Imperial Moot/Model Government online Campaign?

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Lords,

What about doing a game somehow (PBEM, etc. ) In which he PCs each control a Star System or two and represent the Leader that rules in a model moot envrionment?

Questions:

What Game System? I say t20 or CT

Where? ... Capital? the Moot Spire?
What other areas would be good?

Kinda like Dune? Yeah, it could be... royal houses and all that.

Players Status? Baron Up? Count Maximum?

Why? It will be cool, and we could all get Patents of Nobility and control lots of stuff.

Who will Referee? I will, but maybe we could do a Referee Tribunal or Triumverate. Mebbe each Referee could represent an Archduke or Sector Duke. NPCs could be very dynamic if controlled so.

How? We could do it PBEM, play by Post, anything really. Making it "live" somehow could be nice. Radio Show?

What would happen? Civil War? Backroom Dirty Deeds? Could be many things... many intrigues...

Any thoughts on the subject?

 

[parmasson]

Very interesting concept I vote for CT.

I assume the system would be generated by the Referee? Could be interesting, power blocks, fleets of starships, a narrowly avoiding Imperial intervention. Cool idea.

 

[RandyT0001]

CT

Massilia Sector before the Rebellion

Each PC is one of the sub-sector dukes of Massilia trying to impress the Emperor in hopes of getting appointed to the position of sector duke. Of course each PC would have some underlings who do some of the (dirty) work for him. There might even be a spy or two for one or two of the other subsector dukes in your camp. And each subsector duke has his family composed of daughters and sons to marry off, hoping to seal a great deal to position himself at the top of the emperor's list.

PBEM? or play by post? Not sure exactly how those work but a live IRC chat is probably not possible.

My first few thoughts on the subject.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

More rough ideas:

Each noble would control a certain domain. hey would have holdings consisting of Rights, Patronages, Property Holdings, etc. These would all add to a noble's power.

Game time would be weird, sometimes with it jumping weeks ahead when possible.

Thoughts:

A Capital Game would allow for literrally anything. There could be action from all over the Imperium, not to mention tangles with foreign diplomats.

A more dstant game would allow for more overt problems to occur.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

What if each Referee was Sector Duke of
Zarushagar, Massilia, Delphi or other core- surronding Sector putting influence on the core?

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

or not...

 

[parmasson]

Instead of a domain or an entire sector how about just a subsector?

One player one world kind of thing that way we would only need one or two refs? If we need more space then just slap on a new subsector? It would also make bookkeeping easier on the players.

 

[Border Reiver]

No.. definately a full sector, use the T4 Pocket Empires and Imperial Squadrons for the macrogame and Megatraveller for the gaming side. The rules mesh not too badly with a bit of fudging.

 

[LordGarth]

Count me in if it gets going. This sounds like a good idea. Any way to use Ventrilo or other VoIP program to all talk and game. PBEM is fine but lacks an element of conneciton to the other players.

 

[rmiracle]

I'm up for it as long as I don't get pinned to certain Real World hours to play.

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

Has anybody ever seen the old GDW game En Garde? It's sort of the marsupial of role-playing games, a cross between The Fantasy Trip and Diplomacy. It's a very abstract simulation of 17th Century France ala Three Musketeers; play revolves around "heroes" as they attempt to woo mistresses, attain military or government office by merit or purchase, and generally claw their way up the social ladder (or fall down it).

There's a review of it here that describes the game in more detail, although I might fault the reviewer for suggesting it is "hardly ... role playing"; it seems that there is great space for role playing in this game, it's just not really discussed as part of the rules - whence the Diplomacy angle. It appears the game will be republished by this gentleman fairly soon. There are a number of alternate "house" settings, including ones based in the universe of Frank Herbert's Dune and the Vatican in the 16th century.

Observant Travellers will note that both Frank Chadwick and Loren Wiseman worked on the game. Some ideas present in the game clearly made their way into Traveller.

At any rate, it might be interesting to use the game, and some of the house rules that have been developed for it, as a guideline in creating a Third Imperium simulation of the kind you propose.

 

[Golan2072]

As I see it, there are two (very different) general directions this could go into. The first is pure-RP, diplomacy-heavy, politics-heavy Capital game, in which the focus is on character interactions between the social elite of the Imperium and on large-scale problem-solving and decision making (i.e. deciding stuff in "the big picture" rather than micromanaging); game-rules would be present in a very abstract form if at all. The other is a strategy game not unlike TNE's World Tamer's Handbook, with scale probably being smaller for managability and each player controlling a world or a small polity/sub-polity and managing it in a detailed manner; rules would go along World Tamer's Handbook, possibly with Trillion Credits Squadron and/or High Guard for naval action.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Looking at scope, 1 subsector per player would be the way to go. 1 sector per player would be a game of legendary proportions, probably impossible, unless players were all locked in a "Big Brother" house....

Problem: Not all subsectors are created Equal. This disparity could make or break players. I agree with you, 2 dash 4601, it would have to be exceedingly abstract to be playable. To handle every battle or action just by basic traveller operation would have us all in striaghtjackets with the administration alone.

I have (abarrring RL recent summer annoyances) made really good progress towards packaging all aspects of Nobility Rulership into a workable form. It is part Character Sheet, and Part Card Game almost (but not lame) I am working more on establishing standards for fleet representation and a macro-economic system. As in " I offer 40 tons of Zuchai for your Agroprocessor Units!" etc.

It could play like a hyper game of monopoly...
It should be fast and playable.

 

[bryan gibson]

I'd be interested, but more on the diplomacy/RP approach, as I'm not a huge fan of grand strategic games where I am engaging in more accounting and resoutces management - I get that from Homeworld.

The appeal to me is the diplomacy and the variables that live opponents brings - the ability to malke alliances, enemies, what have you along with the interestinmg interactions that brings.

Let me know how it shape up!