What kind of campaign building style are you using?

[SFault]

I've started to build a new campaign. I have written a plan of all the notable characters and outline of the scenarios. For each scenario I have the main idea and maybe few additional ideas, like plot twists, type of terrain or some major thing to affect the strategy. I have built all the needed special units and tested them. Now I'm gonna do one scenario at the time. Plan it a little, build a map and make the basis (sides and end-scenario) for the scenario. Last time I did one scenario at the time. I did most of the details before moving on the next one.

What I'm wondering is how others design and implement their campaigns. Do you write outline? Do you make all the scenarios one by one? etc. I would be interested in best practices in campaign building. One thing I can highly recommend is to write the outline. I have made some campaigns without any plan just one scenario at the time and having the story built on go. The story became interesting but the campaign never got finished (at least not yet).

[Heindal]

Depends on your style. But working one by one and in small steps is a good way to make a good campaign.

I usually work scenario by scenario, too. But I tend to leave away details and bring the story and the campaign to an end. So usually don't design the scenarios perfectly in the first step. I have the opinion you can implent some details lateron and advance the campaign over the time. This is what I would call a workinprogress, but this way to work has its drawbacks, such as campaigns that never will get truly finished (Trapped e.g. - however trapped has 6 endings, but I always wanted to implent more). Therefor you speed up the development and come to quick results.

The first step of scenario design is for me to design a map and develop a story based on that map. Usually one would work the other way around, creating a story and fit the map to the story, but I think both ways are possible. Than I take a sheet of paper and plan the scenario, enemies, macros needed and so on. Step three would be to finish the code and step 4 is testing and correction. Step 5 would be to play the entire campaign and behave like a normal player.

[SkyOne]

I build campaigns for stories. I don't start coding and making maps until the story completes (usually I write story-outline on papers or a notebook first).
After that, the first thing I imagine is how the game ends, instead of how it starts. Then each scenario is built toward the ending.
Maybe, my style is different from the most of creator's ones, though.

[Paulomat4]

For my first campaign I simply started coding. I didn't really develop the story until scenario 5 or so, but I'm currently on scenario 10 and do still have about 5 possible endings in mind. I guess I'll just have to see where the story leads me. Also I work on scenarios one by one and move on to the next scenario only when i'm pleased about the current scenario. That means I work on every little detail. That tends to make the coding part even longer. But I want to release a quality product and not something mediocre that i'll work on later.

In retrospective that's probably the wrong way of coding, but I created my campaign to get into wml and at least that succeeded (more or less). I probably won't ever finish my campaign, but it's fun to work on it.

[Iris]

Generally, for me, the process has always been Story + Characters → Maps → Prose + WML.

Speaking as someone who used to adhere to a certain campaign design how-to, I believe different people work differently and there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. If writing down notes detailing the design plan for your campaign helps you be productive, then go for it; but if you feel it’s hindering you or limiting your creativity then you really should reconsider it and maybe even adopt a more flexible workflow. What ultimately matters is whether you are having fun, more than whether you are being productive.

Now if you want to read a long story...:

When I started Invasion from the Unknown I had a general idea of the characters and the story I wanted to tell but a lot of things came into being only later down the road. The campaign wasn’t even designed to be part of a larger overarching narrative at first. Gameplay-wise, I had a text document outlining the plot and general setting for some scenarios; however, I did away with it about halfway through the first 13. Later, I wrote a somewhat more detailed ‘script’ for the last handful of scenarios in order to get some lines and events right before doing the extremely convoluted WML and prose for them.

I didn’t even have an actual title for the campaign. Invasion from the Unknown was merely a working title that superseded the first codename I had for it (Armageddon) because I didn’t want a single-word title. For the first few releases I asked people to help me with the title; nobody did, and thus history was made.

Some ideas I discarded during IftU’s development were recycled into After the Storm, along with others I had from IftU’s two unpublished predecessors, and then some more. The title “After the Storm” itself was an internal codename I used for a 20 line plot draft I wrote soon after completing IftU.

AtS changed a lot since I started working on it back in 2008, to say the least. By 2009, I had a very elaborate campaign outline with an overly detailed plot synopsis. Some time later I decided it was crap. Even more time later (around Q3 2011) I decided to ignore the old plot synopsis entirely, streamlined the E2 scenario progression a bit, and consciously chose to not write down the new plan, and also decided to focus more on the characters themselves. A couple of characters were merged into one, another that was supposed to be in AtS’ sequel was moved into AtS, the AtS sequel itself became part of AtS and slated to be added in version 2.0, and things started moving along again. Then I completed the first two episodes, and decided to turn the no-longer-a-sequel finale episode into a 1.0 target, merged some ideas from a tentative IftU prequel into it, and on February 2013 the long tortuous journey finally came to an end. All that said, even though AtS changed throughout production, the ending remains the same from the original plan. I’d not be surprised if some people thought otherwise.

So, in IftU and AtS’ case, the story came first; the level of detail was just significantly greater in AtS’ case, both before and after the Q3 2011 ‘epiphany’.

I don’t know if I want to go into more detail about the production notes (both written and in my head) I used for developing AtS besides the campaign outlines and how I used them. One important thing about AtS since Q3 2011 is that I’d often allow myself to change things on the spot if a new, better idea came up or I decided the original idea wasn’t worth the effort for some other reason.

• Scenario names: the original AtS outline I alluded to above had nothing but the scenario names and numbers. The discarded plot synopsis covered the campaign episode-wise, not scenario-wise.
• Scenario settings: I had notes describing the scenario settings (AI sides, gold supplies, recruit lists, etc.) for AtS E1. These are the only written notes pre-Q3 2011 that were actually used in the finished product besides most of the E2 scenario outline. The rest was all done on the spot.
• Gameplay: I decided this on the spot while drawing each map. Note that I had a backlog of maps drawn well in advance most of the time, so I always had the gameplay planned well ahead of the last finished scenario.
• Prose: On the spot, except for a few crucial exceptions which were either in my head or written down, sometimes months in advance. However, even if I didn’t always have the prose prepared, most of the time I’d write scenes I have already pictured in my head in visual form — sometimes years in advance.
• Maps: Quite closely tied to the writing process, but always keeping gameplay in mind. In some cases I designed scenarios around their maps, and in others I did it the other way around. I didn’t have to redraw any scenarios after finishing the implementation. However, I did recently go back and redesign half of a E2 map over a year after completing E3, and plan to do the same for another E2 map “soon”.
• WML: On the spot.
• Physical notes and drawings: Only for art concepts and late/post AtS things.

Finally, I did write bits of WML in advance in a few extremely rare cases, but only as a guide to speed up work on particularly complex scenarios.

I really could go into more detail but I think this post is too long already.

[Simons Mith]

That wasn't too long! That was pretty interesting.

For a more formal set of guidelines, do look at esr's
BfW Campaign Design How-to:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/wesnoth/campai ... howto.html

[Dugi]

For me, the workflow I have refined over time is like this:
1. Idea.
You want something to happen. It may be something mentioned by another campaign or just a cool event you'd like to describe. Asheviere's rise to power. King Haldric being raised as a Death Knight bound to destroy all impurities in the kingdom he finds (that means everything, as he's risen by an evil necromancer scheming behind it). A story of Konrad's evil twin secretly replacing the real Konrad (locking up the real one in the style of Man in the Iron Mask). An orc being so awesome that he becomes a king of Wesnoth. A man falling in love with an Elvish Sorceress and eventually becoming a necromancer with her so that their love could persist forever.

For this, I often get inspired by a song. For example this one would inspire a campaign about an ancient sorcerous tyrant reviving long after being improperly assassinated and challenging the actual king for the throne.

Of course, more ideas can be combined as long the second step can be applied.

2. Making the idea feasible.
The idea is never impossible. It just may require a very peculiar set of events so that it could take place. The events are usually a necessity and are parts of the storyline that are obtained for free. Finding a credible set of events may not be easy, but it's just a question whose answer exists, not looking into darkness. Asheviere rose to power, but the details weren't told anywhere, so making up the plot is up to anyone who chooses to write a campaign about that.

For example the idea of Konrad's evil twin. He wants to usurp the throne from a man who looks just like him. That's quite easy, he just ambushes Konrad in a back alley, swap clothes with him, puts a mask on him, pretends he is drunk when he returns to the castle and knows little about what the king is supposed to do (he might have done some surveillance before by dressing up as a servant, using a few fake scars to hide his similarity), goes on a long campaign to fight some orcs living far away, returns to Li'sar 'changed by war' and is considered a king. If he was recognised, it would ruin the story, so he won't be. Now, the interesting part is how can Konrad retake his stolen throne. A torturer strips his mask so that he could have some fun on his face. The torturer realises that it's the king. The impostor sends guards against them, but some guards already know the truth and help their king escape. Then he escapes to see Delfador to get some advice and gets ambushed a few times on the way there. Delfador gives him advice: he cannot muster a larger army because not many people outside Weldyn know his face, so he has to see the elves he knew before to get supporters. After sneaking his small group through the land again, he meets the elves, saves them from some generic trouble and gets their support. They use the forest to get close to Weldyn without being checked. They use a decoy to get Konrad into the town, where people recognise him and he retakes the throne again. Then he deals with the impostor and his army that returns from chasing the decoy.

3. Putting there some characters
In the case of Konrad, the hero's pretty much a well-defined character with any virtues a man can have (like Rhaegar Targaryen from A Song of Ice and Fire). But a hero like this is too generic. A much more interesting hero is somebody who helps because he hates the enemy, who is a bad guy whose plans don't fit when the bigger enemy comes, who does it to get a lovely princess as a wife, does it just because he likes the violence it brings, etc. Or that he has a funny dialogue-only flaw, like being a drunkard, being stupid, being in love with somebody in a comical way or just speaking funnily.

The enemy might have a personality too, especially if he meets the heroes more than once. If he's meant to be a badass, he should be awesome in everything besides not being on the player's side. If he's meant to be a Joffrey, he should be a capricious crybaby hated by every player.

Other characters can be somebody that complains a lot, somebody who always gives weird suggestions, a grammar nazi, a love interest of the main hero (should be of opposite gender), somebody with a doubtful loyality, a betrayer, a gay, etc. Picking some characters from films and books leads to nice results.

This all so far can be done before. Meditating about it is a very good way to spend time in my opinion.

4. Scenarios
Since this is not multiplayer, the map should not be symmetrical. It should have no regular shapes, but not like a random mix of hexes. Roughly it should fit the story and visually should not look too bad. The scenario objective should vary, not always defeat all enemy leaders, but also some getting to a certain point, killing a certain number of enemies, sneaking somewhere, discovering more enemies on the way, defending a certain point etc. More interesting scenarios usually result of trying to make the scenarios follow the story.

5. Bonus
There should be some easter eggs and other funny things to amuse the player. Let's say that you are fighting against an evil nobleman family. Following the typical historical names of such families, they should be named House Something. Now what. Something funny. House Boat. House Doctor. House Villa. House Mansion. Let's assume that House Mansion was picked. Now, how to name its members? There is quite an infamous rock'n'roll singer and guitarist whose name is Charles Manson. He's currently sitting in prison for several murders. How about naming the bad guys' family's leader Charlie Mansion? And his son could be named Marilyn. And for laughs everyone would first assume that he is a woman after hearing his name.

[Iris]

a love interest of the main hero (should be of opposite gender)

No.

They should be whatever you feel comfortable writing in a believable, non-forced fashion. This requires arranging things so that a given pair of characters that are or end up in a relationship (regardless of gender or background) can be taken seriously by the audience. It’s very easy to do this wrong, especially when romance isn’t a key plot aspect from the get-go and instead gets tacked on to an otherwise well-polished product later down the road.

And by ‘whatever’, I mean that gender and romantic and sexual orientation should take a backseat to character and narrative dynamics (which means that people in a given pairing need not actually be sexually attracted to each other, but I’m not going to go into detail here). If you are concerned about writing a non-heterosexual couple due to perceived historical context issues, consider making it part of the challenges your characters need to face in the narrative. If you don’t care about issues like that, go wild. If you feel you can’t write such a couple without falling into stereotypes, then don’t do it. If you’d rather write only heterosexual couples because it feels more natural to you (or wouldn’t even consider alternatives for the same reason), then that’s perfectly fine too.

Finally, if people don’t want to play your otherwise “perfect” campaign* because their religion or political beliefs mandate that they take offense at anything that violates their sacred heteronormativity, then it’s their loss, not yours.

* Perfection does not exist, but you get the idea.

[Dugi]

They should be whatever you feel comfortable writing in a believable, non-forced fashion.

I wrote that should be of opposite gender part mainly because most authors are straight and thus don't know how do the gay people live (they are probably not depicted realistically in films, they depict so many things wrongly) and might create something the gay could find insulting. Players are mostly straight too and would not genuinely understand the gay. If the author is really awesome at writing, he can try, but I see this as an excellent way to fail miserably (I don't think that a campaign is a good way to express how tolerating the author is).

When it comes to people with religious objections, I don't mind violating their principles neither (or actually I rather like it), but I mind doing something wrong just in order to violate them.

[Iris]

[...]

If you take the time to re-read my post you’ll notice you essentially repeated the same arguments I posted before, just with different (clunkier) wording. It still doesn’t justify the original phrasing in parentheses from your post. Basically, just because you don’t understand something, it doesn’t mean your post’s audience doesn’t; it’s much better to leave details like this unspecified. To put it in simpler terms, “most” ≠ “all”.

(Also, to elaborate on the clunkiness, nobody ever says “the humans”.)

[Aldarisvet]

For myself the first thing must be is tactical idea of the each scenario. The way - first I make storyline about someone coming from point A to point B and during that passage meets these enemies than that enemies is overused.
Best thing is not to create combination of your units and enemy units that is largely overused in campaigns.
For example, you play elves or humans versus 2-3 encampment of undead/orc. I fed up with this combination.
Make something original, not commonly used. For example, if you have Nagas+thieves and you fighting versus khalifate - I never meet such combination.
Of course you will have to get plotline under this.

So do not use commonplace plotline like this - that some enemies burned village of poor main hero and so he forced to begin hard life fighting for survival or some invaders attacked your village/elvish grove at first scenario.
Why not make, for example, Naga to be main hero, or Ogre - for example some evil Mage turned him into this and you have to find that mage so he will return you to normal appearence.

[SFault]

Lots of good replies, thanks. Too bad I'm currently too busy to read them with thought.

For myself the first thing must be is tactical idea of the each scenario.

I think this is one feature that is downplayed in many - even mainline - campaigns. Personally I play the game more for the tactics, not so much for the story. Of course good story and especially good dialogue makes the campaign memorable. But the scenarios where good tactics are needed and victory is gained by planning/reacting well, those are the scenarios I really like to play. Bit OT, but I think too many are really going for epic story rather than addicting battles.

[Aldarisvet]

Lots of good replies, thanks. Too bad I'm currently too busy to read them with thought.

For myself the first thing must be is tactical idea of the each scenario.

I think this is one feature that is downplayed in many - even mainline - campaigns. Personally I play the game more for the tactics, not so much for the story. Of course good story and especially good dialogue makes the campaign memorable. But the scenarios where good tactics are needed and victory is gained by planning/reacting well, those are the scenarios I really like to play. Bit OT, but I think too many are really going for epic story rather than addicting battles.

Thank you for appreciation. I myself trying to be as much tactically original as it possbile in my scenarios, but same time to create not to much custom units with not to much new features.
There are space for original ideas even in mainline units. For example (just get it) main hero of scenario is werewolf (direwolf with poisonous attack) and his wolf pack attacking some ogres mixed with dark adepts. So tactically it is important to poison enemies fast and then retreat and wait while enemies are losing health. Need not so much fantasy, really, just need to combinate things commonly not seems laying together. And only after you get that original combination of units, you starting to think - why would ogres could be with dark adepts together? Why werewolf should attack them? So plotline is secondary. Not in importance, but in order of creation.