Meta

There’s playing the game, and then there’s things outside of the game that are linked to it. Those are the meta.

Campaign Games

Some games are played that affect other games you play later, perhaps with the same person or someone from the same group. There might be a shared map or status. There might be an ending and an overall winner. Maybe you just level up or track injuries of units. The game between games could be as developed as each individual contest.

Sometimes, the campaign can be a whole other game that can be played independently of the primary game (at least, in theory). Flames of War’s campaign sets work something like this, and, as I understand it, Sam Mustafa’s Nimitz does as well. It’s difficult to balance things so that each is significant, but neither can dominate the other. If masterful maneuvers on the map can make for unwinnable (or just unfun) battles on the table, that can hurt a campaign game. On the other hand, if tight tactics on the table (or fortunate die rolls) can turn any odds on the map, why bother with the over-game?

Tournament/Pick-up

Other games are played in a vacuum. Any player can play any other, following agreed upon standards. You can go to the game store or club on a weekend and play whoever is there. These games also do well for tournaments where you don’t want the results of one match to affect another, and you are likely to play a few strangers.

Scenario Driven

Maybe there’s just one, maybe a finite number, or maybe each is crafted by hand. Maybe you’re re-creating a battle from history or the background of the setting. These games might be events, maybe happening once a year, or at a convention, or maybe you play a few different ones ina row. In any case, you aren’t likely to play the same scenario a bunch of times in a row. If one play affects another, it is likely only in the narrative.

Board wargames might have a book of many scenarios. I’m thinking of things like the Command and Colors series which has dozens. Miniature game scenarios might be more cumbersome to set up and test, but aside from that I don’t see a reason why they couldn’t have so many.

Global Narrative

What if the game you played affected not just other games you played, but everyone’s games? The Storm of Chaos was something like that. Reported tournament results changed the narrative.

This is somewhat more common in collectible card games. Flesh and Blood has a balancing system based on tournament results, KeyForge has a handicapping system that encourages players to report every result. I’ve heard that Legend of the Five Rings shaped its narrative off of tournament results.