One of the most exciting things for me, I think, is the opportunity to use ruins in my narrative campaigns.  And everyone’s asking me how I’m doing it, so I thought I’d let everyone in on the inside scoop.  In some ways, the campaign we’ve got planned is like Nexus Psi, so if you don’t want to design your own, you could get a copy of that and integrate ruins into there instead.

The campaign

We’re playing a six part campaign where we’re trying to reclaim four districts, (linked by alleys) then, depending on the results,  doing two massive ‘half of the board’ retreats through the city with the tech they’ve reclaimed. Containment Protocol has been enacted, and Enforcers are going into retrieve equipment.  There are lots of technical artefacts that can be picked up, but each of them are in plague-held enclaves.  The Enforcers that will be passing through will also have a change to damage the buildings, depending on whether they use a weapon with Blast or not – for this, if they use a blast based weapon, we’re going to roll a dice.  If we roll a 1, after the Blast (so after everything is resolved), the panel is converted to a ruin on the way back through.  Two hits on the same building, and it collapses.  Collapsed buildings will be represented by half height panels and cannot be entered, and block half the alley, creating choke points on the way out.  If nothing collapses this way, we’ll agree at the beginning of the last two weeks, and create some ruins that way.  Artefacts lost this way are destroyed and release more spores – collapsed buildings and ruined buildings generate plague.

That’s the basics anyway. It’s a very adaptable story, that allows us to build varied maps and have a bit of fun.

Where the ruins fit in

As you’ve probably guessed, the ruins will only be used in the last two larger runs, which we’re also using double mats for.  We’ll rebuild the buildings with the ruins in place – it’s as simple as that.
It’s important though to remember that there are various ways to use them, and it doesn’t need to be as involved as this.  You could build a ruined heap of a building as your central point, or defend a ruined building because it’s easier (perhaps) to enter.  Or you could invent a narrative of your own, around the ruins.

It might work for you too – I’m really looking forward to how we play this upcoming campaign.  What do you think?