Leagues of the Perilous Island Campaign

Leagues of the Perilous Island Campaign

Theodore Roosevelt and Tesla and the Irregulars
The Cultist of Cthulhu
The Royal Navy
Hardcastles' Heroes
The Tong of the Black Scorpion
Crash's Rocket Brigade

We started with 5 teams, with the Rocket corp arriving on the island part way through act II. Along the way the odd other league made guest appearances as for instance when a friend from oversea dropped in to visit us and we dealt him in.

Going with 5 leagues had its challenges as most scenarios are for 2 to 4 players. I went with 5 leagues to be able to take into account some weekends when some players could not make it, we could just keep going, which was the key to this campaign getting finished. Too often people delay and delay trying to pick a day that everyone can attend. To heck with that I say. If you can't make it tough, you can just catch up to the other players later.

With Pulp Alley, players will receive experience and reputation points plus extra points for gear, tips etc. However even the most successful players will not receive so many points that they will out distance there fellow players. True one of the leagues managed to reach 25 reputation points while his nearest competitor was in the low teens, but this still does not equate out to overwhelming power compared to other leagues. Basically there is league development but it is not out of control. Also anyone on any given day can make inroads. In one case, the Rocket Corp having only started part way through Act II was so successful in his day of gaming that he passed two other players in reputation points.

That leads us to another aspect of our gaming. We had limited choice of days to play, but when we got together we would play multiple games. Since games take place on a 3'x3' surface I was able to set up 4 boards (and at one point 5) at one time. In some cases there were 2 of the same scenario so that I could accommodate how ever many players showed up. Again, for me to stay focused I had to set targets and keep the campaign going regardless of how many players attended. Also when we got to Act II having multiple games set up meant that we had many options. We could play challenge rounds where the winner of Lagoon of terror could pretty much determine who his opponent(s) would be and which scenario would be played. If a lot of players attended, we could keep the numbers down in any given scenario by splitting the players into smaller groups, so two games of two instead of 1 game of 4. It kept the games moving along. Finally, some player could only arrive later so the flexibility of multiple games already set up allowed us to play a game while waiting for other players to arrive. It led to staggered game starts at times where the first two players to arrive would find themselves paired up, and would start right away, and the next player would then wait until the next player(s) showed up. This way it was possible to get three games in for any given player!