Running Online Empire Building

[EdgerRel]

Hi All,

I love world building but am always dissappointed when I spend all this time developing a world and the PCs are not into it.

Before we begin our next live tabletop campaign, I would like the PCs to help me develop the Empires. The plan is to have each PC and a few friends that live out of state represent an Empire each. We would then do a sorta play by post with each post representing X time of managing, exploring, trading, waring, etc with the other Empires. Between messageboards and some light PHP/mySQL, this shouldn't be too bad. It will be a lot of record keeping but I think it will be worth it.

I have the rough details figured out in my head but would love to hear any suggestions or ideas.

Regards,
Nick

 

[Wik]

Buy the game Civilization 4, and custom edit the map you want. Instead of taking techs completely seriously, you could sort of "translate" them into your fantasy way of thinking. Fighter planes, when you get that far into the game, could be considered pegasus knights or somesuch.

You could even assign each player roles - one player is the orcs, one is the elves, etc.

The other option is to look at the Birthright Campaign setting, which was pretty much built for this type of game.

 

[utopia27]

I used classic Illuminati rules (slightly modified) to advance a timeline. I represented the major powers and actors as Illuminati groups, introduced a set of artifacts (it was a SF game, so this was easier...), and added event/playhable cards based on the originals. Each of the players got a good chunk of continent. As GM I played a couple independents. I also played the (eventually introduced) Major New Event group (first contact incident). Each one of the players' characters from the previous campaign was represented.

We took several hours to play through, including rules introduction (none of the players knew original Illuminati). It was a very memorable game. It got the characters to know and identify with different countries and factions. Some of the factions and organizations got very personal histories and backstories - largely by getting involved with the original characters. Some memorable characters emerged - the 'Dahli Lama' got super powers, and advanced to immediate epic/demi-god status. It was also a good way to introduce the _players_ to a lot of the behind-the-scenes secret societies and factions that their _characters_ shouldn't have clear visibility to.

Importantly, it allowed the players to shape and evolve the environment. As a GM, it was a big leap to let entire power structures get rearranged, treasured organizations get destroyed, and watch background characters push forward as world leaders. But I kept track throughout the game (all hail the digital camera!), took notes, and wove the (abstract) action into a set of stories and plot lines that formed the basis of the next campaign. And the players got invested enough that they were constantly reminding me of details...

A few alterations - I used the newer action-token rules from the new INWO. I ditched money. I changed the base groups to be large national powers/factions, rather than secret societies. There were no win conditions per se - there was an intermediate goal (getting your nationality/power group a colonization opportunity..). The intermediate goal was introduced as several individual controllable groups part-way through the game. I introduced group creation/change/improvement capabilities, in line with the original group destruction rules.

 

[pogre]

Hi All,

I love world building but am always dissappointed when I spend all this time developing a world and the PCs are not into it.

Before we begin our next live tabletop campaign, I would like the PCs to help me develop the Empires. The plan is to have each PC and a few friends that live out of state represent an Empire each. We would then do a sorta play by post with each post representing X time of managing, exploring, trading, waring, etc with the other Empires. Between messageboards and some light PHP/mySQL, this shouldn't be too bad. It will be a lot of record keeping but I think it will be worth it.

I have the rough details figured out in my head but would love to hear any suggestions or ideas.

Regards,
Nick

Welcome to ENWorld!

If your players are not into world building, their efforts may disappoint you. I think your approach would be fantastic, but I know my players - for the most part they just want to show up and play.

You have two courses - survey them and make sure this is something they are interested in and want to do. and/or

Build an incentive program into the campaign for their PCs that give their PCs tangible benefits for participating.

If you get this going, post a link. I would love to lurk and see how this works out for you.