Campaign Games: Top 7 and Design Thoughts 

Gloomhaven, AH LCG, and Imperial Assault all absolutely have a campaign with a clear beginning and end. AH and IA have a number of campaigns available. All can be played freely at the scenario level, but only a maniac would do that. The campaign is what those games are all about, to me.

Excellent thoughts. I really appreciated the ideas around not repeating scenarios, core gameplay needing to be there first, and longer not being better. One of my favorite Sunday sit downs yet.

One of the main reasons I have enjoyed Gloomhaven so much (besides the fun gameplay itself) is because the game stays fresh with the new characters you unlock through the retirement mechanism. Each time I unlocked a character it created a new challenge to discover and go up against

Nice overview - I like the way you break down the definition of a campaign game first.

These Sunday sit downs have become one of my favorite things of the week. Thanks Jamey, you’re awesome man. Oh and I spy with my little eye Dice Throne Season 2! Love that game.

Thank you for featuring Spy Club on this list. Severely underrated game from last year.

Really enjoyed this one and found it very insightful! I've got a narrative-based campaign design sitting on the back burner that you gave me a few ideas for and also confirmed/agreed with a few of my gut feelings of ways the design could go sideways. Thanks for the video!

Thanks, you answered a Time Stories question I hadn't got around to looking up the answer yet.

It is always a pleasure listening or reading about what you’ve got to say. It consistently feels like quality content, and professionally prepared and delivered.

Great video, Jamey. I am half way thru pandemic legacy season 1 but it feels like a chore most of the time and my friends and I almost always would prefer to play something different. I have Charterstone and I am so excited to start it, just waiting for my game group to coordinate a time. The short playtime per game is one of the most attractive attributes to me. Recently, a friend picked up Gloomhaven and holy moly did that fall terribly flat for us. Takes us an hour and a half to set up, another 1.5 to play a scenario where almost nothing happens except you beat up some bad guys, try to steal coins before your teammates get them etc etc. I appreciate the sheer depth that went into creating it but I cannot believe how highly rated that game is. Different strokes I suppose. Thanks again for some excellent discussion here and once more, cannot wait to start charterstone!

I can confirm that both Arkham Horror and Imperial Assault are campaign games as you do have to play them in order and they do have discreet endings. I think I agree with your points for what makes a good campaign game but with one caveat--I think it's fine to play the same scenario again if that scenario changes depending on what happened in the campaign, so you at least feel some sort of advancement or impact from past decisions and victories or losses.

Very interesting talk. I do wish you had summarized at the end how your top 3 games combined and/or excelled in the various design points you described. It would have tied things together nicely.

I haven't played many campaign games, Scythe rise of Fenris being the main campaign I've played through. The storyline was excellent and created a great tool for the different mechanics that were presented from game to game. It was like trying on different clothes on top of the base game of scythe but never layering on so much that the base game was lost and the campaign became too complex or cumbersome. I am excited to try some more campaign/legacy games! Charterstone, rise of queensdale, betrayal legacy are some that are on our list to get to the table along with another RoF play through. Thanks Jamey!

Literally thinking of designing a campaign game on my couch when I got the notification of this video. Thanks Jamey!

Great video and interesting topic. One of my all time favorite games (of any genre) is Memoir ‘44. Memoir ‘44 does have some campaigns (Campaign books 1 & 2, for instance), and they fit Jamey’s definition well. They are linked and ordered scenarios with persistence, but not necessarily permanence, which have a designed beginning and end. Highly recommended to any memoir player who hasn’t tried the format out. EDIT: More to Jamey’s points in the video. Memoir ‘44 Campaign Books also have defined objectives, interesting narrative (history of WWII), impactful decisions (winning or losing one scenario will impact the next), and memorable moments. It does not have the “explorer” aspect (like opening a new box with new cards, roles, etc), but each scenario may have special rules to keep it fresh, while maintaining the excellent core gameplay.

Jamey, great video! No one in my group thought Charterstone was too long. Something you didn't mention was length of each individual game, which Charterstone does very right. I'm certainly not going to finish a campaign game if each individual game is hours long.

Just started Pandemic Legacy season 1 so I'm glad its on your list. I will be checking out Charterstone. It's now on my list of games to pick up

I like the way Near and Far lets you carry things over, I really enjoy earning XP as you play through and then you can use the XP to buy a starting bonus for subsequent games in the campaign. I can't remember an exact example, but let's say something lets you buy the ability to start with 2 extra coins. So at the start of the game, everyone has 3 coins but you get 5, and something comes up that costs 4 or 5, well because of that small advantage you could buy that before anyone else. But they might have a slight advantage somewhere else based off what ability they purchased, maybe extra health or equipment etc. Another thing I liked about Near and Far was that it came with two different campaign modes, you could play adventure/story campaign and play across all 10 maps playing 10 games, or play the character campaign and be telling an entirely different story over 3 maps. That also gave the game a nice bit of replayability in my opinion. In trying to think of something that might be fun to see in a future campaign game, (and again just the opinion of a gamer not a pro designer here) maybe there could be items that are possible to obtain in earlier games, that come into play later and/or make things easier (giving that slight advantage) but they also become easier to obtain later on. So to try and explain that better here's an example Lets say in game 1, it is possible but difficult to obtain a sword. If you do, great! You get to start game 2 with it, and it has certain advantages to it. Maybe an increase in attack, or you can cut down obstacles on the map, etc. And if you start the second game with it, it will save you a little time because maybe everyone else now has to take a turn or two to get the sword on game 2 which is now easier to obtain. But game 2 could also have an item that you are trying to obtain, that again is somewhat of a challenge to get but that could be advantageous to have at the start of game 3, again becoming easier to obtain in game 3. And if these unlockables/items aren't necessary to win, they just help in various ways, you could play sessions where you challenge yourself to try and win the game without getting any of these items, play a campaign where you try to get them all in each game they're introduced in, etc. Mixed with a similar thing to the Near and Far mechanic where you can use XP to unlock smaller advantages like extra coins or health, that sounds like it could be fun in my opinion.

One of the best campaign games to date, which hasnt been mentioned: Stuffed Fables. Reasons: 1. Every map-playtime is SHORT. I mean like 10-30min short. And there are a lot of them. 2. New rules are introduced on the go. And they are very short. And they mostly belong to that specific map. 3. Progression and decisions make sense and have an impact. "You didnt catch the train - go to another map now". 4. The overall campaign is devided into 7 storys, which belong together. And each of the stories is played on about 5-8 maps. And basically you restart nearly your whole situation each story, which totally makes sense, since it is another night. 5. The map doesnt need much preparation. It is in a book with story, rules and events literally next to it. Put some (handfull) counters/miniatures on it on marked spots, read the fluff Text, small rule text and GO. 6. The game is not made for everyone. It is especially for a geek-dad with his children, because the main mechanic is a bit too easy for us hardcore-board-game-geeks, watching this channel. But for what it does, it is PERFECT. I cant describe how much me and my older kid (6 years) enjoy it together. I played so many kids games which were fun too but couldnt deliver me a real board game experience. Stuffed Fables can do exactly that! And this is unique.

I realy love these videos. I feel like a great teaching class on gaming and I thank you very much for them. But I do have to tell you that Imperial Assault fits your description perfectly. Perhaps when you played it, the Imperial Player didn't explan to you what was the end goal because he knew this was just a one quick game in order to lear about its mechanics, but every single campaing of the game (I believe it has 6 campaigns right now, not counting the really small ones in the app to play full coop) have a clear goal that it is stated in the introduction and briefing of the first mission. From there on, you will gain money to buy items to take them with you for the rest of the campaign, you'll get experience to level up your character and gain new abilities, and depending on your choices you will go one way in a branch of scenarios that will lead you to 2 different endings (either the Imperial wins, or the rebels wins). So yeah, Imperial Assault is a campaign game. There are big campaigns (with around 13 scenarios), small campaigns with 5 or 6 and the last one they released has 8 scenarios (if I'm not mistaken), all of them including branching arcs according to players' decisions and all of them allowing yo to get stronger and bring stuff from one game to another. Thanks again for the video and have a great sunday! :)

Arcadia Quest would definitely be on my list... 6 scenario campaign, with your choice of 3 of 6, then 2 of 4, and the finale. You get new Equipment to upgrade your characters between each scenario. They did add a series of Dragon extensions which allow you to continue beyond that campaign with the same characters, featuring a co-op Boss Battle to cap it off, with more new weapons and items. It’s fun, and competitive... if you haven’t played it, it highly recommend checking it out.

Very useful insights, Jamey. I will definitely use this going forward in my own story/scenario-driven (campaign) game [SDG] design. Some observations on SDGs: - replayability in SDGs is superfluous. I find it more reassuring to know that a game will have X number of games than be open enough to be limitlessly replayable as the latter just seems like a watering down of the story focus. And as to replaying the same scenario? I could not agree with you more. T.I.M.E. Stories biggest flaw is that you are reset like Groundhog Day to play the exact same scenario, essentially sucking out all (role-playing) fun from an otherwise brilliantly immersive experience. - player action autonomy is more important in SDGs than in other games because instinctively players will feel that stories drive them instead of allowing them to do what they want. So yes, characters need to be able to impact the story/game world to feel that empowerment. And if you want a TRUE RPG feel, the game environment should impact the character unique to the player. There's more to this principle, but it goes too far to explain the principle here. - "mechanism ramping" can be done very intuitively by making the added rules theme-driven. This allows the new rule(s) to be absorbed better and they strengthen the story at the same time. - lose-win story continuation. I LOVE the fact that in Arkham Horror:LCG you continue regardless if you win or lose a particular game. Smart SDGs know that the win and lose conditions are different than with other games. SDG players win when their EXPERIENCE is vivid, memorable and has you thinking about it days after. SDG players (and games) lose when the game theme is torn away to reveal the mechanics that say you lost on points or not meeting the objective. - CHANGE. Players who love SDGs love them because of the discovery nature of it. Exploring a story and finding out new rules, secret boxes with components, character upgrades and, in the case of campaign games, an evolving meta-story is what drives players to seek out these types of games in the first place. It's no wonder 7th Continent, Gloomhaven, Arkham Horror:LCG and Tainted Grail are such successes.

Great video Jamey. If I ever make a campaign game I will come back to this video. I think having lots of campaigns and repeating failed levels is influenced by video games. A 10 level campaign video game in which you don't repeat a level would bomb. Video game players for some reason want to grind for hours on a single level, and want 300 levels, a game with 100+ hours of [repetitive] gameplay. They don't seem to value time or quality of time. Most modern board-gamers feel great if they played their new game as much as 5 times before moving on to one of their other 10 games on "the shelf of shame/unplayed games". I'd like to buy a campaign game that was designed like, "Infinite game mode + 7 unique campaign modes included". One that gives the gamer the choice to jump straight to the heavier infinite mode (yes, spoiling the campaign as some people don't want a campaign), or as normal keeping the full game a secret until they played 7-14 hours through the slow yet interesting campaign. I'd like a campaign game in which the standalone infinite mode feels as good as any game in the top 100 BGG games (unless it's really a story game instead of a campaign game).

Thanks for always posting these videos as I designer I like to hear your insights having just finished pandemic legacy 2 I agree with a lot of what you said. For me season 2 was not as enjoyable due to lack of direction and the amount of stuff added.

I like things carrying over. I think the main concern with these, in addition to thematically making sense, is balance. Does it throw off the balance to carry such and such over? If it thematically makes sense and doesn't throw off the balance, by all means, let's bring these things along to discard them as you go. Maybe you lose such and such item to save the team? Maybe that ally you have helped you in a key way last game? While Seafall was by no means a perfect game, I actually liked it. I went in with the benefit of the player organizing it having already going through to clear up problems with the rulebook before we even started playing. One of my favorite aspects of the design was how you brought in your crew, named them if you were the first person to buy him or her, and then you got to choose to advanced one of the crew at the end of a game. Also, how you used the crew during the game. All of that was satisfying to me. I didn't like losing my crew at the end of a game though except one choice, but ok, as seasons change, crew move on to other ports and may come to work for you again in the future, thematically, I can buy it. Seafall also had some great moments in it, but it could also be very unforgiving and that is probably also its downfall in addition to apparently rules issues. Sometimes, you really had to push for a small goal in one game, so you accomplish a major goal in another. And normally, that could turn me off, but I liked the way it was done in Seafall. I agree that repeating the same game can be a little annoying. I playtested an earlier version of Spy Club and there was no campaign at that time, and your description of that makes it sound more intriguing. I played Gloomhaven for the first time a few weeks ago and it was actually pretty good. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I liked the aspects of carry over in it.

Hi Jamey, great video as always, as one of the countless wannabe designers, I found your contributions invaluable, so many many thanks. I'm headed to Unpub this year with my two teenage sons, not to demo a game, but just get to a feel of what it's like. Besides learning what's needed to hopefully run a successful playtest in the future, I am hoping to have fun! Can you offer any advice? Thanks - Doug

Jamey as always thank you so much for this review, campaings games is a category that grow every year. I agree with you that one of the huge errors is that fail an scenario dosent have consequenses. This is the main reason for I dislike Gloomhaven. Im already desining some kind of innovative nechanic for a game. If you interested on give us you prototype review just tell me. Have a good sunday!

There is an ending to gloomhaven...but you can keep doing side quests or random dungeon/scenarios

You don't often say "Don't do it" -- so when you do I'll listen. I've not played any Campaign games, so thanks for your list.

I love Arkham Horror LCG because I can replay a scenario but with a different investigator or deck. Other than that, I don't like replaying scenarios either.

I didn't mind replaying the same scenario too much in Pandemic Legacy (both seasons) as long as some progress was made that would make the second game easier (for example an objective being already completed or partially completed). What I didn't like in the second season was how the game just pushed you along if you didn't find the correct path forward. I wish more of these games, especially the legacy ones, came with an introductory scenario so you could test the game with different groups before they have to commit. I'd love to try some of the legacy games with different groups but I'm not sure if they'd like them.

Without giving away any spoilers, I have to say I really appreciated the huge impact of player decisions (both in building the board and particularly towards the end of the game) on the gameplay and storyline of Charterstone. Charterstone was also wonderful in it's streamlined gameplay and gradual rule additions. It really made the game easy to learn. Additionally, while I haven't quite made up my mind about Seafall's gameplay (I'm only a few games in), I have appreciated it's discovery and player improvement mechanics.

Hi jamey. That's for this vid. Like every budding game designer a campaign game is one of the ones I'm working on. And love / agree with all your points. To this end I have played a few and have more to play / coming. Just wondering if I could ask your thoughts on these few that are not out yet. Post human saga, tainted Grail, 1001 Odysseys, Dawn of the peacemakers and living planet.

Jamey, I hear you on the trouble with lengthy campaigns and how they can discourage even starting the campaign. I was really pumped for Rise of Queensdale, but when I heard that it could last 18-26 games, I cooled considerably on it. It's only been from your recommendation and some other friends who have loved it that I've started to reconsider. I also feel this way about Gloomhaven. It is a great game with some neat mechanisms, but I would much prefer a shorter campaign. It's just way too big.

This may sound weird, but something I wish campaign games handled more is having recaps like a TV show. Not everyone is going to binge the game in a few sittings, or even gather weekly, some (like me) might perhaps take a break for several months, if not over a year, then, when trying to come back, you don't remember much of the story, or your characters, or anything that was going on. Might be one of the reasons the Arkham Horror LCG is my personal favorite, because the core beats of the story are in a tiny booklet you can re-read, and other details you write down in the campaign sheet, unlike for example Gloomhaven, which has its story spread across several random scenario entry numbers hard to track back. The other thing I love about AH:LCG, is how well its story is tied to what's going on. Maybe being ameritrashy helps, but for example, Pandemic Legacy made me feel more like the story was coming up with excuses to justify a new gimmick objective, rather than be immersive. AH scenarios often make my group and I go "ooh, that's neat", and we feel incredibly immersed. It also doesn't make you repeat scenarios like you mentioned, and the story branches out based on the outcome, good or bad, down to the ending. There's never really a game over. Again, Pandemic Legacy feels less like the story is flexible, and more the designer going "sigh, it's ok, the objective is completed either way and you get a crutch card so you lose less".

Interesting video. I have not played too many campaign games, just Fenris (twice), a one-off game of Gloomhaven, and 3 games of Pandemic Legacy season 1 (in mid year; apparently many in our group have dropped in and out of that one as the game owner hopes to finally get through it). From my one play of Gloomhaven, I'd say it suffers from the "builds too slowly" problem. With Pandemic, I also thought the story was too linear, I didn't like replaying a scenario, and I also thought the post-game reveals were a bit tedious. It seemed like you were making decisions blind, although it might be I was not as invested in that since I didn't play all the previous episodes. I do think you are right that more is not necessarily better, and that many groups won't finish (or start) a campaign if it is too long. My group loves variety, so committing to the same game more than once every couple of months is antithetical to our preferences. Something I'd like to hear you talk about is whether games could provide campaign modes, as you did, for example, with Viticulture solo. Maybe that works best for solo players, but I do like having some meta-goals in a game even without a deep narrative or player progress. I've made little campaign modes for Viticulture, Scythe, Ex Libris, and a couple of other games (when playing solo) just to have a little extra interest to look forward to the next play.

Some thoughts on carry-over of stuff from game to game: 1. I think the mechanism you created for this in Charterstone is great, allowing players agency about what they wanted to carry over, and increasing those abilities where they wanted. Very slick. 2. For non-thematic carry-over, Seafall wins the prize. I can think of no reason why I can keep a map, and can keep a town, but cannot keep money and cannot keep a building. It's so very, very arbitrary ... and frustrating ... and endless ... will it ever end? (I'm hoping against hope that it will end next weekend, but since we don't even know HOW to find that stupid chart we need ...) 3. The folks that I played Charterstone with decided they didn't want to play Near and Far due to the lack of carryover of stuff from one game to the next. I haven't gotten it to the table yet to know if I find that annoying or not, but it was an immediate deterrent for my friends. I'm hoping I can get them into Rise of Queensdale instead.

Arkham LCG is definitely a campaign game. Each 'cycle' of 8 games is a campaign. They must be played in order, previous games alter future games, it's fully resettable (so non-legacy), and there is a very coherent story. It's just the system allows you to buy new campaigns. So there's currently five campaigns available. Plus some standalone scenarios.

One thing I will say in defense of Dragonfire. You are right that the experience you gain in each scenario is little, which means you add skills to your character slowly. However, every time you complete a scenario, you get a new magic item card to add to your deck. So, there is character advancement each game. But I agree it is definitely too slow.

Charterstone was our first crack at a campaign style game, but sadly it was abandoned after the first play. We tried to stick to the suggestion that we just open and start playing and the game will teach you as you go. But it left many things out and everyone was confused. Things were missed and i think it dampened the excitement. i hope we get back to it eventually

Have you played Arcadia Quest? Seems like it would meet most of your requirements.

Bit late, but one thing that is hugely important for me, is don't design scenarios where prior knowledge of the scenario/specific strategies is required. I love Arkham Horror LCG, one of my favourite games, but it is really bad at this. The amount of times I've played a scenario, and just felt like "how was I supposed to know that before playing?" The first scenario I played after getting a cool weapon had creatures that weapon was completely useless against (mostly bad timing on my part, but it was an uninformed decision). As the campaign progresses, I want to feel like I'm discovering new, fresh things, but I don't want to feel pressured to "scout" out the scenario or spoil it to avoid being completely blindsided. Campaign games with high amounts of randomisation can suffer from this too, but in that case it's causing you to retcon certain results and existing in purgatory until you find a result you like, at which point you might as well just choose the results and not play the game for what it is. The core mechanics of the game can be challenging, but the actual campaign needs to focus on telling a branching story that is satisfying no matter the result. AH: LCG has its theme of impending doom, but finding out your characters are permanently dead after the second last scenario is not satisfying, it's just anti-climatic. Super excited for your open world game, it's an idea I've played around with, so looking forward to your take on it :)

I definitely like the idea of keeping something you had built in a previous session. It adds to that feeling of achievement. Giving up everything as you moved on in Hogwarts Battle was kind of painful. Based on the Gloomhaven subreddit, there is definitely an end to the main campaign. It is just a VERY long campaign that you can make even longer with choosing side scenarios. Love the game, but it is very hard to keep up with that main story line when you can't devote enough time to play it consistently. Overall I enjoyed your definition and details. We're 4 games into Rise of Fenris and loving it. We also have Rise of Queensdale and Aeon's End Legacy on our shelf for after Fenris, which you have me even more excited about playing now. Near and Far has a campaign mode separate from following each character's individual stories? It's been about a year since I've played, and we focused on those stories. Feel like I missed a huge part of the game!

Not to bandwagon on the "what about these" - but curious if Mice and Mystics, Stuffed Fables, and Comanauts would qualify - and what opinions were on them.

I agree with everything you said here with the exception of playing a scenario again. I totally understand why you wouldn’t want to and especially if you’re playing for story elements mostly, but for me personally I just love playing games even if it’s the same. I have grinded levels in video games tons and tons of times just because I enjoy playing it. Same with Gloomhaven and same for any board game I play more than once even if it’s not a campaign game. Now if you’re looking strictly for a story game then I understand but that’s almost a different genre, play Time Storied or Sherlock Holmes. Not all campaign games have to be completely story driven. I play plenty of video games story lines that the story is garbage but the gameplay is just so much fun I don’t care and I’ll play levels over and over again. Again I respect your opinion and totally understand it! This is just how I personally feel! Thanks so much for your videos they are awesome!

I absolutely agree about not forcing players to repeat games. This was a major factor I became bored enough with Gloomhaven to sell after not being very far into it. I think another important point in designing campaigns is avoiding clunky and messy book keeping. You want persistence between episodes, but it needs to be manageable. I won't mention names, but one campaign that I went through had this problem, but on top of that, It failed to mention all that I was suppose to keep track of until the first paragraph of the next episode, so now I had no way of continuing. I guess this goes hand in hand with what Jamey said about keeping in mind that it might be a few months until players play the next episode of the campaign to design it correctly.

In My City the winning player gets more obstacles instead of improving, which I thought was interesting, keeping the campaign balanced

I love and hate campaign games... I played tabletop rpgs like D&D way before picking up a hobby board game. I love having a story evolve (or a character, faction or whatever) over multiple games but I hate the fact that I have to put time and effort into getting these games to the table. Also every campaign game is designed so that it doesn't make sense to play with different people, meaning that can't play it whenever I want. Charterstone took me 8 months to complete because life got in the way I consinder a campaign game to be any game where you play the same faction or character over multiple sessions with an evolving story or game. So for me Gloomhaven is a campaign game. My favorites are: 1. Gloomhaven 2. Arkham Horror: The Card Game 3. Charterstone 4. The Rise of Queensdale 5. Pandemic Legacy Season 1 6. Shadows over Brimstone (Sold my kickstarter copy because I had to glue 100+ minis. Why!?) 7. Imperial Assault I love Near and Far but I haven't played the campaign.

Personally I really didn’t mind playing the same scenario a second time in pandemic legacy 1 and 2. Between the two attempts to complete a scenario there are subtle differences, you get some small benefit when you loose, and even if you loose you get some game end decisions which you can select especially to help with the second attempt. Of course we wanted to win every game, but when we had lost a scenario once we really felt pressure to win the second time. It had the positive affect that on the first attempt we didn’t go in to analysis paralysis as well as the positive affect on the second attempt that we really felt the theme - we felt like 4 scientists making a last ditch desperate attempt to save the world.

Did you play the new Betrayal Legacy? .. definitely a campaign game with a final boss .. I loved it.

What are your thoughts on mice and mystics?

The best campaign game I have ever played is Arkham Horror LCG: The Path to Carcosa

In our group we diferentiate between a Legacy and a Campaign. A Legacy can't be really played after the campaign (like pandemics) and a Campaign is a story attached to a game, like Near and Far or Fenris. Both kind are nice, but should be designed with different mindsets

I like the idea of designing a great non-campaign game, then adding elements which make it a campaign game. This solves a couple of issues - your core loop is fun on its own (so not SeaFall), and you can design a campaign which is a reasonable length (say 5-10 hours of gameplay) but if people want to carry on playing your game after they're done with the campaign they can do.

I think a campaign game should be one where you can play multiple times in one sitting. Sessions should be 1-1.5 hrs max and not require substantial planning to continue. I enjoyed Seafall, but felt I needed time between play sessions to plan out my next game. It is also critical to have a catch up mechanic so that players don't feel like they have lost 5 episodes into a 12 episode game. A Cooperative game gets around this as the players work together. I really enjoyed the mechanics in Rise of Queensdale that allowed players to fall behind and then catch up.

Gloomhaven definitely has a main story line. It has branching paths, too, but it's like Elder Scrolls where there is a main quest to complete.

13:00 Interesting that you now prefer shorter campaigns. I feel they do lend themselves to a tighter, more well told story, but I also think longer games are better at sticking to a core gameplay loop and being a reliable game. When I think of Gloomhaven’s campaign for example, it mostly isn’t trying too hard to catch all the players off guard or shock them with its campaign - it leans more towards a regular board game where you’re going in for the same gameplay loop, and the same core mechanics, mostly using its campaign to add character progression and just have an insane amount of content to keep the game varied.

Have you tried Betrayal Legacy? I heard it was pretty good

You NEED to play King's Dilemma, Jamey. It's just the best.

re: carrying over too much from one scenario to the next (entering the next scenario overpowered) - the next scenario can be set up differently in reaction to what you were able to carry over to mitigate this. For example, if you found Superpowerful Artifact in scenario 1, then set up Elite Enemy in scenario 2 who has been sent to reclaim the artifact (obvious difficulty modifier) or the objective and map is slightly different (more subtle difficulty modifier). Or you may be instructed to play scenario 2B instead of 2A, which has a different difficulty but is also significantly different in other ways that one does not feel it is simply an alternate-difficulty scenario. For example, if you rescued Superpowerful Ally in scenario 1, he reveals we must go do scenario 2B now, but if you never found him then you don't learn that and go to scenario 2A instead which may lead to a different story arc going forward. You get the benefit of feeling like you got more powerful, while also progressing the campaign in a way that unbeknownst to the first-time player has reactive difficulties masked in the context of story to acount for this.

When it comes to persistence and balance (that is, the problem that you want to make winners feel ‘winny’ by giving them an advantage, while at the same it is *losers* who actually *need* an advantage in the upcoming chapters), what about adjusting character/position *complexity* rather than character *power*-that is, give the reward of being able to do funky new things to the player while keeping the character zero sum? Sure you got an item of awesome awesomeness, but it is heavy to lug around and takes so … long … to … charge. So your reward for last chapter's win is that this chapter you are playing with a (hopefully interesting and emotionally rewarding) extra strategic burden; your ‘penalty’ for a loss is that the game complexity ramp is delayed for you, but nothing gets harder. I think this thought originates with a lightweight RPG a friend of mine developed, where, in effect, players are given roughly balanced secret asymmetric magical powers based on the players'-not the characters'-personality and RPG experience. So they might range from ‘you can mind control animals’ to ‘once per turn you can do anything you like, so long as you express it in Haiku’. Playing the weird ones was both a blessing and a curse-but *so* much fun. Of course, if we're in the root RPG tradition, we might reward players for ‘true’ playing of their characters more than, or independently of, any success in a scenario: if you can work your character flaws into a massive catastrophe for the party-and the rest of the game is such that it remains a fun activity, of course-that might still net you a reward. Indeed, since a campaign game is (game theoretically) a ‘repeated’ game, it broadens the scope of semi-cooperativity greatly. The semi-coop ‘spoiler’ flaw (“if I can't win then no one wins!” players) becomes, instead, an interesting decision if, let's say, players are given choices between everyone wins together and the pot is shared, and everyone loses but players still get individual advantages that carry forward. Hmmmm. Thanks, as always, for the thought-provoking video.

I agree with some of it, I disagree with other parts of what you've said. I agree and disagree all at the same time with game length. I want more scenarios in a lot of the games that I would call a campaign game. However, that is extremely dependent on the group I'm playing with because sometimes, such as Gloomhaven, we can do basically every other week, or with Pandemic Legacy Season 2 group, we played a couple of games every other month, that didn't work as well. I also think with number of scenarios, the issue can at times not be that there are too many scenarios or games but that there can be too long games. Seafall is the perfect example of this. It's a game that really forces players to have AP or for AP tendencies to come out, because of the limited number of turns, but at the same time, a mid point Seafall game can go on way too long, especially at five players. The game needed to be streamlined. That is why Risk Legacy worked is it took a long game and made it shorter. I had more thoughts while watching the video that I might come back to post, but there was a lot to unpack in that video, so I just wanted to add in a little bit to comments. I do like the description of what a campaign game is, and I do think that Gloomhaven does qualify with the start to end of the story, it's just done on a larger grander level with more side quests than your typical campaign game.

I would say that you should be careful how much you punish players. I like a sense of progression and things being tough, but we stopped playing Pandemic Legacy on the 4th or 5th month because we had a game that snowballed wildly out of control at the very end, and it made it extremely intimidating to come back to.

No love for Dungeon Degenerates?! Man, try this game. It's fantastic! Edit: more info after watching fully; - Each mission is different and introduces you to new mechanics. - Great stream of loot and new upgradable/learnable abilities each turn. - Allows for long-term boosts to character (via loot and abilities) and short-term stats which are removed after resting to restore health. (ie. +1 Magic, +1 Agility from eating a mushroom, but goes away after you rest to get rid of your poison and fatigue). - Branching story-lines, choices that feel like they matter. A very under-rated game that needs more attention I feel, and I'm very interested to hear your thoughts if you've either played it or know of it. Thanks Jamey! Another thought provoking video :)

Interesting, for some reason I thought Jamey you played 7th Continent :) Anyway you are currently making your own campaign game with the "open world" kind of thing and effects on the world and what not correct? How is it going? :)

I really agree with your view around the majority of people wanting a campaign that they can complete and will deliver a memorable narrative experience. More is not better!

True. I don't want to play the same scenario twice in Pandemic. It takes toooo long and I feel like we won't finish the game. SMH. It wasn't such a problem in Harry Potter because the games were waaaay faster.

I am sure you have thought of it, but the obvious way to keep a player from getting too powerful is to make that power consumable. If it is guns, limit ammo. If it is travelling, limit gas. Each time they find these things, it is a rush of excitement. And each time they are forced to use it, the stakes are even greater. I am not sure I am a huge fan of this method, but others seem to like it. Another way is to put them in a situation where they choose to leave that item/power behind. "This Item A is super awesome, but in order to cross that bridge, I need to bring Item B and C with me and I can't carry them all at the same time!." There are so many possibilities, but another seemingly obvious one they do in video games is to scale the environment. Areas that are nearly impossible to reach from the beginning have harder aspects. Now that you can cause more damage and jump higher, you NEED to cause more damage and jump higher to be just as successful. The trick is obviously striking that balance of allowing the player to feel more powerful while they are also challenged. That can be done in a variety of ways including keeping the original challenge/threat in the game as a reference. I remember playing a game where a certain monster was frightening the first time I was confronted by it. Later when I had found the best way to battle it, they became a relief between the harder enemies I would soon discover. And when there were several of the first threat combined with one of the new threat, things got even more intense.

Our group did not like the Sword and Sorcery campaign. The story was very weak, we didn't quite like how dying would slowdown or prevent level up and how new skills were not exciting or very diverse. There was one map that all 3 or 4 of us died, and in a future scenario we had to choose who would level up and we would need to consider is it worth leveling up because someone might die again, so we should just preserve points. I think the key takeaway here is that you should never prevent players from experiencing the excitement of leveling up or experiencing novelties just because they made mistakes in the past. I agree that scenarios should not be forced to be played twice, I think the best way to punish players for failing, is not by taking something away, but by delaying or locking something away (like an item) that might have helped them. Story changes are also a good way and least impactful on the gameplay (for good or bad). The only time I would see myself saying ok to a scenario repeat if each scenario has alot of variability included in it (e.g. random tile placement during map creation, random enemy spawn from a select pool, different secondary objective, etc) although the game has to be designed around this and has to have some fixed elements so it still feels like a campaign scenario and not just a single scenario.

Pandemic asserts in non legacy situations that your success rate should be 50% or slightly better. This is because of the various RNGs in the game can make any particular game un-winnable . Thus the take two approach to failure. Other games that have less RNG or a more established method of mitigation, can skip that design. Establishing permanence in an open world game should be more about memories or moments than mechanical advantages. I would consider the “fate” box in betrayal legacy. It allows players to literally journal their campaign and be reminded of what happened before. Now betrayal legacy also has many other mechanically meaningful permanence measures to reinforce those player stories, but that concept that the players might care as much about having the story be remembered rather than have a trinket of plus one strength for defeating a troll. have the rewards instead being to add the “troll slayer” title sticker to the character, with no rules text.

I love the idea of campaign and legacy style games; the story, continued exploration, character growth, and world building. But every time I play one, I feel like game balance is sacrificed to reach those ends. I'm looking forward to the day someone figures out how to maintain a balanced game and still incorporate everything else that makes campaign style games fun!

I think replaying Time story senario due to the time travel mechanic was a weakness because boy was it boring. Worse still, you could be the victim of unlucky dice, and the same story more than 3 times is just too much for me.

I really have to disagree on the playing of a scenario again. I'm not saying it's ideal, but in Pandemic, specifically, you get upgrades after every play and the infection cards will be different each game. It's a different challenge, and with a co-op game, that's fine. With a competitive game, it's a lot easier to just move on. I had no problem with the length of those campaigns. I've played the 2 seasons 5 times combined, and nothing touches them so far as legacy games go. But then, I also got very frustrated with Mechs vs Minions, and having to play those scenarios again greatly bothered me because randomness was too high. Those scenarios took just as long as a Pandemic scenario, but the players have far more agency in Pandemic. I know I'm in the minority on that one, but I was happy to sell it when I was done with it and only begrudgingly played it just to finish it. The 2nd scenario was the best. I guess it just comes down to Pandemic is way more strategic and fun to me than Mechs Vs Minions, so 1 seemed like a great length, but the other felt way too long and drawn out.

Oh yay the game based on breath of the wild.

Arkham horror lcg is definitely a campaign game

I don't think I can disagree with you more on a few of your points. I think campaign length doesn't need to be shorter to be better. I am really saddened to hear that Aeon's End Legacy has such a short campaign. If your core game play is good, and your story justifies it, a campaign should absolutely be longer. I particularly feel that Aeon's End Legacy will be considered more poorly by my group for being short - especially with how scripted the first 2 missions were. In one day we went through 3 games, and getting through almost half the campaign in one day is risking a let-down. When it comes to repeating scenarios, I could see there being better solutions than to try again, but I don't think it should be an automatic down-vote. Pandemic does it best, in my opinion. Yes, you're trying to accomplish the same objectives again as the previous game, but the board (and the players' characters) are permanently changed because of the limited successes and failures of the first attempt of each month. In Aeon's End Legacy you're certainly let off the hook a lot easier, in that repeat plays can't make your overall situation worse, so I can concede the lack of consequences in that game. I think in a perfect world, every campaign game would have a different branched story for each outcome of a game, but that's so far from practical that it's more of a wish from a genie than a goal for game designers. I believe that expectations are the most important thing to manage when making a campaign game. One of the reasons I don't think either Pandemic Legacy is too long is that you're told up front that it is a 12-24 game campaign. No matter what, you're done in 24 games, and it's obvious from game one that you can get it done in 12. Springing a new chapter at the last minute is not really something I would consider a positive, even if you're loving the game. I think it would be completely fair to say that a campaign will take 7-10 games if the final game is actually three games in one, and then it avoids the Infinity Wars 3 problem you talked about. As always, an interesting video. I appreciate your point of view, even when I disagree. Thanks for making them.

I'm confused. You say no permanence, but then immediately list 2 legacy games as part of your 7 games.

The campaign in This War of Mine fails here. It's a hard game. It's almost impossible to win it. But in the campaign if you don't win, you're supposed to start again. This really annoys me. You should be able to keep going with some penalty. Act 3 is never going to be played by anyone because it's near impossible to beat Act 1, let alone Act 2. And you can't play the acts independently. It's a really bad design choice.

I think whether or not a level should be replayed should be based on the game. Pandemic Legacy has a strong narrative and could have possibly leveraged into each game being a one shot. Aeon's End: Legacy is like a video game boss rush. After you lose, you identify things you could do better or need to play around against that specific boss. If the game told you to move on, it'd be pretty annoying because you have to wait until the campaign is over to see if you could pull it off, but you don't have the same setup.