West Marches 1
Running a West Marches game was the most fulfilling GM experience I've had.
This was originally posted to the blog on my website. However, that website is dying. It is now so convoluted and clunk that I don’t actually know how to fix it. I will be migrating good blogs over here and building a new website.
On that note, if anyone can help me set up a static website please email me here.
I am Co-GMing in a West Marches style game with some changes to suit my busy life.
I like playing ttRPGs.
I like it a lot. But… time, my friends. Time is scarce in my life at this stage. I thought that I was in love with creating worlds and campaigns for the players to throw their characters into. Which I am… I guess. But not really. What I am in love with is being at the table. I like creating cool shit (encounters, locations, NPCs, monsters, and lore) for people to interact with and most of all I like when the players start drawing conclusions based on the information they find during their adventures.
I’d have spent hours preparing my highly detailed world and adventure only to have the party draw conclusions that didn’t exist and runoff in the ‘wrong’ direction. I hated this. Because it meant that I had to do all the remembering of lore, locations, and NPCs. I had to be the one that knew what was happening in order for it all to come together at the end. And most importantly, I had to be the one to say ‘no, that’s not what’s happening.’
Then I learned about West Marches campaigns.
Boom.
A campaign where the players are in control of where they are going and they decide what to do. I’m not going to go into detail about them, if you don’t know what they are you can find out what they’re all about by checking out theses:
These are the three best resources on it in my opinion (for beginners). There are plenty of other awesome resources too (West Marches Reddit for example). What I am going to go into detail about is why I am running one, how I set it up, and my journey through this style of play.
Why am I Running a West Marches Campaign?
Time. Quite simply I have limited time to play and I also do not have space for a regular gaming slot. I will have 1 night a week or fortnight to game, and it might not be the same night every time. Also, I’m in my 30s and most of my friends are too, all of a sudden, our lives just get filled with stuff.
A regular West Marches game works by the players deciding where they want to go and when they’re available and the DM works around that. Me, the father-husband-teacher-podcaster-writer, does not have that sort of flexibility. So, my method is slightly different. I say, ‘Hey, I’m available this Friday. Who’s keen for a game?’ Every one who can play puts their hands up and then they decide where they’re going and what they’re going to do. It’s worked well, so far.
Time also factors into how I want to prepare for each session, but I think that will get its own post when preparing for the first adventure.
There are also a lot of people in my region that play D&D and the last time I started a campaign I got 9 of them. Unsurprisingly, that was unruly and fell over pretty quick. So, I figure I will ask the same folks and see where we get to from there.
A Blank Map.
That’s what I decided to go with. Exciting huh? Also, not exactly true.
One of the things I dislike about GMing is saying ‘no’. I really want this to be player-driven so I have tried to keep my nose out of it as much as I can. I haven’t created a world as such. There is no government setup, or a big bad guy in mind (well, kinda but we’ll see). I really did not want to bog myself down with lore or bog the players down with lore when we started. I have some very rough ideas for what is actually happening in this land they are exploring, I’ll talk about them below.
I was stuck with how to handle backstory in a game like this. I know my player folk and they like to elaborate and create detailed backgrounds. Which is great but that’s not really what this is about. I was stuck with how to proceed. That’s when my buddy Russ appeared with the solution and the idea to Co-GM. ‘It’s a shipwreck scenario,’ Russ said. ‘There’s this fog that covers the land and it extends out into the ocean and they’re shipwrecked.’
I loved this. It meant whatever their backstory was there must be a reason that they were on the ship. I also made that ship a convict ship en route to a prison island (not an island that belongs to someone else’s culture). There might be crims, guards, sailors, administrators, or any other profession connected to a convict ship. We figured there might and 100 to 200 people on the ship and they will be the folks forging a new life on this island, or attempting to get back.
That’s the other thing, it’s an island. It’s not on any of the maps they searched in the captain’s quarters either. What does this mean? Well, I don’t know. Perhaps this is a Bermuda Triangle scenario where the fog transported them to a different dimension, in fact, I like that idea. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter for now. They have no way of knowing.
As for what is happening on this island, well, at the moment there are a bunch of low-level monsters running around attacking each other and the new arrivals. The forest is dangerous, with lots of beasts and wandering monsters.
I have two lore-based foundations, there was an ancient dragonborn civilisation and then there was an ancient elven civilisation. Neither exists in their old form anymore. What happened? Dunno. Where are they now? Dunno. Don’t care. That will come up as players interact with the world and ask questions. I will use how they connect pieces of lore to build that. All the ancient ruins, temples, towns, etc. will be either of dragonborn make or elven make. Until they aren’t. Because sometimes they won’t.
I have a vague idea in the back of my mind as to what happened to these civilisations, but I do not want to commit them to paper as they will change. Might change. The party might invent something even cooler. Which is the ultimate goal here.
Next up, maps!
It’s getting late for this father-husband-teacher-podcaster-writer, so I’m going to bed.
P.S. Shout to Matt from Sealed Library for running a DCC West Marches and knocking down my self-made barriers to running a game like this.
Long days and pleasant nights.
Stuart.