Chainmail Campaign?

[ishmann]

You were supposed to take the Chainmail campaign you were already playing in or running and apply a bunch of new rules to it to represent the adventuring careers of those figures in greater detail. You were adding a new dimension to an existing campaign.

When Gary started getting tons of letters from people who had never played in a wargames campaign before, asking questions about how to play, he was surprised, because D&D hadn't been written for them, and why were so many people who didn't play Chainmail so interested in D&D?

So unless you run a Chainmail campaign and integrate the adventuring careers of your major fantasy figures, you're not doing what you were "supposed" to be doing.

I just received a copy of Chainmail a few days ago. I have never played a war game before. I saw this quote in another thread. I apologize for not quoting the original poster. (I am not very proficient with my iPad).

Having only played rpg's before, how does a Chainmal campaign differ from a regular rpg campaign? Are there any similarities? I am a total Chainmail Noob and I would like to learn as much as I can.

[Deleted]

Longer answer in a week or so if you're interested.

A "CHAINMAIL" campaign might be "You are the Captal de Bush. You have 35 HH, 50 MH, 75 HF spearmen, and 200 longbowmen. Try to take the castles of Gui de Lombard, Comte de Escargot, and Duke of Earl."

But the quoted statement you have in bold is, in fact, incorrect. But that's a different matter.

More later.

[kesher]

Great question, ishmann! And gronan, I'm looking forward to your thoughts as well...

[Finarvyn]

Back in "the day" campaigns were more military movement and less individual questing. Folks played the "role" of a king or baron and had armies to support, roads to build, ships moved goods to gain resources, and so on. Dave Arneson's move away from the army level and into the individual level was a lot of what inspired D&D in the first place.

Look at Dave's "First Fantasy Campaign" if you want a better feel for what a campaign might have looked like.

[ishmann]

Oct 28, 2013 10:42:10 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Back in "the day" campaigns were more military movement and less individual questing. Folks played the "role" of a king or baron and had armies to support, roads to build, ships moved goods to gain resources, and so on. Dave Arneson's move away from the army level and into the individual level was a lot of what inspired D&D in the first place.

Look at Dave's "First Fantasy Campaign" if you want a better feel for what a campaign might have looked like.

Is there a link to the First Fantasy Campaign or can I find it using Google?

[jacar]

I don't think the statements are completely wrong. It certainly is something you could do. However, as a 10 year old, we managed to play just fine with LBB without all the military stuff (aka Chainmail). Others on this list almost certainly have had the same experience.

[Finarvyn]

Ishmann: "First Fantasy Campaign" was a book published by Judges Guild in the 1970's. It's not an online thing. If you look in the "Blackmoor" section of the boards you can find a thread or so talking about it.

Oct 28, 2013 14:36:44 GMT -6 jacar said:

I don't think the statements are completely wrong. It certainly is something you could do. However, as a 10 year old, we managed to play just fine with LBB without all the military stuff (aka Chainmail). Others on this list almost certainly have had the same experience.

Hmmm. One of us has misinterpreded this thread, I think.

I thought that the point was that the original poster WANTED to know about a campaign using Chainmail, not asking if you needed Chainmail to use the LBB. Any of us running a "standard OD&D" campaign probably did so without the military stuff.

The original post asks "how does a Chainmal campaign differ from a regular rpg campaign? Are there any similarities?" My answer was simply intended to explain what a Chainmail campaign looked like back in the early days.

[jmccann]

Chainmail has rules covering historical mass battles (each miniature figure represents 10 or 20 figures) as well as 1 to 1 rules covering historical combat. You could play a campaign based on history, alternate history or based on a made up world using the historical rules only. A campaign like this would not necessarily be much like a RPG campaign at all, although elements of role-play could be present if the players were interested. There are rules for army commanders, so you could have figures that the players might invest with personality and identify with even in a large scale game, and using the man-to-man rules players could track individual characters through many battles. Using points or a simple economic model the evolution of the armies over time could be represented which would have some similarity to the barony-management aspect of OD&D.

There is also a fantasy supplement. Using these rules, a Chainmail campaign would have more similarity to a typical RPG campaign than a historical campaign as I just described. There is a variety of monsters and other combatants. There are is a spell list for wizards. With Hero/ Superhero for the fighter and 5 ranks of Wizard, there is a set of levels that a player's character could progress through. So a lot of elements of D&D are present in a fantasy supplement campaign.

Chainmail does not come with rules for running a campaign though. It has rules for fighting battles, but not for much of what happens before and after the battles. You will have to come up with your own mechanisms for doing this.

An interesting account by Gary Gygax of an early Chainmail battle is here: vintagewargaming.blogspot.com/2012/06/battle-of-brown-hills-early-chainmail.html

It predates OD&D by several years but has a lot of features recognizable to a player of D&D.

[ishmann]

Oct 29, 2013 4:11:43 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Ishmann: "First Fantasy Campaign" was a book published by Judges Guild in the 1970's. It's not an online thing. If you look in the "Blackmoor" section of the boards you can find a thread or so talking about it.

Oct 28, 2013 14:36:44 GMT -6 jacar said:

I don't think the statements are completely wrong. It certainly is something you could do. However, as a 10 year old, we managed to play just fine with LBB without all the military stuff (aka Chainmail). Others on this list almost certainly have had the same experience.

Hmmm. One of us has misinterpreded this thread, I think.

I thought that the point was that the original poster WANTED to know about a campaign using Chainmail, not asking if you needed Chainmail to use the LBB. Any of us running a "standard OD&D" campaign probably did so without the military stuff.

The original post asks "how does a Chainmal campaign differ from a regular rpg campaign? Are there any similarities?" My answer was simply intended to explain what a Chainmail campaign looked like back in the early days.

Yes Fin. As stated in my original post I wanted to find out what a Chainmail campaign was. Thank you for clearing that up.

[ishmann]

Oct 29, 2013 6:05:20 GMT -6 jmccann said:

Chainmail has rules covering historical mass battles (each miniature figure represents 10 or 20 figures) as well as 1 to 1 rules covering historical combat. You could play a campaign based on history, alternate history or based on a made up world using the historical rules only. A campaign like this would not necessarily be much like a RPG campaign at all, although elements of role-play could be present if the players were interested. There are rules for army commanders, so you could have figures that the players might invest with personality and identify with even in a large scale game, and using the man-to-man rules players could track individual characters through many battles. Using points or a simple economic model the evolution of the armies over time could be represented which would have some similarity to the barony-management aspect of OD&D.

There is also a fantasy supplement. Using these rules, a Chainmail campaign would have more similarity to a typical RPG campaign than a historical campaign as I just described. There is a variety of monsters and other combatants. There are is a spell list for wizards. With Hero/ Superhero for the fighter and 5 ranks of Wizard, there is a set of levels that a player's character could progress through. So a lot of elements of D&D are present in a fantasy supplement campaign.

Chainmail does not come with rules for running a campaign though. It has rules for fighting battles, but not for much of what happens before and after the battles. You will have to come up with your own mechanisms for doing this.

An interesting account by Gary Gygax of an early Chainmail battle is here: vintagewargaming.blogspot.com/2012/06/battle-of-brown-hills-early-chainmail.html

It predates OD&D by several years but has a lot of features recognizable to a player of D&D.

Thanks for the link. I am going to check it out now.

[kesher]

Chainmail has rules covering historical mass battles (each miniature figure represents 10 or 20 figures) as well as 1 to 1 rules covering historical combat. You could play a campaign based on history, alternate history or based on a made up world using the historical rules only. A campaign like this would not necessarily be much like a RPG campaign at all, although elements of role-play could be present if the players were interested. There are rules for army commanders, so you could have figures that the players might invest with personality and identify with even in a large scale game, and using the man-to-man rules players could track individual characters through many battles. Using points or a simple economic model the evolution of the armies over time could be represented which would have some similarity to the barony-management aspect of OD&D.

There is also a fantasy supplement. Using these rules, a Chainmail campaign would have more similarity to a typical RPG campaign than a historical campaign as I just described. There is a variety of monsters and other combatants. There are is a spell list for wizards. With Hero/ Superhero for the fighter and 5 ranks of Wizard, there is a set of levels that a player's character could progress through. So a lot of elements of D&D are present in a fantasy supplement campaign.

Chainmail does not come with rules for running a campaign though. It has rules for fighting battles, but not for much of what happens before and after the battles. You will have to come up with your own mechanisms for doing this.

An interesting account by Gary Gygax of an early Chainmail battle is here: vintagewargaming.blogspot.com/2012/06/battle-of-brown-hills-early-chainmail.html

It predates OD&D by several years but has a lot of features recognizable to a player of D&D.

THAT'S a wonderful summary!

[jacar]

Oct 29, 2013 4:11:43 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Ishmann: "First Fantasy Campaign" was a book published by Judges Guild in the 1970's. It's not an online thing. If you look in the "Blackmoor" section of the boards you can find a thread or so talking about it.

Hmmm. One of us has misinterpreded this thread, I think.

I thought that the point was that the original poster WANTED to know about a campaign using Chainmail, not asking if you needed Chainmail to use the LBB. Any of us running a "standard OD&D" campaign probably did so without the military stuff.

The original post asks "how does a Chainmal campaign differ from a regular rpg campaign? Are there any similarities?" My answer was simply intended to explain what a Chainmail campaign looked like back in the early days.

Maybe I should read the OP post better. You are right!

[rsdean]

I'm working from my phone, so I apologize if this is terse.

www.wargaming.co/books/bath/homepage.htm

The link above is to the publisher's website, for Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming, which includes the text of Setting Up a Wargames Campaign, which was originally published in 1973. Playing at the World gives a lot more information on the context, but, in any case the Bath book gives a detailed look at how one might set up a campaign for wargaming more or less contemporary with Chainmail...if anyone wants more on this, I'll be around with a keyboard later.

[Deleted]

Oct 29, 2013 10:56:09 GMT -6 rsdean said:

I'm working from my phone, so I apologize if this is terse.

www.wargaming.co/books/bath/homepage.htm

The link above is to the publisher's website, for Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming, which includes the text of Setting Up a Wargames Campaign, which was originally published in 1973. Playing at the World gives a lot more information on the context, but, in any case the Bath book gives a detailed look at how one might set up a campaign for wargaming more or less contemporary with Chainmail...if anyone wants more on this, I'll be around with a keyboard later.

Tony Bath's book is absolutely wonderful. I have a copy. And yeah, that's what a wargame campaign looks like, and CHAINMAIL is a wargame. (Seriously, do people not know that? No sarcasm intended.)

[jacar]

Oct 27, 2013 17:17:59 GMT -6 ishmann said:

I just received a copy of Chainmail a few days ago. I have never played a war game before. I saw this quote in another thread. I apologize for not quoting the original poster. (I am not very proficient with my iPad).

Having only played rpg's before, how does a Chainmal campaign differ from a regular rpg campaign? Are there any similarities? I am a total Chainmail Noob and I would like to learn as much as I can.

Chainmail in some ways is kind of an extension of ODnD. In the original game and even in 1st edition AD&D, characters often attracted followers. As you gained more levels you could build a stronghold and attract even more followers. If you had enough warriors for instance, you could raise a small army. Chainmail is a way to fight out battles with your army. An 8th level fighting-man would be represented on the tabletop as a super hero. He might have a henchman of 4th level that would be represented as a hero. There might be several hundred men at his command, either followers of recruits from the population around his stronghold.

They are different in that they are more like a military campaign. You can fight battles and then at the conclusion the party might pursue the fleeing defeated general and his cronies. With that you might fall back to OD&D or use the MtM combat system in Chainmail.

[derv]

Since I'm new to Chainmail too, this is my 2 cents. I envision a Chainmail campaign to involve taking on a time period and recreating the conflicts that shaped history. A perfect example is the 100 Year War which involved a number of major characters that you could mix into your game.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Years%27_War

Your campaign could include all the big battles and minor conflicts during a particular era. You might even have to rewrite history if things turn out different then history books say. I'm about to run a game that involves the Battle of Blanchetaque that occurred August 24, 1346. This was during the Edwardian Era of the 100 Year War (1337-1453). It included key individuals like King Edward III, Sir Reginald Cobham, the Earl of Northampton, General Godemar du Foy. These are figures you could give Hero and Superhero status in Chainmail. If I wanted to continue this theme, it would eventually lead to the Battle of Crecy which would include King Philip VI. Depending on how many players you have, they could take on the role of the two primary adversaries of France and England or portions of each army. Another player might even take on the role of Scotland. Obviously, you could do the same thing by making it all up with the same key figures or totally made up characters. Or you could recreate the major conflicts in LotR's or one of your other favorite fantasy authors works.

[rsdean]

Ok, looks like this is going to take more explanation.

I should mention that I started as a historical miniatures wargamer at the age of 10 in 1971, which is how I first found out about Dungeons&Dragons. A magazine called Wargamer's Digest published a description of the new game, written by Gary Gygax, in 1974.

I linked above to a book including Tony Bath's 1973 Setting Up a Wargames Campaign, which was a compilation of campaigning ideas he and others had used from the dawn of wargaming as we know it in the late 1950s through the publication date.

When a historical miniatures gamer says "campaign", there is a flexible but technical meaning: it is a series of tabletop battles with results that carry over from one battle to another, linked by larger scale map maneuevers. There may or may not be a political level where players are involved in strategic logistics decisions (recruiting, resource management, investmen, espionage, etc.), and there may or may not be personality rules to inform the actions of non-player characters.

The innovation of D&D was to take those player roles and personalities, and "zoom in" to let them have adventures. The whole "hexcrawl" business of the larger scale map and the stronghold and mercenary rules of U&WA are the stuff of a wargames campaign. So, in a sense, they give you the economic and strategic structure to wrap around Chainmail's tactical battles, with the added bonus of extra options for your heroic leaders (and the rules to put them into a tabletop game with a finer granularity than the Chainmail heroes and superheroes.)

The tail eventually wagged the dog, but it's not difficult to see the thinking behind OD&D as an extension to Chainmail, rather than the other way around.

Mr. Mornard came come along and explain that they had stopped actually treating it as a campaign system for Chainmail if appropriate, but the structural elements are clearly there, even if fossilized...

[ishmann]

Oct 29, 2013 11:45:03 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Oct 29, 2013 10:56:09 GMT -6 rsdean said:

I'm working from my phone, so I apologize if this is terse.

www.wargaming.co/books/bath/homepage.htm

The link above is to the publisher's website, for Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming, which includes the text of Setting Up a Wargames Campaign, which was originally published in 1973. Playing at the World gives a lot more information on the context, but, in any case the Bath book gives a detailed look at how one might set up a campaign for wargaming more or less contemporary with Chainmail...if anyone wants more on this, I'll be around with a keyboard later.

Tony Bath's book is absolutely wonderful. I have a copy. And yeah, that's what a wargame campaign looks like, and CHAINMAIL is a wargame. (Seriously, do people not know that? No sarcasm intended.)

I know that Chainmail is a war game. I have never played one though and have no idea of how to run a campaign with a war game. It never even crossed my mind until I came upon the posting that I quoted above. A Chainmail campaign sounds like it would be a lot of fun.

But, I am not a war gamer and I don't know any war gamers. So, if I am going to learn how to play this game then I am going to have to muddle my way through the rules and ask a few questions.

[derv]

ishmann, I think the water can sometimes get muddied in these discussions. Everyone makes assumptions about the intent of the question and approach it from different angles. Some of the quotes you used above have to do with the 3 LBB's and playing by those rules. So, in that context, Chainmail could be used as a supplement for your regular roleplaying campaign to resolve mass combat such as large scale battles or castle seiges. On the other hand, if you're strictly speaking about a wargame campaign using Chainmail, the Tony Bath material would probably answer the question.

I think the best approach to learning the game (Chainmail) is to start small. Start with a small skirmish scenario and see how it plays out. Most war games can be played solo (but it's more fun with other players). It's kind of like playing chess against yourself. Use the point system in the rules and build two opposing forces of somewhat balanced ability, then have them duke it out. It's fun to add a story line to the action, but isn't necessary. A campaign would be a bigger ongoing game using the same principles that you would learn and use with a skirmish. Anyway, that's my approach to it.

[Deleted]

Off the top o'my head? You could start with a small action, a small squad encountering a like-sized enemy squad. Perhaps one side is holding a strategic bridge/ford.

Then, a skirmish between groups of outriders.

Then, a small battle with various troop types.

If you're still interested at that point, you can stage a full-scale Donnybrook with missile, horse, foot, and fantastic elements (or more of each).

The first two could involve homogenous troop types and get you used to the mechanics. The third would allow various soldiers, giving you the chance to try out some basic tactics. You could even have the faction succeeding in the first two scenarios aid or penalize the troops available in the succeeding battles.

Good luck. I played wargmes but I was awful at them. I have a poor grasp of strategy and tactics ... I was usually relegated to teaching the newbies who clobbered me after learning the mechanics of the games (though I never played Chainmail and didn't even own a copy until many years later).

[rsdean]

Ishmann: Ah! I begin to understand where the terminology is breaking down. Chainmail is written with the intention of being played for stand-alone battles, either historical scenarios, plausible historical what ifs or generic scenarios, or fantasy scenarios. It's also not one set of rules, but at least two: the large scale and the man- to-man, which are not intended to be played simultaneously. The fantasy supplement mostly interfaces with the large scale rules. To make Chainmail into a campaign in the ordinary wargaming sense, you would need to add some large scale map movement rules and some sort of "after the battle" system for recovery of wounded and fled figures. Since those rules aren't included, any Chainmail campaign that might have been running would have been a total homebrew.

Now, as a longtime historical gamer, a campaign is something that most historical gamers aspire to, rather than something that actually gets run. My local club is very active, amd has been very active for almost twenty years, and in that time we have managed to run no more than half a dozen campaigns. I am working today (literally) on putting one together for a fictitious countries 18th century game, which I hope to have running by January. So, I would suggest that most Chainmail players were not involved in campaigns.

The actual success of D&D in getting something like a wargames campaign played was probably a surprise to the creators.

Anyway, did you really want a campaign, or did you just want to play some Chainmail games?

[cooper]

CHAINMAIL does have an after battle system of recovery. Basically chainmail+FFC = fantasy war game campaign.

[rsdean]

Oct 29, 2013 19:20:53 GMT -6 cooper said:

CHAINMAIL does have an after battle system of recovery. Basically chainmail+FFC = fantasy war game campaign.

It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong, but I'm not finding it...page?

[Deleted]

Oct 29, 2013 19:20:53 GMT -6 cooper said:

CHAINMAIL does have an after battle system of recovery. Basically chainmail+FFC = fantasy war game campaign.

Where?

[Otto Harkaman]

I remember years ago a Chainmail battle was posted on Dragonsfoot.

The battle was played out at Lake Geneva Gaming Convention using the Chainmail rules for Medieval and fantastic miniatures battles.

The post was by Paul J. Stormberg who had taken a lot of the pictures at the event and along with these posted a running commentary. They had gotten Gary to play and it was fun reading and looking at the pictures.

BATTLE REPORT: The Battle for the Moathouse
Dragonsfoot url to thread www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18764&hilit=chainmail+moat+house

Sadly the picture links are broken, I am trying to see if I can find them elsewhere.

[derv]

That's great Otto! Would love to see the pics if you happen to dig them up some where.

[jmccann]

Oct 29, 2013 19:20:53 GMT -6 cooper said:

CHAINMAIL does have an after battle system of recovery. Basically chainmail+FFC = fantasy war game campaign.

What rules in Chainmail are you referring to?

[derv]

Thought this might be of interest since Tony Bath was brought up. It seemed relavent to the discussion.

vintagewargaming.blogspot.com/2010/03/tony-bath-on-campaign-campaigning-on.html

[jmccann]

This book:
www.amazon.com/BathS-Ancient-Wargaming-Society-Ancients/dp/0557111803/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383191116&sr=8-1&keywords=tony+bath is a reprint of some of Tony Bath's writing about wargame campaigns. If you are interested in the history of this topic you should find this very interesting.

[Otto Harkaman]

Well I found some pictures by Paul Stormberg, he might have run "The battle of the Moat House" several times with different groups.

Pictures of "The battle of the Moat House"