Hello fellow dwellers,
I have recently started a new campaign with my girlfriend using a simplified ruleset for settlement mode. While the official one is great for its complexity, we were looking for something less time consuming to organize.
What we wanted was:
- encourage narration across game sessions
- feeling of progression
What we didn’t want was:
- a long time for setup
- complicated tracking of progress
So here’s what I came up with, feel free to use the system yourself:
1. Setup the Item-Deck
For the first game, the Item Deck only includes items with a point value of 5 and lower. It also includes all trash items.
2. Setup the initial forces
For the first game, the force(s) of the player(s) consist of 1 model (each), equipped according to its AI card.
3. Acquiring Basic Items
Each scenario, there are 5 random, non-letter Searchable-Tokens spread across the battlefield. When an item is found this way, the player keeps it.
4. Scenario Creation
Each scenario is played to unlock something. This can be a model or an item that costs too much to be included in the (current) item deck. Players come up with a story for why the victorious outcome of the scenario would grant them another character or a new item and make up a fitting scenario with an worthy enemy force on the fly. No other rewards (like bottlecaps) are gained for playing a scenario.
5. Progression
Each successfully completed scenario grants the player(s) 1 new model or 1 new item. In addition to that, each completed scenario (successful or not) increases the point limit of items in the deck by 1. So after the first scenario, it will include items with a point value of 6 or less, after the second one with 7 or less, and so on.
6. Exploration
Instead of being used in a game, a character can go exploring. Draw an Explore-card for each member of your group that went exploring instead of participating in the scenario.
7. Spending Bottlecaps
Actually, I don’t have a solid idea for that one quite yet. Of course, sometimes Explore-cards and some others may prompt the player to pay caps, but I’m not sure that’s the best solution. Besides, with a thickening deck, Trash-items will be drawn ever less often.
8. Using consumables
Consumables are shuffled back into the item deck once they were used. Trash-items are shuffled back into the deck immediately after the caps value was added to the player(s) caps stash.
So what you need to track is:
- how many scenarios have you played
- what models you have unlocked
- what items you have in your posession
That’s the entire ruleset. The time gained by avoiding the complex force setup is instead spent on coming up with an interesting scenario to tell a story, which made “our” Fallout-world feel a lot more alive. Also, we came up with small background stories for all models, which creates a pool of ideas for new scenarios. And we write something like a diary for our small group of wastelanders to keep track of everything that’s happening.
To give you a feeling of how this would look like, here’s how our first scenario went:
My girlfriend started with Sole Survivor Day One, equipped (according to the AI card) with the 10mm pistol. I started with Aspirant Goddard, equipped (again, like on the AI card) with the Baseball Bat and a T-60 power armor.
This gave me an obvious advantage, so she got to choose what she wanted first. That was the female settler from the starter set. By looking at the model, we figured she was some kind of huntress. Why would a huntress join us? Well, maybe she can’t hunt right now. Why not? Super Mutants disturb her hunting? Ok, how? Maybe she usually hunts Mutant Hounds for their meat and for sport, but recently, there has been a Super Mutant herding and protecting them, so she can’t hunt anymore. So what do we do? We need to take out that Super Mutant, but without killing the Mutant Hounds, because she still wants to hunt them.
Some easy point calculation later (I always have a list ready with the point costs of everything equipped with their standard equipment), the scenario was:
- Us against 1 Super Mutant & 2 Mutant Hounds
- The Super Mutants are unaware of us and try to cross the map
- We win as soon as we kill the Super Mutant
After a close and exciting game, my girlfriend finished the Super Mutant with a devastating headshot. Scenario won!
While playing, I found a Machete, which was good since we now had a third character join us, who had no weapon. I shuffled the .44 Revolver into our deck, which was the only 6-point-card I have, and we were done.
That was it, and it was a good start. Fallout Wasteland Warfare offers a great toolset to come up with a lot more complex scenarios, and that’s very good, as those basic ideas (like “kill specific model”) will probably bore us rather sooner than later 
And if you use it yourself, remember that this was just an example - you can go all in with special scenario rules and what not right from the start if that’s what you want!
So what do you think? Anyone else preferring a more simplified style or is it just me? Let me know how it worked for you if you decide to try it out!