Adversarial Campaign

[mmadsen]

D&D has strong wargaming roots. Have you ever played with the DM as referee, one player (or team) against another?

I've already heard of Birthright play-by-e-mail games pitting regents against one another (a la Diplomacy). Political wars of assassins could be great fun. You could also play both sides of the "reverse dungeon": goblins vs. humans.

It's probably a bit frightening for a DM to see how ruthless players can be with the same resources. Some of those killer-kobold thought experiments probably pale in comparison to what a group of players might do with hundreds of kobolds.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Have you checked out Chainmail?

Seriously, my only concern would be player lethality. D&D character creation is a 10-30 minute prospect even if you don't have an in-depth background/persona. I'd suggest having a few generic fighter/wizard/ranger/cleric/whatever characters on hand in case the player's guy dies.

Unless these are just generic armies in which case I'd suggest using the CR of the critters as "points" to build your armies.

Happy gaming!

 

[Desdichado]

I'd agree: just play Chainmail if that's what you want.

On the other hand, when I was in junior high school, a lot of the folks I played did play this way. Each player's 50+ level whatever-the-****-it-was character's dueling each other to "take each other's loot."

That's a big part of why I didn't play D&D through most of the 80s and 90s and only came back to it 15 years or so later when 3e was released.

But the concept is fine. I just think Chainmail works better for it.

 

[mmadsen]

Have you checked out Chainmail?

As I understand it, Chainmail's for skirmish-level wargaming. Perhaps I gave the wrong impression when I mentioned D&D's wargaming roots (which were the original Chainmail, by the way), but I didn't mean to suggest just squaring off for a big fight. (That can be fun; it's just not what I was getting at.)

A typical D&D campaign might involve our party of adventurers tracking down the goblins to their hideout while the town guards hold down the fort. The DM presents the party with just enough of a challenge at each step along the way, he tries to not quite kill them, he escalates the threat, he throws in a plot twist, etc.

I thought it might make an interesting campaign if the goblins weren't under DM control. The goblin players decide how to attack the town, when and where to leave ambushes and scouting parties, etc. The human players do the same for the town.

Each team might get a handful of 6th-level leaders, some 3rd-level sergeants, and lots of 1st-level spear-carriers -- but not to use in one big fight on a manicured battlefield.

It would all be quite open-ended yet goal-oriented at the same time.

Seriously, my only concern would be player lethality.

Since the players wouldn't all be on the same plot-protected team, certainly one team or the other would be losing characters all the time, but those would generally be spear-carriers (or "red shirts"). Think of them as extended hit points.

 

[hong]

I recommend Starcraft.

 

[Terwox]

Yeah, I've done this. At the end of campaigns, or just in the middle sometimes, players would duel each other, or just do ffa stuff... it's entertaining. Done in mainly hacknslash games, it lets you pit your characters against each othe, done in mainly roleplaying games, it mocks out those fun matchups.

I dunno. It's different from wargames... playing mock battles w/ established characters is something else. yep.

 

[Bagpuss]

As I understand it, Chainmail's for skirmish-level wargaming. Perhaps I gave the wrong impression when I mentioned D&D's wargaming roots (which were the original Chainmail, by the way), but I didn't mean to suggest just squaring off for a big fight. (That can be fun; it's just not what I was getting at.)

Erm skirmish isn't a big fight it a small fight like D&D, not much bigger than a party and therefore suited to what you suggest below.

A typical D&D campaign might involve our party of adventurers tracking down the goblins to their hideout while the town guards hold down the fort. The DM presents the party with just enough of a challenge at each step along the way, he tries to not quite kill them, he escalates the threat, he throws in a plot twist, etc.

I thought it might make an interesting campaign if the goblins weren't under DM control. The goblin players decide how to attack the town, when and where to leave ambushes and scouting parties, etc. The human players do the same for the town.

And how is that different from D&D except replace the word DM for goblin players.

Each team might get a handful of 6th-level leaders, some 3rd-level sergeants, and lots of 1st-level spear-carriers -- but not to use in one big fight on a manicured battlefield.

It would all be quite open-ended yet goal-oriented at the same time.

Since the players wouldn't all be on the same plot-protected team, certainly one team or the other would be losing characters all the time, but those would generally be spear-carriers (or "red shirts"). Think of them as extended hit points.

Oh right no "plot-protected team" erm we don't play normal D&D with one of them anyway.

 

[mmadsen]

And how is that different from D&D except replace the word DM for goblin players.

It's quite different, since the goblin players wouldn't have the DM's omniscience and omnipotence, and they thus wouldn't have to hold back to some arbitrarily challenging level of nastiness.

As I said before, "The DM presents the party with just enough of a challenge at each step along the way, he tries to not quite kill them, he escalates the threat, he throws in a plot twist, etc." I'm certainly not against that style of play, but I think an adversarial game might open things up a bit.

Instead of kicking down the door, you'd have to perform lots of recon -- and you'd have to defend your own "dungeon" as well.

Oh, and if you don't think you're playing the game with a plot-protected team (the players) right now, you're fooling yourself. If you're matching encounter levels to their abilities at all, if your monsters don't hunt them down when their weakest, etc., you're protecting them to some degree -- and that's fine.

 

[Nightfall]

Personally if I tried something like an adversial campaign, I'd get the usual "good guys" in one group (hopefully have eight people for this!) and make an evil party BUT I'd use monsters and/or other evil NPCs I've created. Then I'd run both groups, using cut scenes, with the evil ones gaining power along with the good ones.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

I recommend Starcraft.

Warcraft III is coming out soon. Yay!