Narrative Tournament Play!?!

Dr. Todd takes a moment to reflect on the Las Vegas Open

Hello everyone!!!!!

We’d like to thank all of you who came by our both at the LVO to say hi and check with us here at Mechanical Warhorse. I think it’s safe to say that we have finally recovered and are ready to get back to work, which brings us to this week’s blog.

One thing that struck us as amazing was the huge success of the narrative campaign run by The Narrative Guys. The outcome of the battle playing into the next had many gamers excitedly chatting up a storm. While the narrative campaign was competitive, I had more players tell me it was fun than the actual tournament players there. I think it speaks highly that original content and story development makes for a much funner game than the tournaments games can. After all if you have a particularly bad game, it doesn’t ruin your chances for the upcoming game. It also helps those new or who aren’t particularly great dice rollers to play in an event where they can have fun, even if they get clobbered.

When a story is left hanging, you have a reason to show up for the next game. This maybe what Games Workshop has been trying to do with Age of Sigmar, and it appears to be generating chatter on the internet with the recent Space Wolf campaign book release. However, a tournament can offer something that GW hasn’t picked up on is that releasing a book with the outcome predetermined isn’t any fun. Who wants to fight a battle, where regardless of your performance, the next battle is already scripted? A narrative campaign with an impartial Warmaster (DM) can develop and define the aftermath of battles. At the tournaments end the results can be examined, developed and give prelude to the next tournament narrative. This, in my opinion would generate a greater newcomer turnout, and would certainly lead to some exciting battles. After all in a tournament you have to have fairly standard games, but in a narrative you can develop original mission objective. There is a reason we like our armies; it’s the fluff!!! So fluffy campaigns at tournaments; might be an area at gaming events which I hope is on the rise. I look forward to see what the future of this tournament style is.