A Campaign on the Cards

Recently on Twitter there was a discussion led by Nick of the Too Fat Lardies about how wargames and boardgames can interact. I've written a little bit on this here on Patreon, but I'm going to expand on an idea that myself and my mate were also talking about at the same time of the Twitter discussion. 

My friend approached me with the idea of a Dark Future style Judge Dredd vehicle chase, zooming along the megaways and elevated roads of Mega City 1. The game takes place on a series of road tiles, which can be removed from the rear as the last vehicle passed by to be added to the front of the chase. The newly placed tiles can be randomised and would include straight sections, corners and intersections. The road is populated with other vehicles which the Judges and their perp quarry have to dodge as the game progressed. This part of the game writes itself and is pretty easy to work out the mechanics for and can easily be played solo if you randomise the perp's movements. However, the interesting part (for this article) comes when the perp decides to take an intersection or slipway to try to lose the Judges in the concrete jungle below the megaway.

My friend initially said this part of the game within a game could be played out on a map, until the Judges and the perps cross paths, where you pick up on the road tiles again. I gave this a bit more thought and having played a lot of Arkham Horror the Living Card Game I thought a card game would be perfect for this part of the action. Also, recently, my attention was drawn to Scum of the Earth 1815, a card driven game set during the Waterloo campaign. In this game, the opponents play cards from their hand against a set of three objectives, the famous farmhouses of the Waterloo battlefield in this case. 

Taking our Judge Dredd scenario we can play out the 'off the megaway' chase portion using cards as the Judges hunt for the perp. Each player has a deck of cards, from which a number are drawn for play. This could be five cards or so. The players take turns in playing three cards from hand and paired off against the opponent's card, both facedown to be revealed simultaneously. The cards are printed with various locations, such as intersection, Otto Sump's ugly clinic car park, Underzoom, Megaway slip road, etc. Added to the perps deck would be various events, other crimes happening, vehicle accidents, snipers, bat gliders, any number of things that are happening daily in Mega City One, and things that will delay the Judges in finding their perp. To counter this, the Judges have Justice Department cards, such as H-Wagons, Judge Patrol, street Judge, Riot Foam etc. These cards can be used to counter the events as they occur, to allow the judges to get on with the job of chasing down the perp. The judges may have access to scanners, which reveal the perps hand or top cards of the deck. When two cards with the matching location are revealed against one another, the Judges have caught up with the perp and the game switches back to the tiles and miniatures. Until they are given the slip again...

The card game can be played easily enough as a solo game, with the perp deck drawing three random facedown cards per turn and the Judges (the player) playing their cards against them. The Judge's deck will work as a countdown timer, when they have played all cards and can draw no more the perp has crossed the sector line and has become some other Judge's problem. The player scores points based on how quick they apprehend the perp, how many extra crimes they deal with, etc, to give you an idea of how well you have done overall. The mechanic here is the card deck and it works well for this kind of game as you can add or remove cards as necessary. Shifting the weight in favour or against the player or just adding more randomness as you go. 

I gave this some more thought after the discussion on Twitter and I think that a card game within a game would work very well as a basis for a wider historical campaign without the need for tracking units on a map.  Similar to the idea presented above, a card game campaign system would include various locations, along with other variables, such as weather, logistic breakdowns (fuel, water, ammo, etc, depending on the period you are playing), bonuses such as speed marching or open roads. The negative effects would add to attrition and reduce the core force as they advance to the next engagement, the bonuses would add reinforcements, or support elements for the next game. So, for example, a player may play a 'reinforcements' card, but the opposition plays a 'delayed' card against it, negating the effect of the extra strength. This could play into the tabletop game, with the reinforcements arriving later in the game. Another option is to add recce cards, which force the opponent to reveal their hand, or the top cards from their deck, giving the a bit of insight into what may be played in the next round. The possibilities of friction are endless. 

The players play cards against one another until two matching location cards are played which gives us the next game set up. Exactly what the locations are could either be written on the cards themselves or randomised by some other system (such as the one in Infamy, Infamy) to create the next table. I realise that this would take some work in creating the cards and thinking through what should be on them to create a balanced and playable campaign, but it probably isn't a great deal more work than the average amount of book keeping in many wargame campaigns and once the cards are created, you really wouldn't need much more work at all. The card game wouldn't last very long and can be played at the beginning of the tabletop game, during a club night, for example, and means that the players don't have to remember the last campaign moves. 

Using cards in this manner allows for many variables to be added and removed which rolling dice on a chart just doesn't allow for. Dice are fixed in the results they will give, which arguably can be infinite, but this would then require numerous charts following on from the initial results. A deck of cards is intrinsically more flexible and a procedure like the one I have described above feels more like playing an actual game than simply rolling a number of dice. The player feels more in control as they are deciding which cards are played and they can make informed choices rather than hoping for a random result to be in their favour. 

These are just some thought from point of view of board games and how some of the mechanics can be incorporated into tabletop wargames with a few tweaks and some thinking outside the box.