An Attempt at a Campaign System Part 2: Events

Next up for my campaign system:

Events that aren't battles with the other army

(I called these Encounters yesterday, but that isn't quite right, as you'll see below).

As my campaign will take place in some as-yet determined Victorian Science Fiction realm, probably on Venus or perhaps a minimally explored and occupied island, the natives in my game are Lizard-folk (that's the p.c. version of Lizard-men for those of you keeping score). They have an uneasy relationship with the Europeans to say the least - some tribes are willing to accept rule as long as it doesn't interfere with their lives, some are willing to even serve as attachments to European military units, others seek the explicit destruction of the occupying forces. And it goes without saying (I don't know why it goes without saying, but it does and I'm going to say it anyway), not all Lizard-folk tribes are friendly with each other either.

Essentially, they are the third side in this conflict with their own agendas.

That out of the way, the Event ideas (Some of these ideas are "borrowed" from various sites on the web - unfortunately, I don't recall which came from where):

1. Native uprising - Natives attack, Europeans defend
2. Native uprising - Europeans attack, Natives defend
3. Native ambush - patrol attacked by Natives*
4. Lose 1d6 strength points to disease (distributed randomly across available forces)
5. Lose 1d6 strength points due to desertion (distributed randomly across available forces)
6. No Encounter / No Event
7. Character based mission (may involve up to 1 platoon of enemy, any number of native warrior - ideas: delivery of information, new weapons, prisoner capture/rescue, etc. )
8. Courier/Scout mission (There's an article in a back issue of Lone Warrior that lays out such a game and that's what I'd use to handle this event)
9. Hunting party (squad) encounters carnivorous dinosaur.

*I have a system I set up based on an article in yet another back issue of Lone Warrior detailing a simple but enjoyable game between Conquistadors and Aztecs.  Using card draws and some rules about disengagement, it does a good job of simulating an ambush attack that falls back only to return later with additional forces.

I'll use G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. to resolve most of the events that involve combat as I see these as smaller affairs involving no more than a company on the European side and maybe 2 times that for the natives.

The important point is the results of any of these events will be reflected in the force statistics, which, like the battle results, carry over from turn to turn.

Event Generation

• I'll use card draws to determine the event - 2 cards in the deck for all but Hunting Party and Courier/Scout mission  which will have 1. No reason other than it seems right to me.
• After the card is drawn by the first army, the card is returned to the deck, it is reshuffled and then the other army draws.
• In this way, each army has an equal chance of negative consequences.
• If I decide I want one side to be "my side" then I'll add additional no encounter cards to the "non-player" side.