The Art of Campaigning
by Markus Widmer

WFRP has always been conceived as a campaign-based role-playing game, probably through the groundbreaking example of "The Enemy Within", the campaign which more or less made WFRP the game it is today. However, for every GM there is a time after TEW, a time to start his or her own campaign. Considering the fact that even the preparation to run published scenarios can take up huge amounts of time, the planning of an entire campaign can be an awe-inspiring task for all but the most experienced GMs. Thus it makes sense to think about what exactly is involved when planning a campaign and what is not.

First of all, you should make sure that you know what the term campaign means for you. Usually, campaigns are defined as a series of scenarios which form the parts of a more or less unified whole. The gaming sessions are interconnected not only by the fact that the player characters, their world and its timeline remain the same. There is also an overall plot that slowly develops through the single scenarios, leading to a common goal of the players, the revelation of a mystery and/or a final confrontation. Good campaigns are guided by a theme or central conflict, which keeps reoccurring in different forms as the plot develops. Typically, you will find some kind of antagonist of the PCs, an arch-villain or evil organisation, whose destruction may be the climax of the campaign. Most campaigns also feature other reoccurring non-player characters playing different parts for the PCs: mentors, counsellors, employers, traitors, lovers or relatives. All these elements will combine to set a mood and atmosphere running through the campaign.

Evidently, individual definitions of the term campaign will differ, as will campaigns. A GM should thus ask himself what kind of campaign he is planning to run - and most importantly, whether his players' idea of a campaign is the same as his. It is no use conceiving of some huge conspiratorial mystery when your players expect a series of loosely connected all-action adventures. You probably should not make your villain an evil necromancer if your party consists of five non-magical characters. And maybe your usual nitty-gritty street atmosphere is not appropriate for a noble and his entourage. In short: the first and the last lesson about planning a campaign is to suit it to your player characters.

Your starting point when planning a new campaign should be its theme or central conflict. This is the guiding idea of your overall story-line and a recurring plot element. The theme of TEW, for instance, is: "The forces of Chaos are undermining the Empire's stability from within". Many Warhammer campaigns have a theme that is somehow related to Chaos. Obviously, this is not the only possibility. There are many other themes which fit perfectly into the mood and historical background of the Warhammer world, such as the struggle of the lower classes against the decadent nobility, war or civil war, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the dying races of Elves and Dwarves, an ancient evil or some unresolved family history. The fact that a campaign should have some sort of reoccurring theme, however, does not mean that scenarios will become repetitive. Rather than hitting your players with the thematic hammer, have the central conflict lurk in the background, as a hidden prime mover of the story. Many GMs come to think of the theme of their story after they have conceived of the plot, which is quite all right. On the other hand, a theme might be an inspiration for you when writing a plot.

The overall plot is, of course, the most important element of your campaign. This is why many GMs spend dozens of hours writing it down in detail. I would argue that this method is the easiest way to frustration. It may mean that you put so much time into the preparation of the background story that you have no time left to actually prepare for the first few gaming sessions - which is not the same! Furthermore, you can almost be certain that your players will either go on and ignore or ruin most of your story by not doing what you want them to do, or else be frustrated themselves because you as a GM force them to do what you want them to do. On other words, you should keep your story flexible. All you really need to do is think of the milestones in your campaign. You need a beginning, you need a few stages in the middle, and you need a good showdown. At this stage, you probably won't write much more than a couple of sentences for a whole part of your campaign, which will later develop into several scenarios and gaming sessions. Make sure you know in what regions of the Warhammer world your campaign will take the players, and what historical events will take place in these regions during your campaign. You will also need to sketch the most important NPCs featured in the campaign. For the moment, only develop the characters which are central to the development of the plot: arch-enemies, mentors, family members, city rulers and so on. All you need for the moment is their names, their location, their function in the plot and some vital background.

Once again, it is vital to integrate the player characters into your plans. If they are experienced role-players, have them write up the biography of their characters before you plan your campaign. Read through those and jot down all elements which could become plot hooks: killed parents, lost brothers, ancient grudges, family mysteries, old enemies or dark spots in the character's past. Once you have all possible plot hooks ready, try to create links between the characters' background stories. Perhaps the thief's lost brother was involved in the kidnapping of the mage's father? Maybe all lost family members knew of the same conspiracy and had to be removed? And might the noble student's best friend at University be the son of the evil count behind this conspiracy? You may also add some secret unknown to the characters themselves and thus make them all special. Think about your players' faces when they find out that all of their characters have identical birthmarks (or have suffered amnesia before, or have lost their identical twin, or have killed a beastman by just looking at him). Character backgrounds can thus become the starting point and main inspiration for your campaign. Even if they aren't, make sure to integrate some of the player characters' personal goals into the campaign. This is the best way to motivate your players, and to encourage character development. Never take your PCs' biographies and file them away as background colour.

If your players don't even know how to spell creativity, do not despair! There are many other ways to find inspiration for a brilliant campaign that will have their creative juices flowing, too. Reading will help, no matter what. A footnote in a history book might be as inspiring as a mystery in a Warhammer background publication, some piece of news in the paper could be a starting point as well as a novel by Charles Dickens. Keep your mind open, your campaign in the back of the latter, and always have your notepad ready for ideas. If that still doesn't work, just do what all the other do: steal something and change a few things. It's not about winning a nobel prize, after all, it's about the fun you and your players have.

As a matter of fact, many GMs love to plan campaigns, but fail miserably when running them. They revel in their elaborate background story, and forget about the dramaturgy of each individual session. This may be interesting for the GM, but it will almost certainly bore the players. Instead, try to think of your campaign as a TV series like "The X-Files". There is an overall development in the characters of Mulder and Scully as well as in the plot. However, each episode also has its own more or less concluded plot, and it can also be enjoyed individually. In game terms, this means that you should always think of your scenarios and game sessions as individual adventures, rather than parts of a greater whole. Just like the whole campaign, each scenario needs a dramatic beginning, a goal, complications and opposition as well as a thrilling showdown. In other words, every campaign is only as good as its scenarios. This does not necessarily mean that you should always conclude one scenario within one game session. However, tension tends to be lost between sessions, and thus adventures which run through more than three game sessions without any form of conclusion being reached tend to frustrate players. Tightly structured scenarios tend to give your players a sense of achievement, which in turn keeps them motivated. Moreover, the fact that you're running shorter scenarios does not contradict the idea of a unified campaign. You could instead see them as miniature images of your overall plot, circling around similar themes and featuring recurring NPCs. In fact, the impact of your campaign-finale will be much stronger if your players only gradually realise in what way their adventures were intricately connected.

Finally, it should be stress that planning a campaign is a dynamic process. Your player characters will influence your world and your story through their action. What distinguishes a good GMs is that they will always be ready to change their plans if need be. You best prepare for this by not preparing too much. Keep the focus of your campaign in mind, but spend most of your time on the preparation of the individual sessions, rather than immobilising the campaign by detailing too much in advance. And most importantly, never ever forget about your players and their characters. If you manage to integrate them into the campaign from the first session, they will do most of your work for you. Not to mention that you will all have much more fun.