Any advice on designing co-op games for CR 2015 ...

[ilprincipe]

Hello everyone, I wonder if any of you could offer me any advice at all about designing some simple co-op games?

I really enjoy playing THW games so I want to generate some interest in the system among the players at my local club.  To that end I'd like to put on a couple of simple but enjoyable co-op games.  I'm thinking of using the Chain Reaction 2015 ruleset to run a post-WW2 skirmish game, maybe set in post-colonial Africa but that doesn't really matter, and Swordplay 2015 for a Viking raid style of game.  I'm more familiar with those two rulesets than any of the others but I've only ever played them solo, to any extent.  (I also have RRtK and Morale Napoleon but I don't think they're as suited to the purpose of a taster game.)

I expect to have two to four players on the live player side and I will either just moderate the game and run the PEFs or also step in on the live player side if there are too few players.  We'll likely be using 28mm figures in both cases, we have plenty of suitable terrain and we don't particularly have any table size constraints. 

The basic operation of the game at the encounter level doesn't give me any concerns but I'm not so sure about the following.

(1) With several players, how do I run the turn sequence so that each player is involved for the majority of each turn.  Put another way, how do I avoid having all bar one of the players hanging around while that one resolves their actions?

(2) Assuming that a multi-player game is effectively several single player games stitched together (but you may think not), how do I adjust the table size to suit and get the right balance in the number of PEFs overall?

(3) How much time do you think we might need if we're to get at least a reasonable way through the scenario?  For the purposes of these taster games, we don't have to finish.  As long as there's a lot of action and mayhem we'll be fine and my experience to date of THW is that action and mayhem are built in so I have no worries on that score.

Apart from those questions, any other advice you may have will be most welcome.

Regards,

Chris

[stryderg]

My suggestions:
Start with each player having 1 mini, various reps from 3-5. Scatter some PEF's around. Mission is just to get to the other side of the board.
This is a learning game, how to activate, how to move, how to resolve a PEF, how to shoot, etc.
Activation works the same: 2 dice, highest reps that can activate go first (Any groups with the same rep can go at the same time if they won't interfere with each other or have them each roll a die, highest goes first).
ie: Player's activation dice = 4. Three players have Rep5 minis, they each roll a die and go in order. Then the single Rep4 player can activate.

The various reps will let them see how effective each one is. Pre-generate the PEF's so that you know what they'll run into.
This should take 20-30 minutes, mostly explaining and answering questions.

Next game, each player gets 2 or 3 minis and do it again. Explain groups and let them mix it up... move one of your minis to join another player's group, etc.

Then build from there. Each player can have the same objective, or competing objectives. Each player can have various numbers of minis of various reps. Some of the PEF's can be traps instead of enemies. OOF minis need to be cared for or guarded.

At conventions, we've played All Things Zombie with 20 people (3-4 minis each), in around 2 hours, maybe a 6 foot x 6 foot table. It was co-op vs the zombies until the primary objective was reached (find a person that's hiding). Then we found out that only the group that gets that person off the table gets paid (Ed offered a free copy of the rules to the winner). Suddenly it was a free for all with chaos reigning and bullets flying. There were very few survivors.

[Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy]

At conventions, we've played All Things Zombie with 20 people (3-4 minis each), in around 2 hours, maybe a 6 foot x 6 foot table. It was co-op vs the zombies until the primary objective was reached (find a person that's hiding). Then we found out that only the group that gets that person off the table gets paid (Ed offered a free copy of the rules to the winner). Suddenly it was a free for all with chaos reigning and bullets flying. There were very few survivors.

Yep, fun time.

Stryderg has it spot on. Start small.

[ilprincipe]

Strydberg, that's really helpful advice. Thanks very much for taking the trouble and for such a prompt reply. Ed too. Regards, Chris