Dungeons because it’s so loosely a campaign. But you start with your heroes as level one in every game and level them up as you go.

For my idea, I want to have a separate character sheet, much like in an RPG, that you level up your stats. You get bonuses based off of how many bubbles you fill in, in a row. And you fill in a certain number, always, at the end of the a scenario.

If this is a competitive game, the person who wins gets a bonus. But if it is cooperative, there might be a bonus if you do the best in a scenario, like first pick of gear. For cooperative, though, you’d not see as much character development and splitting off.

Skill Tree

Building off of that character progression, skill progression is a great way to cause differences to happen. But the idea of a tree is that you can split off what you are doing. If you are a Gunslinger class, or something like that, you might unlock your first ability at level 1, but then at level two, you have three options. The one that you pick will limit what you can do further down.

Now, while I like this idea, it really causes things to become different and gives progression, I am worried that it’d make the game a bit more complex. I think a lot of the abilities would just need to be things that bump up health or statistics.

Items and Gear

Items and Gear would likely be one time use things, or maybe something like a pack mule to eventually being able to get up to a wagon. Something that can carry more items. Maybe skills are going to be more abilities that’d be used in every game since you are unlocked.

So things like health potions (or alcohol), magic scrolls, dynamite, things that you’d use once. Or maybe some gear like “armor” whatever that might look like. Basically wearable items or weapons. I don’t think I would ever add in ammo because I don’t want to track that type of thing. Plus I like giving more things versus losing things in a campaign game.

Story Progression

Finally, story is going to be an important element to the game. Right now that is what makes Paper Dungeons a campaign game. A tiny bit of story that you read in between games. And while I do enjoy that, I wish there was more. Or more so, I wish the story felt like it mattered a bit more.

I can pull out any card, read the story and play, and it doesn’t matter. I’d love to add in more story to the game. Maybe even give it some choices. Like, make a decision and that unlocks certain items, gives a stats bump, or maybe causes you to lose some money. But all based off of choices that players make. I even, at least once, maybe twice, would want to change up what the players interact with on a map because of a decision that they make.

That makes it feel more like a fun experience to me. The decisions that we make, for example, in Roll Player Adventures or Tainted Grail, change up what can happen in the game later. And that is very cool to have as part of the experience. It takes it from being told a story to character story.

How Much Should Their Be?

That is the question that I’m asking myself, because with enough campaign elements and campaign progression elements, the game can get large. Part of the fun of a roll and write, even Paper Dungeons which has a lot to look at on the sheet, is that it is a sheet.

I want there to be enough decisions that it makes the game feel cool. On the flip side, I don’t want there to be so many decisions that it makes the game hard to play. Looking, again, at Paper Dungeons, now that I’ve played it a few times, I know what to do every time I come back to it. I looked up one rule last time, but I mainly know what I need to do.

A campaign is going to be bigger. It is going to offer more challenges of remembering how to play. But with a nice little sheet of what to do on the turn, or even printing on the sheet the round actions, I hope to make it simple enough that it’s a fast refresher. Which means, things like skills, those are a bit harder to implement, potentially. But that comes down to being clever with how I design the game and work with that idea.

What campaign element would you want most?

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