Story telling is a key element in running a campaign, especially with map campaigns with a quite a few players. What happens on the map and on the tabletop decides the path the story will follow but it's down to the players and the campaign master to pad out the details filling out the story. This is easily done through players diaries and campaign newsletters, both of which add a great fun aspect to the campaign.
Campaign newsletters are usual used in large map campaigns to add a bit of humour and keep all the players up to date with what's going on in the campaign. They're normally produced by the campaign master who has access to all the results, positions on the map etc. Most take the form of a simple one page newsletter with pieces about recent victories and loses, anything interesting that's come up like new alliances or fallen generals. Alternatively they can take the form of dispatches, with information on troop movements, battle results etc. Either way, they give campaign masters an excellent way to help keep all the players involved.
Campaign diaries are slightly different to the newsletters with them being written by the individual players specifically for their force rather than the campaign master writing something for the whole group. Like the newsletters, they can be news sheets or dispatches or even personal diaries of those generals playing in the campaign. It's completely down to the players how or if they want to do a campaign diary, although it's great fun reading everyone else's at the end of the campaign.
The idea of campaign newsletters, dispatches and dairies are quite common in the real military. Dispatches are a standard method of sending information along the command chain. Most Generals keep war diaries, often publishing them when they retire as part of an autobiography or a specific military textbook. Even the idea of newsletters are common in the forces with most units publishing an unofficial unit newsletter to give the lads a laugh.
It's important to realise that these things are supposed to keep players informed, help add to the narrative, but most importantly, to add a bit of fun to the campaign. On this, they don't have to be strictly true, history is often written by the winner. It's perfectly fine to say a narrow victory was a glorious one and rub the losers nose in it a bit, just as long as you don't take it too far - fun remember.
Have you ever used campaign newsletters or diaries, what sort of things have you put in yours?
4 years ago
