Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 238 - West Marches Campaigns

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

West Marches campaigns aren’t like your traditional 4 classes and dungeon game.  In this episode, we delve into the concept of these unique methods  of tabletop RPGand give you some tips for setting them up and running them.   #pf2e #Pathfinder #gmtips #dmtips #dnd #campaigns #westmarches Resources: Ben Robbins - Grand Experiments:  West Marches - https://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/ Ben Robbins - Tips for West Marches Campaigns - https://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/94/west-marches-running-your-own/ Matthew Colville - Running the Game Episode 30 - https://youtu.be/oGAC-gBoX9k?si=8cSIAaj0o-V9uQLy

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. The game depends almost entirely on the players deciding what quest or quests they want to do. So the players have to decide what they want to accomplish and whom they want to invite to go with them. But the good news is, you don't have to prepare every level of every dungeon of every location or hex square that the PCs could go to in the West Marches. Thank you for listening to the Taking20 Podcast, episode 238, all about a type of RPG game called the West Marches Campaign.

I want to thank this week's sponsor, Chefs. A friend of mine who's a chef told me that vegetables can be very spiritual. He told me that the cabbage meditate, but let us pray. We have a Ko-Fi.com slash Taking20 podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, please consider making a one-time donation to help keep the podcast going. You may have heard the term West Marches Campaign or West Marches Style Campaign before, but what are they? I'm glad you asked, and I'm assuming you tuned in because of it. You may have heard the term West Marches campaign or West Marches style campaign before, but what are they? I'm glad you asked, and I'm assuming you're tuned in because of it. In this episode, we're going to delve into the concept of these unique types of tabletop

RPG games. Did you know that Gary Gygax in the original version of Dungeons & Dragons said that the game could accommodate up to 50 players? Now, when you read that in the modern light of most games being built around the same 4-5 players around the table every week, 50 players sounds batshit insane. Because in that light it is, you can't get 50 people around a table, that would be impossible. But a West Marches style campaign allows for a theoretically unlimited number of players and focuses on flexibility and exploration.

The campaign takes place in an area of the world where there's a lot of unexplored territory, like the edge of civilization, or at least civilization that the characters know of. And the cast of characters can change session to session. Throughout this episode, I'm going to call an area of such an adventure called the West Marches, because that's what Dave Robbins called the area in his world when he came up with the idea. But it could be anything in your world. The silica desert, the deep kingdoms, the no one zone, or the planet Saarina. That thus far has been completely unexplored by the Federation.

So when I say West Marches describing an area, it can be whatever area in your campaign that is wild, unsettled, and largely unexplored. But what is a West Marches campaign, Jeremy? You're jumping ahead. You're right, I am, and I apologize for that. So let's talk about the characteristics of a West Marches campaign. These campaigns are designed to accommodate a large number of players in a single game world.

Now, how many players are we talking? 20, 30, 50, maybe more players in the same world. West March's games accommodate players over playing and playing over players. I talked about the philosophy of playing over players and players over playing way back in episode 236, so give that episode a listen if you want to know more about the two philosophies. West March's games bridge the gap between those two philosophies. Rather than having a set game night and a set cast of characters that show up, instead the onus is on the players to find a group to adventure with and to reach out to the DM for scheduling their adventure.

So remember, with a West March's campaign there's a huge number of players who group up and ask the DM to run them through the adventure. With me so far? Okay. West Marches games are based around exploration of a map. This exploration is completely driven by player groups that I mentioned earlier. Where they want to go, what they want to do when they get there, it's all driven by the players. In a traditional game, the players are going through an adventure of some sort.

A dungeon, a specific quest, a specific baddie they're trying to kill, whatever. In the West Marches, a player has heard a rumor that they want to pursue. It could be about a magical set of bagpipes in the gunpowder wastes, and the character wants to get a group together to go find it. When the group forms and they tell the DM that's what they'd like to do, the DM may not even have an adventure ready to go get the bagpipes yet. Hell, the DM may not even have determined where the bagpipes are. The item may not even have stats yet. It may exist in name only in one rumor that the GM floated to the players, but even so the players want to go to the gunpowder waste to get it and the DM agrees so by next Tuesday the DM

is going to design the gunpowder wastes and whatever is needed for the adventure that night. Okay you planner DMs out there who'd like to be prepared for any choice the players may make probably just had a heart attack. I get it. I like my notebook with pre-designed and stock dungeons ready for a group of a specific level to come knocking on the front door. And you can still do that. You can still pre-prepare all these dungeons and adventures, but now they may get used out of order or changed based on the level of characters that would be approaching them. All of this is determined by where the players go and when they do it.

Remember, the game depends almost entirely on the players deciding what quest or quests they want to do. So the players have to decide what they want to accomplish and whom they want to invite to go with them. But the good news is you don't have to prepare every level of every dungeon of every location or hex square that the PCs could go to in the West Marches. Hell, you don't even have to have the map ready. More coming in the tips section. As a corollary to the previous statement, West Marches campaigns encourage player networking. West Marches games are by their very nature social games with both positive and negative aspects of that statement. Players are expected to network with each other to schedule sessions,

discuss what to explore and collect treasure. Players are responsible for scheduling and working with the DM to find the right day or time for the adventure. For example, if I had the time to run a West Marches campaign right now, I'd probably tell my players I'm available Tuesday night, seven to 10, Thursday night, seven to 10 and Sunday afternoons 3 to 7 The players look at their schedules They're all available next Tuesday night and they write to the DM saying they want to reserve Tuesday night for a trip to the

Whispering pines to find and slay the undead shepherd who is corrupting the northern part of the forest You nod sagely and prepare the first three encounters on the way to kill the undead shepherd. What is the undead shepherd? Who knows? You may not even decided what it is yet. Is it a zealous necromancer, a corrupted treant, an evil druid? Time to make those decisions and get that adventure ready. Okay, the first three encounters for the PCs that are level 1. Oh gosh, let's go with a restless grove where two zombies and two skeletons are shambling about followed by, I don't know, an abandoned hut that contains a couple of shadows inside of it.

Maybe the hut contains a crude map that takes the players one hex away to a dark cave. The cave is protected by a tormented soul floating over a difficult environment like hot rocks or acid. They make it through to find a tunnel that leads to the Underdark, ending in a carving of a giant snake with a puzzle door. Do they start next session trying to open the door, or do they return to the city and report back what they found to the group at large? It's up to the players, who by that decision, are taking a more active role to drive the next chapter of the story. Meanwhile, you get another message.

Hey DM, we have four players who want to go to the Yawning Caverns. They formed a group to go on the adventure. They decided they wanted to accomplish this. You didn't have to go through the trouble of, okay, who's available on Sunday? Anybody available Sunday? You are, you are, you're not. Dog on it, we're gonna have to go through the trouble of, okay, who's available on Sunday? Anybody available Sunday? You are, you are, you're not dog on it.

We're going to push to next week. Nope. They found their group. They decided they wanted to go to the yawning caverns and want to know when you could have it ready. How about, oh, next Thursday night. Works for me. Works for you.

Good. See you then. West marches campaigns, free the DM up from the scheduling monster that I talked about in the previous episode and gives that responsibility to the players to find the people, the time, and the quests they want to go on. Because there are multiple potential paths to take and multiple quests they could take on, West March's campaigns are by their very nature sandboxes. The DM sets up a part of a large open world to explore,

fills it with locations here and there, challenges, opportunities for treasure, magic, lost items, lost people, and so forth. Ben Robbins, the father of this style of campaign, recommends starting by giving the players an incomplete and possibly even inaccurate map, like a hand-drawn treasure map or something. This incomplete map has a few waypoints marked and places of note as possible adventure hooks,

but ultimately it's the players who decide where they want to go. In a West Marches campaign, players can come and go and drift among different groups. To make this work, West Marches campaigns require a a larger player base and it encourages flexibility in participation. Players can join and leave the campaign as they wish, allowing for a diverse and ever-changing group of players. Just because they join the quest for the Ruby Lizard doesn't mean they have to stick with the same group to chase and kill the demon Drake of the Yadu River. Participation in quests are ad hoc and determine session to session,

depending on player availability and interest in that quest. In Westmarch's campaigns, the world is persistent and can change depending on the adventures undertaken by the various groups and the results of those adventures. A group of players decides on Thursday they want to go after the Demon Drake, only to arrive and find it slain in the den and partially

consumed by wild animals. The hell happened here? We were going after this Drake. We were here to kill it. Who got here before we did? Well, the group on Tuesday night might have beached to the punch and took out the Drake before you could get here. Maybe that group's on their way back to the city right now or maybe this group finds a clue or a section of the layer the previous group missed in their rush to kill the creature. Or maybe the group has to decide that night what they want to do instead of killing the Drake. Do they want to travel west and uncover the next two hexes? Different groups are working both together and

competing in the same world to tell the story of the campaign together, but from different adventures and different points of view. It's the ultimate in collaborative storytelling. Players work together to shape the narrative, contribute their unique perspectives and ideas in so doing. If you're encouraging roleplay, it encourages the players to tell these stories in character voice. As parts of the world are uncovered and the challenges are faced there, other areas of the world will open up after that. The West Marches contains miles and miles of uncharted territories which give the thrill of discovery to players, the uncovering of lost and hidden places, and the feeling that the world is enormous and much of it unexplored.

In essence, a West Marches campaign offers a unique and immersive experience where the players feel small and challenged again, while having agency and control over their own adventures. It's a great campaign choice for those who love the exploration side of D&D. There are some good things about West March's campaigns because it allows the DM to be more reactive. Players say they want to go to the Cerulean Forest so okay I'm gonna prep the Cerulean Forest adventure. I don't have to prep something ahead of time and drive them to that one destination that I have prepped. Another positive is that players

at your table will almost always be committed to the adventure and have bought in. If they decided they wanted to go to the Cerulean Forest, then they have made that decision actively so when you're running an adventure that takes them to the Cerulean Forest that automatically generates buy-in. Plus another good aspect of it West March's campaigns cater to GMs like me who love making like little Lego block sections of adventures that you can snap together in multiple ways and anywhere you need them. Now it's not all wine and roses with a Westmarch's campaign. There are some bad things to it because you have an inconsistent number and cast of characters.

You will always have those people who want to play every single session and they want to make sure they're there just in case there's some treasure that's uncovered so they can be part of it. Then you'll also have players who will drift in and out and they may adventure every now and then and it's inconsistent. While it's a good thing to cater to different types of players, by the same token it will wind up with there may be nights where you have 16 people who want to adventure and there may be nights we only have three. Another bad part about West March's campaigns is that they require a lot of ideas from the GM. You are seeding an entire wilderness area with adventures and rumors and plot

hooks and monsters and that type of thing. It takes a lot of work to get that started. One of the other bad things about Westmarch's campaigns is that you have to be comfortable with just in time adventure creation. To keep you from having to do 10 years worth of prep work to get all these hexes filled with ruins and dungeons and monsters and that kind of thing, you have to get comfortable

with the fact that I need to have this ready by next Tuesday and then generate an adventure that may not even exist outside of just vague ideas in your mind before that gaming session. Now here's some tips for running Westmarch's campaigns and I would be remiss if I didn't link to the tips provided by Ben Robbins himself, the man who designed this campaign. Some of those are repeated in the rest of this episode, but I'm going to include a link to Ben Robbins' articles and the resources if you want to read tips from the man himself. Tip number one. West marches only really works for DMs with a large group of players.

You need to set a limit on the number of players that you have per session, like four to five generally should be the max Most popular game systems are built for a party of four So that's a good number to start with but if you want to have multiple groups running in this same Uncharted wilderness you'll need a larger group of players than four to five Otherwise, you're running the same four to five people every single gaming session and you're DMing a traditional adventure five people every single gaming session and you're DMing a traditional adventure. Another thing you'll have to do with the West Marches campaign, tip number two, create a safe area to start in. The most common safe area that the classic is a

town. Maybe it's a village at the edge of known civilization. One of the features of a West Marches campaign is that there are not a lot of well-traveled heavily patrolled roads out in the West Marches. As Robbins described it, the town is safe and the wilds are wild. Speaking of which, tip number three, create a much larger set of not so safe areas than you do the safe ones.

Matt Colville in his video on the West Marches, which I'll also link to in the resources, used the term, it's a point of light campaign. The area that's safe is a point of light in a wilderness of darkness. While I'm at it he quotes Ben Robbins in saying that no adventure takes place in town because if you do because the town is relatively safe the PCs will never leave town. In other words in a West Marches campaign the PCs should get booted out of the town for well not literally booted out of the town unless you really want to kick them out which

would be an interesting start to a West marches campaign actually no I'm sorry you know about you don't boot them out of the town but the PC should feel encouraged to leave town to go to the dangerous areas in those areas the PC should feel like strangers in a strange land. They are the invaders in a way. It shouldn't be out of place for the PCs to hear someone say you ain't from around here, or yeah. The expansive wilderness of untamed areas are the point of the adventure and the PCs are the ones that go out, see what's there, and come back with information and maybe even make areas of the wilderness safe. As you're designing the dangerous areas,

the further away you get from that point of light safety, the more dangerous it should be because those early forays in the wilderness will probably be closer to town where the PCs are lower level. And so they're only going a hex or two away from the safe town. But later on, as the PCs grow in power, they can go further where the threats

are bigger and the danger is more prevalent. Again, much love to Matthew Colville who suggested of thinking of this like you're designing an MMO, a massively multiplayer online game, and give areas or regions names and approximate encounter levels. Maybe the Victorian Velt have encounters in level one to four range and the Crips of Malfeasance may be for levels five to seven. Another tip, even in the lower level areas make some spots harder to clear. Locked rooms, tougher monsters, just things that maybe lower level characters can't get past so

that they are encouraged to come back there when they get tougher, higher level, more capable. Next tip, establish player expectations at the very beginning because they will need to be more active than traditional adventures. I love my players in the games that I campaign, but for the most part,

they show up and get fed the campaign like baby birds. They don't really bring a lot except for occasional role play. In West March's campaigns they are going to be expected to, for example, network with other people, build these adventuring parties. They may need to understand that they'll miss out on some treasure because there's multiple potential groups investigating the same areas. They also should probably make multiple characters at various levels to be able to participate with as many groups as possible because there may be one group going to the level 5 adventure while another group's going to the level 2. Another tip, encourage and foster player collaboration.

Set up some method of communication among the players. These days I'd probably create a discord server or subreddit or something similar to that that allow players to talk and chat with each other and build or find these ad hoc groups for the next session. Part of the social contract of a West Marches game is that each group will bring that information back to the entire group to facilitate decision-making on the next set of adventures. to the entire group to facilitate decision-making on the next set of adventures. Players or groups who act in bad faith usually wind up getting kicked out of the campaign or and whatever in-world organization that is setting up all these adventures. Sharing information should be mandatory to allow for player collaboration. Also, next tip, DMs you should encourage and foster

player competition. The West Marges campaign is harsh to players who don't have the drive to go after the treasure they want or they want to wait to go on adventures until they know it's safe. Ambition is rewarded because you may get that weapon, that wondrous item or ring or piece of information that would be perfect for your character. The early bird gets the worm, but what makes it interesting is there may be some uncertainty because if you go too early you may get completely TPK'd and nobody returns. After all, the early bird

gets the worm but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese. Next tip, be flexible or even passive with your game world. The West Marches campaign allows you the GM to sit back and relax and let the players desire for adventure come to you rather than allowing the players to be passive and have the adventure fed to them. A subset of the players via whatever collaboration tools they use that you provide will start talking about what adventure they want to go on and which plot thread or hook or rumor they're interested in. You, my wise DM behind the screen, can nod and encourage them to go on that adventure to the Serpent Temple. Meanwhile, because you know they're interested

and that's probably where they're going, you can go ahead and start working on the Serpent Temple and stocking it with treasure and monsters that the PCs can discover when they go on their adventure. In effect, to use the manufacturing term, you are delivering gaming experiences in a just-in-time fashion, where the adventure gets finalized just before the players travel to the location where the adventure happens. And now that I say that, you don't even have to finalize the entire adventure if it's going to stretch across multiple gaming sessions. For example, the Serpent Temple is above the Caverns of Calamity which house the Emerald

Egg, a powerful artifact of the goddess Sizzlevav. You know it'll take 4-5 sessions to get through all 12 encounters that you have planned, so you don't need to have all of that designed when the players enter the top level. You can just have the first session ready and generate the other levels or encounters between sessions and have the next set of encounters or levels ready just in time for the next session with the same group. Next tip. Seed your world with rumors, plot threads, and possible adventures in the West Marches. Create lots of rumors and plot threads and throw them around like fucking grass pollen. Every player gets one or more rumors and I like to base the number on a skill roll or

charisma check before the game gets going. Create some overlap between each set of rumors and cast them around. For example, there was a great battlefield with some magic item that was left behind called the Radiant Standard. Or there's a dilapidated mansion in the middle of acres of fallow fields. Or there's the lost city of Atalanta, a powerful creature that terrorizes the land like a dragon or a demon or elemental. There's another area where cults are said to house themselves and they are doing dark things in the forest. Or maybe even previous adventuring groups were lost in the West Marches somewhere and somebody needs to go find them.

were lost in the West Marches somewhere and somebody needs to go find them. For bonus points, give a player a rumor that would be of interest to another player's character. So, give player A the rumor of an artifact that maybe player B's character would really like. Tell one of the rogue players about a lost holy artifact of interest to the faith of player B's cleric. This encourages communication and once that happens, rumors will start flying around your players and getting shared left and right. Next tip I mentioned this earlier but don't give the players a map. Make

them create their own map which may or may not be accurate because after all mistakes happen when you're trying to map stuff. Don't correct their map for them. They know they traveled three days northwest to an open field and then it became hilly and in one of the hills on the third day there was a lost temple. They don't have GPS. They can't give exact directions. They fill in some information about the few squares or hexes on the map that they traveled on and they know somewhere in cell C14 there's an abandoned temple that they didn't get to explore. Ideally this map gets shared amongst all of your players, not just the four players that

were in that group. Sharing this map and having all of them use it makes the world feel vast and actually much bigger than it actually is. Another tip, encourage and reward player participation. Players who help organize groups, players who solve problems using creative methods, players who help create content for the world or help write up what happened on the last adventure session to that temple.

Also, players who help keep the map. Encourage and reward players that do that. For example, by giving them, like in Pathfinder 2E, maybe additional hero points or additional experience points, or maybe even additional rewards from the patron of this organization that is keeping all these people adventuring in the West Marches. Make your NPCs rare and adventuring NPCs non-existent in the wilderness. The PCs are heading out to the wilderness and

shouldn't feel like that some other group that the DM has control of has already been there done that map part of the forest. No. Make them feel like they are venturing out into the unknown. Here there be dragons or trolls or hill giants or tree ants or zombies. Another tip. Encourage mixing and matching of players. I struggled with this when I ran a rest West Marches like game in the past of the same people tended to run with the same people That they knew well and meshed better sure we're all here to have fun But part of a West Marches campaign is the possibility that you won't be with the same people every single time This helps avoid clicks where Mike always adventures with Russ, Tina and Kara every single time. They're inseparable and they always stick

together. In that case you're not running a West Marches campaign, you're running an adventuring party. That's all you're doing. Also encouraging mixing and matching helps players avoid feeling ostracized or like second-class members of the group. Look, some players are more charismatic than others and mix and mingle with new players easier. They make friends faster. They're not going to suffer if you don't mix and match groups, but the ones that would are the ones maybe who are the quiet players, the shy players, the ones who don't feel comfortable around strangers and don't think for a second I'm throwing stones here.

I'm a natural introvert. I love my quiet reading times when no one's bothering me. And sometimes I struggle in large groups of strangers. So forcing, mixing, and matching would help players like me. Finally, a good way to start this type of adventure is with all the PCs being a member of the same group. Pathfinder has the Pathfinder Society. D&D has the Adventurers League. All of the characters are members of some organization who have the charge, the challenge, the

mission of expanding the known world. Seeing what's out there, bringing that knowledge back, and maybe getting a little rich in the process. Westmarch's campaigns are a very different type of game. It supports situations where there are few DMs, a lot of players, or both. Consider setting one up, getting your players to network with one another and finding the plot hooks that they want to go after.

Practice some just-in-time adventure creation and encourage player mixing and matching, and I'd be willing to bet that you and your players would have fun doing it. Hey, do you like this podcast? If so, please consider linking to an episode on social media and telling a friend about it. Tune in in two weeks when I'm going to give you a back to basics tip for DMs who are writing their own adventures, how to write adventures with what you know. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, Chefs. A friend of mine used to be a lawyer before she became a chef.

And she still does a little legal work on the side. After all, she's a sous chef. This has been episode 238, all about Westmarch's campaigns. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking20 podcast is a publishing cube media production. Copyright 2024. References to game system content are copyrighted by their respective publishers.