Topic of the Week: Campaign / Co-op / Scenario

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Working our way through this rubric. I realize I know all the bits but you may not, and everything is not de facto mutually exclusive. So there may be some overlap here with prior weeks but don’t worry about it.

Categories:
Campaign / Scenario: Games that have a story or progression (e.g., anything Legacy) or have specific set-ups per session (e.g., C&C, Imperial Assault, Arcadia Quest)
Co-op: Team up against the system

I link these two because in both cases the game, rather than the players, serves up a situation which you are all experiencing.

And the usual:

  1. What have you included in your collection (or highlights) in these categories?
  2. What would your pantheon be? The best/permanent entries for you?
  3. How important are these categories to your gaming life? General thoughts?
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Notable ones I’ve played:

Pandemic Legacy Season 1 - Still my fave

Ticket to Ride: Legacy - it’s nice. Standard TTR but the game keeps tossing novelties to you throughout the campaign to stops it from dulling. It also stops the feature sprawl by making these features have limited life-span and also they aren’t complicated too. I’m happy I’ve played the whole thing but I wouldn’t play it again.

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion + Gloomhaven - same group. Eventually got tired of it during the Big Gloom campaign. I like the design but I’m not sure if I wanna bother. This or with Frosty Gloom. I id bought Baby Gloom though.

King’s Dilemma - I do like the gameplay and the narratives. It’s a nice mix and without overcomplicating things.

Oath - this will be my solo game, other than High Frontier 4 All

I still have Pandemic Season 1 and Season 0 in the queue.

If I’m gonna pick up a campaign game, I’d rather have it something light to medium weight. I think King’s Dilemma was a good one and it’s interactive too.

EDIT: I think this is within scope. I still have all of PostCurious titles in my queue:

  • Emerald Flame
  • Adrift
  • The Light in the Mist
  • Threads of Fate
  • The Morrisons Game Factory
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I like the idea of campaign games more than I actually playing them (because I play a lot of games rarely each, I often end up doing a near introductory scenario each time).

I played PanLeg 1 on Tabletop Simulator. OK but didn’t love it.

There are Rallyman GT racing seasons going on BGA, and I’m playing there, but no other ongoing boardgame campaigns right now.

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Campaigns/scenarios.

The Good

  • My first boardgame (legacy) campaign was probably Pandemic Legacy 1 and it was one of the best experiences. We also enjoyed #2 and #0 is still in shrink (we will get to it)
  • Another success story is Gloomhaven (and Frosthaven, but it feels like it is waiting for retirement)
  • Also at the top of my list Clank! Legacy (we only finished #1 so far, #2 is started but on hold due to general lack of gaming)
  • Dorfromantik (Sakura) a very relaxed experience and easily resettable campaign. Much smaller scope than most campaign games but a worthy entry nonetheless
  • We don’t play many scenario style games but we played an awful lot of Zombicide at the time. I still plan on eventually playing that campaign for 2.0 that we got …

Honorable Mentions

  • Oath. Big weirdo. Love it. But… it’s still a big weirdo. Can’t put this before other people. I would need to find players willing to engage in the story telling above the winning.
  • Legacy of Yu. I got interrupted while playing this. And that right there is the problem with campaign games.

The Not so Good

Campaigns that didn’t make the cut:

  • TTR Legacy–we’ll finish it eventually–but too much losing involved (for my partner).
  • 7th Continent & Sleeping Gods: too much “choose your own adventure and read these texts aloud”.
  • Earthborne Rangers. I am less into deck construction than I thought I was. The story is pretty good but I just don’t find the time for these things that require me to remember the story between sessions. (I also tried Arkham Horror TCG at some point and it just didn’t click at all. Same game basically except ER has a bit less insanity)
  • Game series style mini-campaigns: Assault on Doomrock, Hoplomachus Victorum taught me that I prefer one-off experiences to sequences of games that I can’t play through in a single session.

The Hideous

I loathe loathe loathe pseudo campaigns that make me learn a game/expansion through a mini campaign or try to make “scenarios” into a campaign:

  • Revive & Space Base expansions: just write a good rulebook. I skipped these “campaigns”
  • Burgle Bros (2) is also this to me. If Burgle Bros just had declared it was scenario based but no: every thing needs to be a campaign now that the concept exists.
  • Welcome to the Moon is good, but I’ll never play that campaign mode. Ever.

The Crew gets a pass as the scenarios are just sorted in ascending order of difficulty. But it passes only just so.

TL;DR

At first campaigns fascinated me. Legacy games were so novel and interesting. And for a short moment I wanted to have every campaign game that was being made. I quickly found out that what I like about boardgames is having a distinct and complete experience in a short amount of time. I have played (and am playing again) enough RPGs to not need campaign games on my boardgame shelves. A few exceptions apply and I wouldn’t want to miss the experiences of the legacy games I played… but… mostly I avoid campaign games now.

(I think I need to cook dinner now. Cooperative is a separate post for me. My thoughts are so different on this.)

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I LOVE co-op games. In terms of my collection there’s the following:

Scenario
Nemo’s War (2nd)

Scenario and can be Co-op
Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion (although I play it 2-handed solo)
Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth
Eh, there are some scenarios in Marvel Champions

Co-op
Chronicles of Crime 1400
Eldritch Horror
Forgotten Waters
Fox in the Forest Duet

I’d like to play more Campaign games in the style of Dorfromantik or My City where you build and unlock.

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Chicken Coop

Games for people who are too chicken to play competitive games. I love cooperative games and I am frequently too chicken (or tired) to play competitive

TL;DR

This is a short one: Spirit Island is the best. The only one and the greatest.

Titles that deserve titles

  • The Tom Brady: Pandemic–because you know this is where he shines. Favorite iteration probably Iberia or possibly Legacy 1
  • The Klaus Kinski: Ghost Stories–frequently described as insane(ly difficult). Most director’s refused to work with him more than once :stuck_out_tongue: Has a very distinct look.
  • The Hemsworth: The Crew–this is the inciting game that proved that if you have a hammer everything becomes a trick-taker. Also: it does just one thing but that it does well.
  • The Villeneuve: Daybreak, a hot new(ish) game from a well-known author but based on a set of classic works/concepts. Well-composed and polished.
  • The Attenborough: Spirit Island with its unique voice and strong focus on the spirits of nature.
  • The Bill & Ted: The Loop gives us good silly time travel fun
  • The SNL Crew: A whole series of party games The Gang, Just One, So Kleever are great cooperative fun for saturday nights :slight_smile:
  • The Lynch: to understand the LoS rules for Gloomhaven you have to think a bit differently. Needs a lot of brainspace to be grokked if that can be done at all :wink:
  • The Rodriguez: Zombicide good silly slasher fun with zombies.
  • The Gaudi: a Menara game may not look like a cathedral when you are done but it does look like something an architect might have seen in a fever dream.
  • The AC/DC: The Hardback coop mode–when in doubt re-use the word you just played or the slightest modification thereof. Hardback actually sounds easier than it is (not sure about AC/DC though)
  • The Archimedes: Shipwreck Arcana–can help teach math to kids. Educational!
  • The Jack Sparrow: Beacon Patrol–solid adventure on the seas. Could do with a bit more flair though :wink:
  • The Matrix: Tamashii Chronicles of Ascend such a promising cyberpunk themed story. But sadly after the first scenario this turns out to be boring and rote. (sorry I can never resist bashing the sequels)

Categorical

Okay I am running out of steam with the silly titles. So here’s a few broad categories. Obviously cooperative games come in a variety of flavors and since “man vs man” is not the thing here (unless we have a hidden traitor mechanic)
So here’s a few broad categories of games that I put my cooperative games in:

  • players vs chaos/escalation → the Pandemic-likes which throw random events at players that can lead to cascading catastrophy
  • players vs dungeon/boss → dungeon crawlers / scenario games / boss battlers
  • players vs hybris: for example coop tile laying games "surely we will find the perfect tile that fits here
  • players vs silence: limited communication games are quite common these days. Feels like it is my fastest growing sub-genre
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It’s mad that the genre “legacy game” peaked with the second real one. Pandemic is so good that not even the team that made it could make another really good one. The second two were either too into the idea of legacy (season 2) or too burned and too into the idea of making a nice game with bad legacy bits.

I don’t think I really liked any other one as much.

I kind of liked Clank Legacy but it’s an oddity of a game that doesn’t really feel like it fits any of its suits properly (at two player at least). The game itself has this kind of heist vibe (get in get the loot get out) but of course to hit all the narrative beats it’s more like: agree in advance which narrative bits everyone will do, bumble around completing tasks then when that’s done, get in, get the loot, get out. It’s just a bit messy. Having said that I think in terms of “content” it’s probably the best package with a good variety of bits and bobs and legacy elements.

I think I wanted ticket to ride legacy to be better than it was. It had all the things going for it: basic and well established game that should support a narrative. But each game felt boring and then it turns into a million hours slog by the end. So much so the game gifts you routes (iirc) to speed up the game. What game with any confidence says “cancel some turns!”. And then the post campaign forever game feels like a bad ticket to ride. The story is also just some nonsense that teases more intrigue than it performs.

I really enjoyed my city. That game has a nice balance of evolving game and good simple game to mess about with. I like its concept of evolution which adds as much as it bins. It keeps the game from getting bloated (a problem with legacy game which start lean, may reach a perfect amount of set up and game and then carry on getting bloated). Oddly thought I didn’t like my island. It think its game was too fiddly and tricky to parse. So I think it suggests there’s a lot of alchemy.

I think the charterstone final game dressed as a twelve game build up is not the best

I wonder if pandemic legacy season 1 didn’t have the armour of wonder if it would be as well loved today. Like if that exact game was the 18th legacy game would it be loved as much?

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I do own Vampire the Masquerade - Heritage which is a legacy game complete with stickers etc. I haven’t played it yet, but I understand that if you bite a mortal they become a vampire, and the vampires stick around between games in the campaign and your previous choices affect their power. So you do get a bit of a “build a family / power base” history to it. Also the different scenarios are conflicts which take place every few generations from (1300?) onwards with different challenges. So the sense of legacy from previous rounds is quite strong.

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My husband and I love co-ops and campaigns. Our 3 most played games are all co-ops and two of them are campaigns (Legendary as the non campaign then Arkham Horror LCG and Gloomhaven). Other coops are pretty high in our most often played (e.g. Dark Tower, Spirit Island, Atlantis Rising, etc) and games we own that release a coop mode, the coop is likely to become our most played version (On Mars, Orleans, etc.) We have played tons of legacy games (all the Pandemics, both Clanks, TtR, Seafall, Charterstone, Frosthaven). We also have some of the more story-driven campaigns (Oath, Sleeping Gods, etc.)

Not sure i have any overall insights beyond I love this type of stuff. Maybe the obvious that a weak central game is not saved by campaign/legacy. Charterstone and Seafall were both pretty mediocre experiences.

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Campaign/Scenario:
Imperial Assault
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
V-Sabotage
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice
Marvel Champions
Arkham Horror TCG
Pandemic Legacy S1,2, and 0
Betrayal Legacy
Batman: Gotham City Chronicles
Metal Gear Solid: the Board Game
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective
Undaunted: Normandy
Undaunted 2200: Callisto
Legacy of Yu
Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft
Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt
Cthulhu: Death May Die
Mansions of Madness 2nd edition

Co-op:
Pandemic (and Fall of Rome, Rising Tide, Reign of Cthulhu, Star Wars: the Clone Wars)
Escape the Curse of the Temple
Dead of Winter
Black Orchestra
ALIEN: Fate of the Nostromo
The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine
Flash Point
Unmatched Adventures
Codenames: Duet
The Dresden Files: Cooperative Card Game
God of War: the Card Game
Spirit Island
Jekyll and Hyde vs. Scotland Yard
Magic Maze
Mysterium
Ghost Stories
Samurai Spirit
Shadows Over Camelot
Sky Team
Space Alert
Space Hulk: Death Angel - the card game
Chronicles of Crime
Star Wars: Unlock!

So, a lot of games. There may be some I am missing.

Dresden Files and God of War maybe should fall in the scenario category, as there are different chapters/levels, but IDK, they just feel very minor compared to other scenario games.

There are also other co-op games for 1 vs. many that aren’t campaign games like Catacombs or Letters from Whitechapel, but just not counting them.

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I really like both types of game. However I don’t play many campaign games anymore.

Spirit Island is easily pantheon. Love it. Each game manages to be different enough between blend of Spirits and Adversary that I continue to be fascinated by it. The spirits generally improved as expansions went along. Although Nature Incarnate didn’t top Jagged Earth they maintained a level while upping the complexity. I think Jagged Earth is the best for Spirits and Branch and Claw is weaker for Spirits but it’s part of the base game just hived off for learning and kickstarter purposes. It’s great to play something that has all the thought space needed but do it working with friends rather than competing against them. I wouldn’t only play coop but it’s nice for a change of pace and a different gaming experience. Last weekend going from the ultra backstabby Fresh Fish to Spirit Island was a nice come down at the end.

I think I’m mostly looking to Mage Knight from a coop perspective after being very impressed with game 1. I absolutely loved Gloomhaven but with 2 campaigns of base under my belt I burnt out. Tried Frosthaven but it’s still just part of the burn out. The other nig campaign coop I have is Primal: The Awakening and it’s great. However the campaign is turd. So it get’s moved category to an excellent one of boss battler.

I also really rate Hanabi, as previously discussed no meta building for me so it’s got legs Kreus is the cousin I like as well but not as much. Similar coop low communication card play and also fun.

Helionox is an excellent straight forward deck builder with some minor wrinkles but plays wonderfully well as a coop experience. You get all the best bits of deck building and the random market is fine as it’s coop. Never have and never will play the competitive variant. While not quite a deckbuilder A.I.Pokalypse fills a very similar space. Again can play coop or competitive but I will only play coop. Fun art on a sci fi theme and an excellent time. First play took maybe 40 minutes while getting the rules down and then 3 more games followed all in under half an hour with much merriment.

That’s my list of current coops. Maybe some more coop thoughts will come and I think a separate post for campaign games.

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We have a few coops; too many of which we play too rarely.

Robinson Crusoe - one of my favourite games ever. I don’t mind more often than not dying because I hurt my thumb trying to build a shelter; everyone else I know finds it a bit hard work, so this is less a coop and more a solo for me!

Flash Point Fire Rescue, with a bunch of the expansions. We always enjoy this when we play it, which isn’t often enough.

Mists Over Carcassonne. We love pretty much all things Carcassonne and have loads of the expansions. Having a whole different way to play Carcassonne sometimes is a joy.

Spirit Island. Either you think this is the best board game ever or you haven’t played it yet.

Dorf Romantik - the nicest imaginable two player experience. Lovely.

The A.R.T. Project. An impulse buy at Airecon because it looks lovely and the designer seemed a nice guy. It’s fun.

Pandemic Iberia. Excellent game. Our only Pandemic (Did have the Rome one, but it wasn’t as much fun).

Mysterium. So much fun that I have no idea why we haven’t played this for literally years.

Chronicles of Crime. Got all the boxes of this in a daft burst of enthusiasm a while back; they’re still waiting to be played, but I like the idea of it so much I remain optimistic that it will all get played!

Ooh - and Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. Two boxes of this waiting to be played. We did the first case ages ago, thought it was great and then never got round to any more. As you do…

As for campaign games, we don’t have as many. We enjoyed the somewhat obscure Expedition to Newdale more than I expected. It’s not thrilling by any means, but we rather liked it. Even kept it around as we can see ourselves going through it again sometime.

I have the Beagle expansion for Robinson Crusoe, but I’ve never played it. I will, one day, honest…

Ditto the Arnak expedition expansion…

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Co-ops

My first was Pandemic, but the one that really caught my enthusiasm was Flash Point Fire Rescue, which I picked up in 2012 (the year after its first release, which I think was my second Essen) and have remained enthusiastic about since. Pandemic may be more Euro-y with its card collection, but in Flash Point you can always visualise what’s going on, and although it’s obviously simplified it still feels like a simulation.

Also a big fan of V-Commands/V-Sabotage (though it is fair to describe it as “Flash Point with Nazis instead of fire”), Aeon’s End, Mysterium, Sentinels of the Multiverse—and the only way I play A Touch of Evil is in co-op mode.

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as an aside: what are you doing about the upcoming Flash Point Legacy game?

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The house is still burnt down in the second game?

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Oh, I forgot Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective.

And Fortune and Glory has a great co-op where you fight a thematic bot enemy, I think that’s probably better than the other modes.

I may get DorfRomantik at this rate.

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I love the chill of Dorf

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Dorfromantik absolutely takes home the gold medal for “most cozy campaign game” and–having played both–Sakura is pretty much the one I would recommend .

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I don’t like Legacy so I don’t buy it. I am planning to buy the map boards which were a Kickstarter extra, if they’re available at Essen. And I may try to find out about board-specific rules and add them to my master rules document.

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Playing catch-up with a few topics tonight: forgive me.

I have quite a few games which would be considered one or all of campaign, scenario or co-op titles. As a solo gamer, luckily I am well catered for by these types of games, and that’s without owning some of the most popular titles.

I’d consider the following as campaign/scenario games:

  • Arcadia Quest
  • Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game
  • Five Leagues From The Borderlands: 3rd Edition
  • Five Parsecs From Home: Solo Adventure Wargaming
  • Legacy of Dragonholt
  • Statis Pro Football

I’d had lots of solo fun with base campaign of Arcadia Quest so bought the Beyond the Grave and Pets expansions to try out. I liked the Five Parsecs… game although as a campaign it did start to get a bit samey six scenarios in, but not enough to stop my buying the fantasy version Five Leagues… to try out too, which might appeal more than Castle Ravenloft. Legacy of Drahgonholt should be a keeper too when it gets a proper try, but it’s more of an RPG/Choose-Your-Own-Adventure hybrid than a proper board game. I’ve written enough about my love for Statis Pro Football but the joy of finding a solid sports game and a group of players who all love it, then creating and playing through mini leagues together, is hard to beat.

My co-op titles, which include many playable solo or with one-versus-all or competitve gameplay variants, are:

  • Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks
  • Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game
  • Eldritch Horror
  • Endangered
  • Flash Point: Fire Rescue
  • Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game
  • The Fury of Dracula
  • Ghost Stories
  • Horrified
  • Horrified: Greek Monsters
  • Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game
  • Night of the Living Dead: A Zombicide Game
  • One Deck Dungeon
  • Pandemic
  • Pandemic: Fall of Rome
  • Pandemic: Iberia
  • Scotland Yard: Sherlock Holmes Edition
  • A Touch of Evil: The Supernatural Game

There’s a lot of similarity between the Pandemics, Endangered and Flash Point but all get similar table time, although Pandemic Iberia is my favourite of them. I like the stories in Doctor Who and the Horrifieds which see more table time for me than longer games like Fortune and Glory and A Touch of Evil. The Fury of Dracula and Scotland Yard are great one-versus-all hidden movement games, but can’t be played solo so I haven’t got to try out the Sherlock Holmes variant as of yet. As a solo (or 2 player) experience I much prefer Last Night on Earth to Zombicide for the ease of upkeep, but maybe with a larger group, the latter games become more manageable. … Maybe …

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