A campaign is a sequence of missions with continuity. Where a mission is one
evening, a campaign is the arc across several, and the thing that makes it a campaign
rather than a list is that state carries forward.
The sections
| Group | Section | What it is |
|---|
| Core | General | Identity and description. |
| Media | Art and video for presentation. |
| Prologue | Opening the whole campaign. |
| Epilogue | Closing it. |
| Content | Steps | The missions, in order, and the branching between them. |
| Events | Campaign‑level logic, spanning missions. |
| Variables | State that survives from one mission to the next. |
Steps
Steps are the spine. Each names a mission and the conditions for moving on. A linear
campaign is a list of steps; a branching one uses variables to decide which step comes
next.
Variables are the whole point
Campaign variables are what a mission can write and a later mission can read. That
is what lets the third session know the crew let the freighter captain live in the
first.
Two pieces of advice, both learned the hard way by anyone who has built one:
- Decide your variables before you write the missions. Retrofitting
continuity means editing every mission you have already finished.
- Name them for what they record, not what they cause.
FreighterCaptainAlive survives a change of plan; SkipToStep4
does not.
Campaign events
Events at campaign level see across missions, which is where you put the
consequences that are not any one mission's business — a faction's attitude
hardening, a resource depleting over the arc.
Practical advice
- Make each mission stand alone first. A mission that only works as
step four is a mission you cannot test.
- Write the epilogue early. Knowing how it ends is what tells you
which variables you need.
- Expect the crew to lose one. A campaign that assumes victory at
every step has no room for the interesting sessions.
