Description
This is a game system that can be applied to a variety of different maps, starting resources and positions, and even different win and loss conditions. These variable conditions can be assembled into a broader narrative or campaign, or they can be entirely disconnected from one another.
Discussion
The roots of scenario-based games are in storytelling, history, war games, and RPGs. The idea is that a rich experience can be woven out of multiple episodes, planned out to be experienced sequentially. In war games like Advanced Squad Leader, the same core system, together with substantial supplements, enables players to model an enormous variety of possible conflicts. As players gain mastery, they can attempt more challenging and complex scenarios. At the other end of the spectrum, a warthemed game like Memoir ’44 gives players the opportunity to play the many battles and confrontations that made up the D-Day invasion with an intuitive ruleset that can be taught in ten minutes.
Scenario structures are popular in dungeon crawler games. Swap in a new dungeon map, a new boss monster, maybe some new mission types, and players can enjoy new challenges without learning new rules. Scenarios can also be completely detached from any narrative and simply allow players to face off against one another in a skirmish mode that provides some basic rules for force construction. Scenarios are also prevalent in cooperative settings, both for offering different levels of difficulty and for creating variety. A “campaign” structure differs from the scenario in that the output from one scenario feeds into the next. Campaigns can have a specific set of scenarios that players go through in order or a tree-like structure where winning or losing a scenario determines which scenario is played next, or other structures. Typically, the impact of the past scenario on the next scenario is on the resources that players or enemy characters have access to (such as surviving units, character levels, or abilities). However, these are not the only options. In Oath, each game has different deck compositions, kingdom locations, and even victory conditions based on the prior game. Recently, there has been an explosion in the types of games offering a scenario or campaign structure. Catan expansions going back as far as Seafarers of Catan have offered scenario play, but the hits like The 7th Continent, Mechs vs. Minions, Near and Far, and the card-based dungeon crawlers like Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and Gloomhaven have rocketed in popularity. It’s also impossible not to mention T.I.M.E Stories and the various escape room game series like Exit: The Game, Unlock!, and Deckscape. Tough each box is a self-contained experience, the play system is largely similar from box to box, and outside of the packaging and business model, these games are scenario-based in structure. One might even consider Age of Steam maps, Power Grid expansions, Ticket to Ride standalone variants from Europe to New York, Pandemic: Iberia and Cthulhu, and the Mystery Rummy series as follow-on scenarios, sold separately.
Sample Games
The 7th Continent (Roudy and Sautter, 2017) Advanced Squad Leader (Greenwood, 1985) Age of Steam (Wallace, 2002) Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game (Gilmour and Vega, 2014) Deckscape (Chiachierra and Sorrentino, 2017) Exit: The Game (Brand and Brand, 2016) Mechs vs. Minions (Cantrell, Ernst, Librande, Saraswat, and Tiras, 2016) Memoir ’44 (Borg, 2004) Near and Far (Laukat, 2017) Oath (Wehrle, 2021) Pandemic game system (Leacock, 2008) Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (Selinker, Brown, O’Connor, Peterson, and Weidling, 2013) T.I.M.E Stories (Chassenet and Rozoy, 2015) Ticket to Ride (Moon, 2004) Unlock! series (Various, 2017)
描述
这是一种可以应用于各种不同地图、起始资源和位置，甚至不同输赢条件的游戏系统（Scenario Mission Campaign Games）。这些可变条件可以组合成更广泛的叙事或战役，也可以完全互不关联。
讨论
基于场景的游戏植根于讲故事、历史、战争游戏和RPG。这个想法是，可以从多个剧集中编织出丰富的体验，并计划按顺序体验。在像《Advanced Squad Leader》这样的战争游戏中，相同的核心系统，加上大量的补充，使玩家能够模拟大量可能的冲突。随着玩家掌握熟练度，他们可以尝试更具挑战性和复杂性的场景。在这一谱系的另一端，像《Memoir ’44》这样的战争主题游戏给玩家机会，用可以在十分钟内教会的直观规则集，去玩组成D日入侵的许多战斗和对抗。
场景结构在地下城爬行游戏中很受欢迎。换一个新的地下城地图，一个新的首领怪物，也许还有一些新的任务类型，玩家可以在不学习新规则的情况下享受新的挑战。场景也可以完全脱离任何叙事，只是让玩家在提供一些基本部队构建规则的小规模冲突模式中相互对抗。场景在合作环境中也很普遍，既可以提供不同的难度水平，也可以创造多样性。“战役”结构与场景的不同之处在于，一个场景的输出直接影响下一个场景。战役可以有一组特定的场景，玩家按顺序进行，或者有一个树状结构，其中赢得或输掉一个场景决定了下一个玩哪个场景，或其他结构。通常，过去的场景对下一个场景的影响在于玩家或敌方角色可以访问的资源（如幸存单位、角色等级或能力）。然而，这些并不是唯一的选择。在《Oath》中，每场游戏都有不同的牌组构成、王国位置，甚至基于前一场游戏的胜利条件。最近，提供场景或战役结构的游戏类型出现了爆炸式增长。早在《卡坦岛海洋版》（Seafarers of Catan）的《卡坦岛》扩展包就提供了场景游戏，但像《The 7th Continent》、《Mechs vs. Minions》、《Near and Far》以及基于卡牌的地下城爬行游戏如《Pathfinder Adventure Card Game》和《Gloomhaven》等热门游戏的人气飙升。也不可能不提及《T.I.M.E Stories》和各种逃脱房间游戏系列，如《Exit: The Game》、《Unlock!》和《Deckscape》。虽然每个盒子都是一个独立的体验，但游戏系统在盒子之间基本相似，在包装和商业模式之外，这些游戏在结构上是基于场景的。人们甚至可能认为《Age of Steam》地图、《电力公司》扩展、《车票之旅》从欧洲到纽约的独立变体、《Pandemic: Iberia》和《Cthulhu》以及《Mystery Rummy》系列是后续场景，单独出售。
游戏范例
The 7th Continent (Roudy and Sautter, 2017) - 《第七大陆》 Advanced Squad Leader (Greenwood, 1985) - 《高级小队领袖》 Age of Steam (Wallace, 2002) - 《蒸汽时代》 Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game (Gilmour and Vega, 2014) - 《死亡寒冬》 Deckscape (Chiachierra and Sorrentino, 2017) - 《Deckscape》 Exit: The Game (Brand and Brand, 2016) - 《大搜查/Exit》系列 Mechs vs. Minions (Cantrell, Ernst, Librande, Saraswat, and Tiras, 2016) - 《机甲与小兵》 Memoir ’44 (Borg, 2004) - 《回忆录：44》 Near and Far (Laukat, 2017) - 《远方/Near and Far》 Oath (Wehrle, 2021) - 《Oath》 Pandemic game system (Leacock, 2008) - 《瘟疫危机》系统 Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (Selinker, Brown, O’Connor, Peterson, and Weidling, 2013) - 《Pathfinder Adventure Card Game》 T.I.M.E Stories (Chassenet and Rozoy, 2015) - 《时空故事》 Ticket to Ride (Moon, 2004) - 《车票之旅》 Unlock! series (Various, 2017) - 《大搜查/Unlock!》系列