Episodic/Modular ones, the one campaign I actually managed to finish was missionbased. There was aunderlying plot to tie it together but most missions were independent of eachother and was much easier to plan and schedule.
I always try to do episodic games but with the same guiding narrative for my monthly game. Because leaving important plot threads or moments lingering for more than two weeks doesn't feel good at all.
I prefer my games to be non-linear and with an emergent story, usually based on a thematic framework that players approach rather proactive. That is why games like Fiasco work so well for me, and that is basically also what I try to create with my own system.
Running West Marches games allows me to run so many more games, which is what I want haha. I've ran over 30 sessions in the past 2 months for dozens of people, and I cant wait to run more!
I'm such a narrative/story-focused person that my initial instinct was "not for me", but over time I've definitely come around and think you might be right!
Go away. All you do is smear kind people like Jason Alexander for clickbait. It's disgusting. DungeonsandDiscourse = DungeonsandDiversity. Both equally gross. Which is extremely gross.
West Marches campaigns could just as easily be called Keep on the Borderlands campaigns. B2 features your safe central location in the keep, and numerous small locations to explore in the wilderness outside of it. While it doesn't specifically discuss the no set schedule, and no set group, these things were rather common when it was first published over 40 years ago.
West Marches games were really the first type of way people played D&D. The creators were part of large wargaming clubs, and as the popularity of their new game spread by word of mouth, even having multiple DMs run a couple games a week, they ended up with waiting lists of players. They were the only game in town, and they wanted to let the maximum number of people play. That's how the West Marches/sandbox format started--to accommodate parties of 8 players at a time (with NPC henchmen and hirelings). The rules were simpler, the game more lethal, and they had techniques (especially the caller method) to keep the game running at a good pace.
On the subject of under-levelled characters, OD&D had a rule whereby characters received an xp boost if the dungeon level they were on was higher than their level: so a level 1 PC on dungeon level 2 would get double xp, a level 2 PC on dungeon level 3 would get 1.5x xp and so on! You could totally adjust that to be based on challenge rating or the level of the strongest party member: a level 1 PC in an otherwise level 2 party would get double xp and so on! Given that mismatched levels are more likely in a West Marches campaign, this might be an elegant solution!
1). Most of us just have a set time to run a game. Those who show up play. We tend to have 12 players of which 3-8 show up for a game. Many of the players have 2-3 characters and they play the one available for that session. We also have 2-3 rotating dms. 2). Many of us use 1e or BX style games. The leveling requires 2x xp to get the next level. So the time to go from 7th to 8th level is the same amount of xp it took to go from 1st through 7th. Also many of the PCs have numerous henchmen and supplement with hirelings. Making it to level 3 is a major milestone. 3). We still have npcs set into the world. They are unique to the home base and can give quests , procure items, or talk about rumors, etc. 4). The GM or a player will write down what happened during the last session. 5). Time keeping is critical. PCs are only available when they are not on another adventure. Hence why players have multiple PCs. 6). PCs tend to have a home base. They return usually at the end of a single session. Where multiple GMs are running then each has their own base and PCs are unavailable when travelling between different home bases. 7). Lethality is high. Mortality over last 18 months is somewhere around 25 characters. One player had 3 characters die in a single session (all 1st level).
Terrific video! A lot of the issues with West Marches can be mitigated with old school versions of the game. Simpler characters and much less power discrepancy between levels. Barovia West Marches - such a great idea! 👍
Here's some tips for running a sandbox. - Learn to rely on random tables. There are random tables for everything and there are a billion of them online. They are your friend, so learn to use them. They spice things up, add variety, generate inspiration, and will even offer surprising things that you didn't expect... making it more fun for you too. - Let the players decide where they want to go and what they want to do, and only prep that. - You can have a 'plot' or 'story', but it'll unfold a lot slower. Let the story unfold naturally, and learn to roll with the punches and not control so much. This means that plot points should be thought of as suggestions and potentialities, rather than set-in-stone certainties. - Don't become overly attached to NPCs, big bad guys, or secret plot twists. If the PCs kill off your secret big bad, just change your big bad to someone else. Unused ideas or ideas that the players actions wreaked, can pop up later on in another context. - Make your players actually use travel mechanics. There are tons online, or make your own. I'd advise to steer away from super complicated ones (as they certainly exist), but if crunch is your thing go for it. - Use random encounter tables, but don't make everything a fight. Consider them random situation or happening tables (again, there's a ton online). - Don't worry about scheduling. As long as there's a couple people that show up, roll with it, and catch the others up later. - Don't focus on PC backstories so much. All the cool stuff that happens in their lives should be happening at the table, not in their tragic backstories. You can have them, but they're window dressing, not the whole damn house. Also, due to not having such a heavily structured plot and the tendency to tie PC backgrounds to said plot, it doesn't usually matter when a player or two don't show up during that important moment when their backstory plays an integral part in your carefully crafted narrative, because neither structured stories nor PC backstories exist to such a degree in sandbox games.
Fantastic breakdown of West Marches Games. I have heard people talk about them many times and never understood what the heck they were talking about until this video. Thank you.
The scheduling thing is not an issue. Most DMs just say, "I can usually do Wednesday nights or Sunday afternoons." Then the players motivate to do a mission, and confirm availability. If there's a conflict the first week, you can usually do it the second. (And then that adventure will usually run 2-3 sessions in the same time-slot-unless the DM is unusually good at wrapping up actual one-shots).
Great video! Am interested in your decentralized storyline/emergent storyline video idea! I'd like to share my perspective on two things brought up in the video. Characters at different levels: this can be a lot of fun if you've never tried it! Protecting the new PCs so they can get xp is a fun paradigm shift. In your example of the level two and level 8 PC, by the time the level 8 PC gets enough xp for level 9, the level 2 PC will be level 6. It starts to even out. I want to push back a little on your framing of level differences punishing players; it could also be said it simply only rewards what is earned. Not saying your perspective is wrong, only that the other way also isn't wrong. NPC Interaction/Towns: going into the wilds doesn't preclude npc plots and interactions. Dungeons with multiple factions to play off each other Yojimbo style and monster civilizations in the wildlands can help scratch that itch!
Ooooh! Okay, I might’ve just had someone that ran differing levels in a way that’s not enjoyable - I’d definitely be willing to give it another shot because the fact that the new players would catch up to a much more reasonable level with not that much time. And it for sure doesn’t- I just specifically like more court intrigue/political intrigue types of things and resent the idea that cities aren’t dangerous as it was presented in the West Marches write up 😂
@@StephaniePlaysGames the game I'm running now has between 4-7 PCs at any given time in a level range of 1-3. The level differences really add to the decision making the party does! I'm running a system that does xp for gold, which helps make level differences not as keenly felt. If I was to run an open table 5e game, I'd be sure to have more ways to get XP than killing monsters. And fair point re: political intrigue!
Here to second that opinion on Towns and NPCs. They can absolutely exist in a West Marches campaign and have been staples in all 5 of the ones I've played in. As long as you're following the paradigm of "adventure only occurs outside of the home base" it all comes out in the wash.
@@ruchz2010 That's absolutely how I feel! I'm not sure why the original West Marches group felt otherwise - but I'm guessing it was more about a group enjoying more OSR-style/dungeon-delving type play, so to _them_ towns & NPCs weren't sources of adventure. Because I'm definitely in the same boat as you two 😂
I ran a 24 session Blades in the Dark campaign in a bastardized version of a West marshes campaign. It worked out really well but it still was a lot of work. The players ended up finding a plot by themselves and they wrote in character summaries in exchange for EXP for most sessions. The sessions were 2,5-3,5 hours long and were episodic. I had 8 players but only 4 at a time max. And if a single player showed up we had a game. No session was cancelled or postponed. I liked it very much, but it was a lot of work.
I love that! I also really want to give running one-on-ones a shot, I think they sound so cool but it also makes me so nervous because I'm afraid I'd flub it! 😂 It's something I'm definitely planning on trying soon so doing it in a West Marches context might end up being my first attempt!
The issue of playing with mixed level characters is resolved by players having a "Stable" of characters in town. The player would have characters in different level ranges or classes.
@@StephaniePlaysGames we are playing the finally of the campaign today and I’m pretty sure they will be streaming it over on Limithron’s RU-vid. Also, likely kicking off a new WM early next year. You should join
A common feature of Older versions of D&D (popular amongst West Marches folks) is that most monster encounters will be social encounters to start off with. There is a "reaction roll" to decide the mood of the encountered monsters. If you roll a 2 on 2d6, then they will attack immediately. However if you roll any other number, there is at least SOME room for negotiation, so 35 out of 36 times you've got at least some wiggle room to try to turn the encounter into a social one. There is a huge incentive for this in Older versions because combats were deadly and could lead to your character dying. If you went around picking stupid fights for no reason, eventually you'd get unlucky and die during one of them. So even if there aren't any cities, that doesn't cut out social encounters. My players often have social encounters in dungeons, recruiting monsters or trading with them, making allegiances against other creatures in the same dungeon.
This is all pretty good advice. I wanted DM experience, but no one was available for a campaign, so I started a West Marches Game, which grew to about 30 active players, several of which also became DMs. If you ever do lives and want to just riff stories about the good and bad that was learned about it, feel free to reach out to screen. I'm enjoying your content.
Back in the 80s this West Marches style is more the kind of game we played. Back then most sessions were dungeon crawls and players would bring their characters from various different tables, DMs and campaigns into a session with them. Keep on the borderlands is the classic module for a West Marches campaign with all those dungeons near the keep which the players can return to at the end of each session. D&D 5e isn't the best game for West Marches. Games where longer playing characters leveling up doesn't make as big a difference tend to work better. Dragonbane and Cairn are good examples.
West Marches style is great! Our GM gave us two nights to pick from, and if you hadn't played in the last session you got sign-up priority! Running games can be a lot of work (especially West Marches) so taking notes is the least I can do as a player 😅 But I get offering rewards, that's usually what I do in my games
I'm definitely a note taker too! 😂 I just know there are different levels of player investment and some players just want to show up and have a good time (which is okay by me!), so I could see some GMs getting a little frustrated about it if they didn't temper their expectations a bit!
Re: character-focussed plot-heavy play: One way to understand what OSR - and I think West Marches play as well - does is that it encourages disempowerment fantasies. Your first level character is not a superhero. They're just happy to be alive at the end of the adventure. This tends to lead in two directions: comedy (gonzo settings, funhouse dungeons, absurdist storytelling) and horror (you WILL die or go mad or become the villain. There is no other way out.) I dont think it's a coincidence that Shadowdark is a horror-forward game. As a genre, horror is probably the best way to try to accomodate serious character development and plot and feelings of disempowerment at the same time. Prob if you want these things in a West Marches game, starting from horror (perhaps the example of Strahd isn't a coincidence either...) is a really good first move.
The disparate levels thing is required because if you're getting the leveling of 10 different players, you're going to be leveling at 2-3x the rate, without actually playing that character. It doesn't work. You know what works just fine (and least in a game with bounded accuracy like D&D)? A 6th or 7th level character and 4th, 4th and 5th. Not a problem. If the players choose to bring a too-low level character, they are taking a big risk for a big-reward. Mostly for Tier 1 characters who are still squishy.
Westmarches is usually also not for me, exactly because of the same reason you gave. I like social interaction, many of my games have court intrigues. But that mention of a game of scorned lovers, that sounds really neat!
this is almost exactly the type of WM I'm trying to spin up with my Shadowdark group! Thank you so much for the thoughts, this is really helpful to keep me thinking about how to start shifting our first adventure (Tomb of the Serpent Kings) over to a WM format...
This makes me want to try a WM campaign again. Right now I am running a mashup of PaB and DoIP as a semi sandbox, and I find it a lot easier to manage the workload.
I feel like "semi-sandbox" probably best describes my normal way of running things too - I love thinking about how player actions influence things aaaaand not burying myself in work trying to make a certain plot idea work 😂
Thanks for exploring this! I really appreciate your notes on how to adapt existing/published campaigns to a West Marches style. Yes, I am interested in your thoughts on emergent plots. Have you ever considered setting a West Marches campaign in a world that was built as a game of Microscope?
To the issue about level gaps with players. I've handled that by either allowing side sessions/quests for the lower-level players to be able to make up some ground or by simply including or adding minions to encounters which are level appropriate. Letting the higher-level player(s) focus on the leader or bigger threats and the lower-level player(s) on thinning the group. There is some inherent risk especially if there are aoe effects flying around but that can help with the learning curve too if new.
Yeah, I think I'm definitely willing to revisit my feelings on the level gap thing! Those definitely sound like great ways of dealing with it - I think I have a personal bias here because I tend to run games for a lot of complete newbies and I think strategies like that are definitely much more obvious as a player once you get a little experience under your belt 😊 I'm willing to give it a shot!
I'm not sure about a full West Marches Campaign but I do want to run a sandbox. It will definitely need towns and NPCS. My players prefer social encounters sometimes.
I have a game called Intrprs, it's The first Elven (or any) airship in my bronze age world. My elves are travelling up thier sacred river to find it's source and hopefully find a way cleanse the river where their kingdom lies, as it's been turned to blood. Each session is episodic and any characters joining are on an away mission (or sometimes aboard ship during a battle against thier mysterious enemy ship who knows them more than they know the nautalis shaped vessel) Recently they've reached a region that requires more exploration than just following the river, so I've been working on Hex Crawling. One of my biggest additions has been gathering specific poison, herbalist and potion ingredients.
I played some Star Wars west march discord servers and they had a mix of both. GMs posted sessions they built and also players could propose missions they’d like to go on. I think one of the tricks is getting players informed enough about the setting that they can be most specific with mission requests. “We want to fight space pirates” is not as rich as “We know the Mauraders are operating out of this sector and we fed them false intel that a lightly armored convoy will pass through. We will very much not be lightly armored.”
West Marches campaigns are best for kids in high school (assuming the DM doesn't have a job that takes up a lot of their time) or retired people. Otherwise it seems really tough to expect the DM to just be available whenever.
West Marches games always sounded like Adventure League in their structure; it's (partially) disconnected storylines in a shared world with inconsistent players in the party. I had fun over many years of Adventure League, but that was almost in spite of the format, not because of it. AL solves the level gaps simply grouping levels by tier. My preferred structure is long-episodic, I suppose. 4-6 sessions to resolve an individual storyline that is partially standalone, but is still connected to the overall narrative. It can help keep the goals concrete and achievable, and helps keep player attention :)
Westmarches have never been for me because I *don't* like social interaction. Not in my games, I love roleplaying social scenarios. I mean having to interact with a large group all the time. I've never been in a situation where I have a large enough personal group of friends to try westmarches, and I don't want to deal with those discord communities with hundreds to thousands of strangers. But I do want to try this style of play because all the benefits do sound really fun! I wish I had, like, ten friends or something I could do this with so I could play and run more without all the effort and scheduling headaches. It feels like something I'm just missing out on for now.
Oh I *totally* agree! I can’t even begin to imagine how those massive groups operate 😂 I’m definitely in the camp of imagining like 10-15 friends doing something like this to just have a more casual running game without all the scheduling and prep headaches that can come along with more intensive traditional campaigns.
West Marches are at their heart, Sandbox games. You can still run a sandbox with small group of players. Instead of having large groups of rotating players (like a tabletop MMO), just use the same basic structure where you have a nucleus of location based adventures for the main characters to freely explore, react to what they do, and build the sandbox as you go. The story evolves as the players react to the game world, and they get to tell you where they'd like to adventure next, instead of you trying to lead them along a linear plot line or strict "adventure path".
For a digital group I'd probably just use a discord and then have the group tell me if they wanted to add anything to the map. I usually play in-person games so I'd just upload any changes to the map to the Notion wiki I use for my players!
Level difference disappears when you run a level less system. Good systems that I like to run: Dragonbane, chaosium rpgs.. (runequest, stormbringer), forbidden lands, Index card rpg, savage worlds...to mention a few..
I have played and ran open tables games, and certantly you can add plot and a pletora of NPCs, the ki is that the campaing should be player driven instead of driven by such plot.
For sure! I think some of the things in write ups around West Marches games have different semantics than the lens I interpret things through. Even when I have more of a “storyline” in a game I’m running - the plot is always player driven for me. But I think what they’re saying in these write ups in more along the lines of “don’t have a super railroad-y plot type of game”.
Yes. We have set times for the game. Most gms run every other week. So we get 3-4 rotating dms. If a dm is busy and there is a vacancy so other player will dm for who shows up. Available PCs can be used during that session. There is a universal clock/time for everyone. Players have 2-3 characters they play (1 at a time). If a pc is on an adventure with another DM then they use one of their other characters for the current session. Each DM has their own dungeon/storyline. PCs can travel between locations but it requires time to do so and said PC will be unplayable during that time.
West Marches is a modern term for an old way of doing this style and trying to make something old new again. “Keep on the Borderlands” is the OG of this style of play as well as being an official D&D product from 1979. Us grey beards did it way back then and this style is how most groups played way back then.
if the players are making the schedule are they using more than one DM or is the DM basically at their beck and call just sitting around waiting for them to schedule? What if I as the DM can't make that day and time? I don't have much of a life but I have some. I run a party of four and give them a couple NPCs in case one can't make it and we come up with some reason they aren't there. Sometimes they're just with the horses.
So it depends! The OG West Marches is one DM, but I read a bunch of accounts of different groups rotating DMs depending on availability! But yeah - basically the way the original one was ran didn't really solve the ease of scheduling thing other than the DM saying "No, that day doesn't work for me" and leaving that onus on the players to find the next available date 😂 But it sounds like a lot of early DMs for this style of game were probably mostly game designers and therefore might've had a lot more time to run things than the rest of us!
I know when you polled people prior to making the video that Baron de Ropp was skeptical that true West Marches, where the players did 100% of the scheduling exist. Did you find any real examples? It seems often Open Table setups get conflated with a true West Marches arrangement.
I mean the only real example I know of _is_ Ben Robbins who's the creator. I linked to his blog posts covering his experiences running it. I think most people don't technically run a "true West Marches" - but I also think it's a term that's evolved past it's origin and now is more loosely used as a shorthand for something like Open Table play focused on exploration which is something I'm okay with 🤷♀️
@@StephaniePlaysGames thanks for clarifying. I’m currently running Tephrotic Nightmares (Mork Borg) where they sail on the ashen sea. The characters return to a safe harbor to resupply and lick their wounds often. It would be a good candidate for multiple GMs and player groups. Because it is a hex crawl, but also because Morg Borg character power levels are very flat.
@@SirSeth6910 Yesss! That would definitely be a great candidate to try that! I've always thought it would be fun to be part of a group like that and Mork Borg is so much fun regardless! 😊
@SirSeth6910 Do you have the physical book of Tephrotic Nightmares? My God, it may be the most tactiley satisfying book I've ever owned. All those stuck together pages you had to peel apart!
@@bjhale I actually just did the pdf and printed out full letter sized pages because my eyes suck. I do think I’ll eventually get the book at some point for all the points you just listed.
You start with a little West Marches, then you realize to manage all these players "STRICT TIME KEEPING MUST BE KEPT". Next thing you know your players want to build castles, and run domains. You look for rules that can allow for that and you realize AD&D had it all. It is pretty hard to keep up with all these players and the NPCs they are interacting with, so you ask a few people to help run the NPCs. This works great, but one of them decides that they want to send their army against one of the PC castles. How do you resolve this, well you get all of the relevant factions together and hold yourself a Braunstein. Next thing you know you are shouting the praises of Appendix N, friends with Harmony Ginger, and championing the BroSR! 🤣 This is the first step on a dangerous path.
2024 DMG is supposed to have a castle system. I'm curious to see if it compares well to BECMI. Sadly the green boxed set is the best system for such things that D&D has ever had.
This sounds like a terrible way to game. Sorry, but having this much randomness in the character level gap, clashing personalities and individual expectations sounds like a not so fun time for the DM. Why not just has a series of 3 hour one-shots that the DM can run when the core group can't fully meet up?
Depends on what you enjoy most about GMing. I feel it would encourage the players to engage with the world beyond their character, especially if there was required downtime to level up and the players controlled multiple PCs.
