The arrival of Round 6 was for me—as organizer and GM of our staff campaign—a brief moment of personal glory.

Reflecting back on the events of the first half of the campaign and on my fellow staffers’ reactions to what had unfolded during that time, I was excited about what was still to come. Below is the update I sent to our players at the start of the round.

Eager to acquire as much information about the Athanc Wagon as they can, several intrepid commanders have sent forces to locations rumored to contain even the slightest shred of information.

Despite continuing to lose ground against the combined alliance of Khador and the Convergence, the Retribution has dispatched a force to track down a lead in the north, only to find the nefarious agents of Cryx have also come looking to acquire more knowledge following their chance encounter with the Legion of Everblight.

Following their loss against the Khadoran/Convergence alliance, Vyros, Incissar of the Dawnguard, has taken it upon himself to enact a bold strategy, using the Retribution’s mobility and speed to rally his troops and drive straight to the heart of the undefended Khadoran Command!

In addition, it would appear the Trollbloods spotted fighting alongside the Retribution in the battle at the supply depot were actually envoys from the Trollbloods seeking a mutually beneficial alliance. Using paths originally blazed by the Retribution, the Trollblood commander has sent a force to flank the war-torn region and come directly to the aid of his new Iosan allies.

Farther east, though the Trollbloods have enjoyed relative peace since their alliance with Circle Orboros, war has once again found them—Cryxian troops, eager to avenge their loss at the hands of the trolls, have struck at Demonhead Pass, which lays undefended, as the Trollblood defenders are absent following their own leads on information pertaining to the athanc. In their search, however, they have run afoul of both the Khadorans and, shockingly so, the Convergence!

Having discovered critical information, the Constellation approved a dangerous gambit to teleport a force deep into enemy territory. Yet their plan has not gone quite according to the grand design as the Convergence forces materialize directly amidst a force of the Trollbloods.

One of the biggest challenges for any GM is maintaining player excitement and enthusiasm over the course of a multi-week, or even multi-month, campaign. Not only does this require a keen eye toward making sure the experience remains fresh and interesting for the players overall, it’s also important to make sure you are doing what you can to ensure individual players are also having a good experience.

After being targeted hard by the alliance of Simon and Agel, our typically gung-ho Retribution commander Michael Plummer was suffering a bit of the no-funs by Round 5. Talking to him about why this was, I determined it wasn’t so much that he felt picked on by the Convergence and Khador alliance but that he felt he had missed out on the secret alliances and back-alley deals our other players had been enjoying. This had come about because the encroachment of the Khador and Convergence alliance had compounded his fairly isolated position on the map. So, Plummer had found himself largely divorced from the larger meta-game, one of the cornerstones of the campaign experience.

So, what’s a GM to do? Why, help get him back into the action, of course! This was fairly easy to accomplish by taking a closer look at the map and finding a fun, flavorful way to connect him with the larger action. While Plummer could have approached any of our players to join in an alliance with him, his position on the map meant that such a deal would be relatively hollow—neither of them would truly be able to support the other. The solution I needed, however, had been planted earlier in the campaign. So, I went to Marketing Manager JR Godwin to propose he enter into an alliance with the Retribution; in so doing, he could utilize the trail blazed by the flanking action Plummer had used in Round 3 to make a surprise attack against the Rimmocksdale Lake. Not only did an alliance of Trollbloods and Retribution fit narrative-wise (the Iosans have little quarrel with the Trolls), but the presence of a Trollbloods banner, right next to the tile Plummer’s banner had moved on from, also fit perfectly and allowed JR to immediately move to support him against Agel and Simon in Round 6.

Of course, Round 6 wasn’t all about the Retribution and Trollblood alliance. I also worked with Charles, who came to me with a fun, fluffy idea to have one of his banners teleport into the center of the map to help shake up the play environment even more. Little did he know that I would take that opportunity to pit him against JR’s Trollbloods on an Athanc Hot Spot that would have otherwise been uncontested.

All of this goes back to the golden rule, which I laid out for the players at the start of the campaign: the Battle for the Athanc isn’t about winning or losing—it’s about having FUN and creating engaging stories that will be told for years to come.

’Til next time,
Will