The West Marches: A Style of D&D Campaign for large groups

Hello, my Fellows.

Recently, I discovered a style of campaign that has been specifically designed for large amounts of players, called the “West Marches” style. It is very much a player driven style of campaign. It is the players’ job to collect the party, schedule the time, and figure out where they would like to go for each session. Not every player plays in every session, which is what allows large amounts of players to all be in the same campaign. This style of campaign would be great as a group activity, due to how it is formatted. Below I have quoted a large section of a post I was reading about this style of campaign that goes into greater detail than I have here:

“West Marches was a game I ran for a little over two years. It was designed to be pretty much the diametric opposite of the normal weekly game:

1) There was no regular time: every session was scheduled by the players on the fly.

2) There was no regular party: each game had different players drawn from a pool of around 10-14 people.

3) There was no regular plot: The players decided where to go and what to do. It was a sandbox game in the sense that’s now used to describe video games like Grand Theft Auto, minus the missions. There was no mysterious old man sending them on quests. No overarching plot, just an overarching environment.

My motivation in setting things up this way was to overcome player apathy and mindless “plot following” by putting the players in charge of both scheduling and what they did in-game.

A secondary goal was to make the schedule adapt to the complex lives of adults. Ad hoc scheduling and a flexible roster meant (ideally) people got to play when they could but didn’t hold up the game for everyone else if they couldn’t. If you can play once a week, that’s fine. If you can only play once a month, that’s fine too.

…

The West Marches charter is that games only happen when the players decide to do something — the players initiate all adventures and it’s their job to schedule games and organize an adventuring party once they decide where to go.

Players send emails to the list saying when they want to play and what they want to do. A normal scheduling email would be something like “I’d like to play Tuesday. I want to go back and look for that ruined monastery we heard out about past the Golden Hills. I know Mike wants to play, but we could use one or two more. Who’s interested?” Interested players chime in and negotiation ensues. Players may suggest alternate dates, different places to explore (“I’ve been to the monastery and it’s too dangerous. Let’s track down the witch in Pike Hollow instead!”), whatever — it’s a chaotic process, and the details sort themselves out accordingly. In theory this mirrors what’s going on in the tavern in the game world: adventurers are talking about their plans, finding comrades to join them, sharing info, etc.

The only hard scheduling rules are:

1) The GM has to be available that day (obviously) so this system only works if the GM is pretty flexible.

2) The players have to tell the GM where they plan on going well in advance, so he (meaning me) has at least a chance to prepare anything that’s missing. As the campaign goes on this becomes less and less of a problem, because so many areas are so fleshed out the PCs can go just about anywhere on the map and hit adventure. The GM can also veto a plan that sounds completely boring and not worth a game session.

All other decisions are up to the players — they fight it out among themselves, sometimes literally.”

The full post can be found at http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/ , however I would ask you not to read the other posts regarding this campaign style; it’ll kill some of the magic.

Would you be interested in playing a campaign like this? Please either leave a comment or contact me through some other means if you are interested. Assuming there are enough people interested, I will create a map and DM a campaign in this style for any members of the Knights Semantic who want to play.

If you are interested, we also need to decide on a roleplaying system that we will use for this game. I am going to propose two options: Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition. Pathfinder is very similar to D&D 3.5, but has been balanced and polished, and has expanded the customization options that are available to you as a player. However, it is still rather complex and is not extremely newbie friendly. Fifth edition, on the other hand, is very easy to play. The customization is not as detailed as Pathfinder, but it streamlines the experience while still being very fun to play (I really love the abilities in this version).

 

There is a link to a straw poll below. If you choose neither, please leave a comment with a suggestion on what we should play. If you aren’t planning on playing, please be a good chap and don’t vote.

http://www.strawpoll.me/10364164

 

Something to note is that this game can be very exclusive if the players act immaturely. Please be a good friend and mature person, and try to invite people who might not have the strongest character or might not be your best friend. Variety is the spice of life, so sometimes playing with people you aren’t close to can be interesting too.

Hope you’re all interested,

Grand Commandant Draco Blackstone