Mesopotamia Game

[Mithras]

There's alot to say here. How much time have I got? <looks at watch ... not alot>

I think that you must distinguish between what an RPG does well and what a computer game does well. Sim City/Civilization - are best played (in my opinion) as computer games (or the original boardgame which I never bought because I had no-one who would play it!). RPGs deal with roles and people. Historical RPGs with exploring the immediacies and experiences of another historical culture. In this way I think that a specific setting is by far the best way to go rather than a tool-kit approach to developing a burgeoning civilization.

That said, you have to select your period with care. Well actually, you have to select either 'mythic' or 'historical'. My preference (depending on the games I want to play) is to fictionalize some aspects of the setting to suit my approach. The ancients did this all the tme. There is no canon of Mesopotamian or Egyptian myth, it changes depending on who you are talking to (Or what city they're from!).

You could go:

1) Super-Historical. Babylon 1456 BC, Eridu 2458 BC, Uruk 2600 BC.

2) Semi-Mythologized. eg. Babylon as the First City as the Babylonians themselves saw it at creation. A fiction. But one that existed in the minds of the Babylonians (I love the idea they had that a vast anchor rope stretched from the roof of Marduk's temple, Esagila in Babylon up to the Heavens and connected the two. Imagine seeing that!). Contracycle mentioned Akkad as the first human-made city. Great! Use that. No-one knows where Akkad is, it was the centre of a fantastic empire forged by Sargon the Great - a spectacular period in human history. It's already fictionalized, the ruler mythologized, the work is done for you. Sargon and Akkad is more fantasy than Fritz Leiber!

3) Pure Mythology. The start of time. I love all three approaches - this third is my favourite. The world was created 5 years ago. Gods still walk the earth (or live with the temples they call homes). The landscape beyond Mesopotamia is still forming, bubbling, shifting, mountains are still growing, seas still filling. Humans are the very first! Eridu is the city you have to use (or Babylon for the reason I mentioned above). In this game players can encounter the very problems facing the original early peoples - desert raiders, famines, water-shortages, crime, tyranny, factional fighting, and so on.

Time up - gotta go!

[contracycle]

As a veteran Civ player, its definately the case that there are similarities; that is not accidental.  OTOH, the idea is too widespread for us to be concerned about copyright or anything IMO.

Anyway.  Let me have another crack at explaining what I'm imagining:

We establish those three strata as above; these strata can be opposed of Elements.  Say,
Trade Route to Egypt
Astronomy
Writing
... at the "world" or city level.

In play, as a character, you may reference these properties of the world or the city or whatever.

As regards player competition, I expect that many games will revolve around members of a given city; but I think that many players like to come from somewhere outside the immediate play area, and there might be a lot of room for playing off these relationships.  In principle, I think this could handle a wide range of games - dungeon crawl (6 Uruk warriors, say) or wargame (Uruk vs. Kish vs. Akkad, say) depending on who the characters actually are.  Thats the bit that is negotiated at startup - what kind of game do we actually want to play today?

Thats what I mean by both a system and an implementation.  To make the dynastic model work, we need to describe the culture as mechanically manipulable.  IF we can do, its probable that the same system could be transferred in abstract to other historical epochs, and realised with the appropriate culural detail.

As for the whole dynastic thing... I don't we have to determine beforehand what sort of game is played.  Say the group chose, for whatever reason, chose to play a game called "The Rise and Fall of Ur".  Over the course of this campaign, they may play several discrete character-lives; in Arc 1 they might be warriors, in Arc 2 the princeling children of those warriors, in Arc 3 the members of a prestigious family escaping the loot and rapine as the city burns.

In this case, the frame would establish Ur by listing its properties... say "city walls 6" or something.  These could be used by players in a variety of ways; perhaps a "Trade Route to Egypt" could be used differently by the warriors and the princelings, in the above example, the former using it to justify combat skill ("I worked on the caravan") and the latter to exile political enemies - ("I have him sold to the Pharaohs - they're always in need of pyramid builders").

Obviously, sooner or later character actions are going to have an impact on the Big Picture - the construction of monuments, defenses, technical development etc etc.  Seeing as the passage of time is an explicit theme, these have to be adressed mechanically in advance - hence the reuirement for a 3-strata game which is still going to be viewed primarily in the first person.  To the extent that there is active gamism of the sim city variety, I would see that occurring in the metagame and primarily in the interstices between "adventures".  Frex, players might specify a "construct ziggurat" option becuase of the "social stability +2" reward that applies to the city from then on; and then set a game in the first person against that backdrop.

Phew.  I think the best place to start mechanically would be in the interaction between individuals and city-level social institutions like temples and so on.

[Mike Holmes]

I think that you must distinguish between what an RPG does well and what a computer game does well.

I think that you are really missing the point. We're not trying to actually reproduce the game Civilization so much as use a model for a developing Civilization as the backdrop for roleplaying characters from that Civ.

Here's an example of how I see it going potentially. Gareth is playing the High Priest of Enlil on Uruk. Bob is playing the firstborn son of the current King of Uruk. I am GM. In the current era the problem which I have come up for the players is a massive flood which has destroyed the granary of Uruk. On top of this there are signs of raiders making forays to the west of the city. So, as the game begins we start with the King slumped on his throne waiting for the next bad portent, and not really helping the situation at all. The royal advisors start looking to the PCs for direction. What do the players do? Do they order the troops of the city to help in the reconstruction of the granary? The captains will surely protest at their men being used for such labor and point out that they are needed to prevent looting, and to watch for the presence of raiders. Do they send the troops after the raiders to take care of that problem first? What about the looting? Anyhow, a bad situation.

The players decide on a plan of action by role-playing out the court scene. Then as the plan swings into action they are seen around town working to keep the plan functioning or making adjustments as necessary. At stake is the Health of the populace based on how much grain the rats get, and the security of he citizens based on teh raiders, and the economic wellbeing of the city as buisnesses are destroyed by looting. A realy good solution might prevent all these things from occuring, and raise the spiritual morale of the people by working together to fix the problems.

In any case, the city-state's stats are adjusted after the problem is over, and the city progresses a few years on its new stats. Then some new event occurs and the players dive in again, eiher with the same but older characters, or with heirs or successors. Perhaps Bob's character is now Kingm and faces an opportunity to seize the city of Nippur?

Does that help with picturing it? Is that the sort of thing that you were communicating Gareth?

1) Super-Historical. Babylon 1456 BC, Eridu 2458 BC, Uruk 2600 BC.
2) Semi-Mythologized.
3) Pure Mythology.

All cool ways to go. Again, I can see the opportunity for more than one game here. OTOH, I think that even if we do go with a Mesopotamia specific game that it will look like the above example as well. Just the concept that I think we're headed for right now.

Then again, there's the option for a third Game which would be a more regular Mesopotamian RPG.

Mike "Needs to get in some more Mesopotamian reading" Holmes

[contracycle]

culture. In this way I think that a specific setting is by far the best way to go rather than a tool-kit approach to developing a burgeoning civilization.

Just wanted to say: yes but.  The purpose of the tool kit is to mediate player action across time - the bane of the historical realist.  "But I killed Julius Caesar in the crib!".  However, in finding a way to do so mechanically, we are in effect developing a system which should in principle be able to operate in a vacuum - i.e. with a totally notional civilisation.  That presents the possibility that IF we can implement a model for Mesopotamia, we would also have a tool which could be used for something rather different - starting with a patch of empty land and building a whole fictional world from the ground up based on interactive player creation.

[Mike Holmes]

Holy Crossed Posts!

OK, I think that Gareth and I are on a similar wavelength, but we may have somewhat differing ideas about how long first-person play interjections might last. Or maybe not. Getting there, tho.

Mike

[Mithras]

A-ha ... I see, that does make it clearer now. I was under the impression that you were angling to bring the stats and mechanics of the civilization to the fore, with characters somewhat in the background. And the goal of the game being cultural development. The mention of Aria didn't help!

Mmmm. I like your take on it Mike, Gareth. As long as its all in-character stuff (a la Pendragon) with the civilization being mapped out by the GM (or whoever) between games, just as you would adjust a traditional campaign. Giving stats to these campaign elements (just as I am doing in my Egypt game) then establishes plainly and simply that these attributes are changeable, and indeed can change according to the actions of the characters. And this does work best (I would imagine) by taking the long overview approach of RPing (something I don't plan on in my Egypt game, though the possibilities of picking up sons, grandsons and nephews to continue the tradition is always there. But the aim is to keep Egypt as a stable, solid foundation for games).

[contracycle]

Does that help with picturing it? Is that the sort of thing that you were communicating Gareth?

Almost exactly :)

I am GM. In the current era the problem which I have come up for the players is a massive flood which has destroyed the granary of Uruk. On top of this there are

The only caveat I have here is that this might be discussed amongst all the participants prior to play.  This is for several reasons - one of which is the "I would like to..." and the other is "But meanwhile what would have happened..."

Firstly, you might as well cater to player tastes, especially if you are doing the totally freeform version.  Secondly, as you skip through time, players may well have opinions as to what could or should have occurred in the interim, and more specifically what any live characters would have been doing.  This is a good thing if for no other reason than to avoid jarring players and to milk their personal knowledge.

Lastly, I also considered what I think is a more narrativist approach than my usual style (partly implemented in the prior discussion above) in which the players need not have characters who have a cooperative relationship.  This is much shakier in my head, and I'd appreciate some narrativist input.  The idea was that becuase the characters are linked by R-maps, there is a channel of communication that can be exploited in game to put those characters into direct interaction, even if they are opposed personally.  Thus, one might conceivably play the King or Ur and the King of Akkad, linked by a marriage or something but engaged in a war, and then aggressively frame the game in such a way as the actual PC's get to interact.  The GM's role is to get them together, not to construct plot.  So thats another way it might be actually played.

Anyway, part of the idea behind the cooperative, or at least explicit, situation and setting design is partly so the GM does not have to spend time carrying out exposition as to what the problem is and why its a bad thing; the players know that directly (they can, say, look at the city datasheet or whatever) and that informs their play; it acts as the tacit, environmental acquisition of knowledge about these things on the part of the characters.  

Anyway, the idea was much more of a request for comment than a full on proposal.  I think Mike and I are definately on the same page, and quite probably not a lot of the rest will really come together until we start trying to construct actual rules.  OTOH, anything in we can cover in conceptualisation would be a good thing, so all comments welcome IMO.

[Ron Edwards]

Gareth,

"I also considered what I think is a more narrativist approach than my usual style (partly implemented in the prior discussion above) in which the players need not have characters who have a cooperative relationship. This is much shakier in my head, and I'd appreciate some narrativist input. The idea was that becuase the characters are linked by R-maps, there is a channel of communication that can be exploited in game to put those characters into direct interaction, even if they are opposed personally."

Works for me! Very well stated. I'd play.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

The only caveat I have here is that this might be discussed amongst all the participants prior to play.  

I very much agree. And if going with a NArrative concept, the players can help fram the situation such that they can better exlpore whatever themes they choose. Hey, whywouldn'tcha!

Lastly, I also considered what I think is a more narrativist approach than my usual style (partly implemented in the prior discussion above) in which the players need not have characters who have a cooperative relationship.

OK. See I thought that we were going more Simmy, so I thought that conflict amongst players would be a bit difficult. But Narrative conflict between players is a great idea. Diplomacy (or lack of it) it is!

The idea was that becuase the characters are linked by R-maps, there is a channel of communication that can be exploited in game to put those characters into direct interaction, even if they are opposed personally.  Thus, one might conceivably play the King or Ur and the King of Akkad, linked by a marriage or something but engaged in a war, and then aggressively frame the game in such a way as the actual PC's get to interact.  The GM's role is to get them together, not to construct plot.  

Very much what I thought the GMs role would be. Head scene-framer and situation editor. Very cool. I see whole scenes as a series of delivered communiques. Each King can play his herald and deliver the King's message by proxy. Or any of a jillion other means of communication. Tre swoot.

Anyway, part of the idea behind the cooperative, or at least explicit, situation and setting design is partly so the GM does not have to spend time carrying out exposition as to what the problem is and why its a bad thing; the players know that directly (they can, say, look at the city datasheet or whatever) and that informs their play; it acts as the tacit, environmental acquisition of knowledge about these things on the part of the characters.  

Right. An explicitly detailed setting to play your narrativist story in. Better setting with less work for the GM. Perfect.

Anyway, the idea was much more of a request for comment than a full on proposal.  I think Mike and I are definately on the same page, and quite probably not a lot of the rest will really come together until we start trying to construct actual rules.  OTOH, anything in we can cover in conceptualisation would be a good thing, so all comments welcome IMO.

If you're willing I think we can nail this one down pretty quick now on the conceptual part. One biggie left. Narrative Premise. Lot's of easy choices for Kings. Personal Glory vs. Wellbeing of the Inhapitants, for instance. Those play off each other hard. Something like that. Any ideas? Anyone.

Mike

[contracycle]

As for the Sim thing and the Narrative thing...

There is no reason I see that it can't be run as heavy Sim.  Frex, the GM *could* unilaterally select the period and the premise and whatnot and give the players a totally Sim experience.  In fact, I think we would have to do so in order to demontsrate the structure.  The overlap arises more-or-less accidentally: by shifting to LifeTime, we need some way to regulate the determination of which scenes are played out.  OTOH, I see no reason that a RealTime game could not be executed within this structure, without all the setup, or the setup carried out unilaterally.

In fact what I would expect to see is something like this: the initial games would be heavy Sim while players and GM's learn the system.  In a later game, the characters are more likely to be socially significant, and hence empowered with world-realising techniques which are narratavist but legitimised in-game for non-narrativists.  In the third game, everyone should be comfortable and the narrativist methods may not need in-game legitimisation.

I think what we need to do next is work on a prototype.  We pick a city and start implementing stuff in its frame across the three strata, see where we get.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. We may have some trouble on GNS as, IIRC, you have ideas of its application that vary from the standard model. I'll try and stay away from specific theory as much as possible. I read a lot of the references to Narrativist techniques in your post as being Player Power related, and the result still seems pretty Sim to me. But that's fine, I like where it's going.

The thing is, then our Premise becomes something more like "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Mesopotamians".

There is no reason I see that it can't be run as heavy Sim.  Frex, the GM *could* unilaterally select the period and the premise and whatnot and give the players a totally Sim experience.  In fact, I think we would have to do so in order to demontsrate the structure.

So, for beginners, the GM selects everything? The idea being to run a sort of learning game? Or is there another reason?

The overlap arises more-or-less accidentally: by shifting to LifeTime, we need some way to regulate the determination of which scenes are played out.  

Yes, this is important. I see a couple of options. Perhaps players have the option to, say, spend points to zoom the timeframe in or out. Another obvious one is to make it a random result of the Civ admin structure. When rolling for certain things you just trigger a realted Zoom-In. Or perhaps the GM just decides as head Scene Framer (I think that's an interesting power distribution).

By the way, By LifeTime, you mean the quicker time frame, the one in which years pass as you administer the Civ? Or do I have that backward. We should define these terms, and decide what scales are official.

OTOH, I see no reason that a RealTime game could not be executed within this structure, without all the setup, or the setup carried out unilaterally.

Sure, I suppose that's possible. I'm not sure what you're getting at, though. Just that the game should not be set up so as to require zooming in and out? So that it is more versatile?

In fact what I would expect to see is something like this: the initial games would be heavy Sim while players and GM's learn the system.  In a later game, the characters are more likely to be socially significant, and hence empowered with world-realising techniques which are narratavist but legitimised in-game for non-narrativists.  In the third game, everyone should be comfortable and the narrativist methods may not need in-game legitimisation.

I'm not sure why you need this structure other than as a learning tool. Or perhaps as a "Transitional" device. Are either of those ideas the intent? I'd imagine experienced Narrativists just skipping right to "third game" play. Or do you see it as a progression that relates to the characters' social positions? Something that would add to play intrinsicly?

You state that characters will become more "socially-significant" over time. Is this in relation to the job climbing rules that we discussed in the Egypt game? That characters are somehow climbers in Mesopotamian society? Do we intend for players to play specific characters and then their offspring as was proposed earlier? If so, do the sons inherit the father's social position (stands to reason, with perhaps minor setbacks in the transfer)? How low down do starting characters start, socially? Lots of stuff to work out in relation to this.

I think what we need to do next is work on a prototype.  We pick a city and start implementing stuff in its frame across the three strata, see where we get.

Cool. The obvious choice is Babylon, though I find it sorta unfortunate that it is actually in the very middle of the civilization, timewise. Skips the Sumerians entirely. I'd think that Babylon would be the sort of Civilization to build up to.

Perhaps Ur (Uruk)?

Mike

[Valamir]

I'm not really sure I'm following where this thread is going.  There seems to be a lot of discussion about Narrative components vs Simulation components that I don't see as adding a whole lot to the idea of what this game is.  In fact, from where I'm sitting it seems to be muddying things up.

It seems to me that what you are going for is something along the lines of this:

Players take the role of people living in or dealing with a specific city.  The city itself has attributes and in a sense is itself a character...perhaps even a more important character than any of the PCs.

A game session will revolve around a particular group of citizens/visitors/interested parties engaged in some key moment of their lives, that key moment being defined as some moment that is of importance to both the character and the city.  The character's actions and resolutions in a given session will impact in some way the attributes of the city itself, makeing the city stronger or weaker based on the actions of the characters.

The characters may be princes and persons of power, but I don't see this as necessarily so.  Instead even a commoner character can be used as a proxy for large portions of the population.  The encounter of a common farmer whose home is raided by bandits and wife and child killed can be taken as an indicator that crime is rampant in the city and no one is safe, the character's experience being treated as an anecdote of more widespread events.  The cities attributes can be adjusted accordingly.  Conversely if the character manages to rally his nieghbors and drive off the bandits a different set of adjustments could be made (perhaps one that indicates a reduction in crime but an increase in the "power of the commoner"...or a decrease in the commoners reliance on the government.  Either way this modification could have interesting impact on city politics for the next session.

In fact, playing persons of no great importance would be ideal for the game.  Using their stories as an anecdote of what is going on in on a broader application will allow even a story about the lowest beggar to impact the overall stats of the city.  Beyond this though you can really get into some nitty gritty life in the city kind of stories.  The kind of things that make for wonderful short stories but would be lousy for an on going "campaign".  No one is going to want to play "Logi the penniless beggar" as he panhandles his way through the streets game after game.  But for a single session...even a single scene, how Logi gets treated by Jamni the wealthy merchant...when taken as being representative of the attitudes of rich to poor accross the whole city...would be REALLY powerful and really unique gaming.

As another example, the struggle of Gomo the farmer to finish his irrigation ditch in time for the planting while dealing with a squabbling family situation and persistant tax collectors would have a wealth of application.  He manages to complete the ditch (interpreted as farmers across the city improving their farms during this period and raising the city's agriculture rating), but his family situation goes down the tubes (interpreted as a social rebellion by the youth against the authority of family patriarchs and adjusting city stats accordingly, and he manages to bribe the tax collector to not throw him in prison (interpreted as an increase in corruption in the government bureaucracy).


In this way, spending a couple of sessions bouncing from one character to another would highlight the prevailing attitudes, beliefs, and events of a generation.  Then when some threshold has been crossed, flash forward to a new generation where the stats that have been changed by the previous generation now give the city a whole new flavor and set of problems to deal with.

In the process the entire history of a city (and by extension a region) is told through the anecdotal stories of "the real people who lived there".  

Just like Michener's characters in The Source.


Now as for the Sim / Narrative stuff.  For me the story would be alot more compelling if it were loaded with "real" history and mythology and lots of effective "sim" elements of the city and time being portrayed.  But the gameplay itself really can't be sim...because in a sim there is no way that Lodi the beggar is going to have a major impact on the entire city (unless he accidentally pushed a flower pot on the head of the emperor or something).  So the game really needs to be a very setting intensive narrative game, where the players are cooperating at "revealing" a great epic about the city, and where "great" is defined as including staying within the boundaries of historic authenticity.

Thats my 50 cents anyway.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not really sure I'm following where this thread is going.  There seems to be a lot of discussion about Narrative components vs Simulation components that I don't see as adding a whole lot to the idea of what this game is.  In fact, from where I'm sitting it seems to be muddying things up.

Well, I can't speak for Gareth, but I'm enjoying muddying the waters before letting it settle down and sort itself out. We're taking a roundabout approach so far, but an enjoyable one, IMO.

A game session will revolve around a particular group of citizens/visitors/interested parties engaged in some key moment of their lives, that key moment being defined as some moment that is of importance to both the character and the city.  

Perhaps. I don't know that we've nailed down the scale of these things yet. It might end up that zooming in and out do not have set points at which they occur. So, maybe you play a scene for ten minutes, do city advancement, then do a number of scenes for ninety minutes, more city advancement. Etc.

But otherwise, yes, this is the general idea, I think.

The characters may be princes and persons of power, but I don't see this as necessarily so.  ...this modification could have interesting impact on city politics for the next session.

Interesting. Depends a lot on the whole social aspect and where we go with that. Might make another good game, tho...

In fact, playing persons of no great importance would be ideal for the game.  Using their stories as an anecdote

Allegory. Sure, I could see it. Again, tho, might not be what we want for this game.

In the process the entire history of a city (and by extension a region) is told through the anecdotal stories of "the real people who lived there".  

I think that this is the goal, more or less.

Now as for the Sim / Narrative stuff.  ...the gameplay itself really can't be sim...because in a sim there is no way that Lodi the beggar is going to have a major impact on the entire city (unless he accidentally pushed a flower pot on the head of the emperor or something).

I disagree. A system that metered advancement of a city by indicative elements is no less Sim than anything else. The question is will the system support making decision that are purely about exploring the aancient world, or will it support telling stories. I think that such an absraction could easily be an exploration of the world. This sort of abstraction is no less versimilar than rating armor by a number. Might not appeal to many Simulationists, but that would remain to be seen.

OTOH, I can see it being geared to Narrativism as well. Could be either, we don't have the system yet. In fact, it could be Simulationist in the "City Phase", and Narrativist in the "Individual Phase". It might take some work to ensure that the transition occured when it should, but certainly not impossible. Essentially, it would be like playing Civ the computer game, until a certain event, and then using a Narrativist RPG to play out related events. Then interpreting those events and using them to make decisions in the Civ game. Again, the important and difficult part would be to ensure that the priorities of one didn't spill over into the other.

Other possibilities as well. Actually, the Civ computer game idea would be more analogous to having that phase be Gamist, frex. Lots of ways to go. Gareth, we gotta make some choices here.

Mike

[Valamir]

I don't think I'd do a "individual phase" / "city phase" thing at all.
Course this is just an outside opinion I'm just throwing out there.

What I'd enjoy playing most would go something like this

1) wildly fast but setting colorful character creation (Donjon complexity or less).

2) the GM sets a series of plot hooks for the night's session.  Not even full scenarios just little "day in the life" kind of vignettes.  These don't even have to be related to each other.  They could all have different characters, different locations in the city, and different aspects of city life they focus on.  They may switch back and forth in a "meanwhile back at the ranch fashion"

3) the plot hook (which may range from a single brief scene to an extended mini scenario) would be played, with emphasis on focusing on conflicts, particularly ones that pit aspects of the city against each other.  The GM should do absolutely no railroading or prejudgement of any kind.  Given the "disposable" nature of characters there is no need to preserve character life or any of that.  Allow the players to resolve the situation however they desire, and if that means the guard comes and summarily clubs them to death so be it.  You're probably right, this could be done either narratively or sim-ly.

4) Then evaluate the scene paying attention to a) what issues the GM planted in the hook, b) how the players chose to resolve them, c) any other issues that may have come up that weren't planted.  The emotional choices the players made should be interpreted as being representative of prevailing attitudes (among that class of people) in the city.  Each character basically being the representative archetype of a merchant, or a farmer, or a soldier, or a visitor from Palmyra or whatever.  The GM (either with or without input from the players) then interprets the scenario in terms of its impact on the City's stats.  These stats should include Resource type stats like wealth, and defenses and such, but also Pendragon type trade-off stats representing the prevailing value system of the "majority" which may be reinforced or challenged by player actions.

5) start over at 1 until a sufficient "critical mass" of representative scenarios have been run for that decade or generation of time.  Then apply all of the accumulated modifiers to the city stats and describe how the city has changed...become wealthier, become more involved in world politics, become more anarchal as the central priests lose power, etc.

6) then skip ahead to the next decade / generation wash and repeat.


Thats the sort of game I'd be most interested in.

[contracycle]

Hiya,

I think we need to go ahead and start prototyping, more or less: I favour the "uruk phenomenon" as a starting point, anyone have any preferences?  I like this 'cos its early and there will still be a lot of chalcolithic settlements about for contrast and context.  We should probably select at least one other period to realise so that we can look at how to do periodic transitions.

I think we are all roughly converging on a model, although I should mention that if tyhe situation were rival kings, there might be a very gamist style employed... but I think we can reexamine the idea after we've dones some preliminary sim-based setting design.  Lets pick a period, assemble some data, start thinking about ways to order it.  We have an interesting story about the "me" to exploit; one of the Uruk tales is of how Innana brings the "me" - which are kinda the instruments of civilisation, like clothes and pottery and seals and dances - from Enkil, who has hidden them, to Uruk.
The "me" themselves can be used as the conceptual hook for mechanics at the city level; they can have properties and numbers.  I'll see if I can find the list mentioned.  Also specific trade goods and cultural artifacts should be presented explicitly.

Thinking of being summarily clubbed - I'd be inclined to favour a combat mechanic in which any level of success resulted in death - wounds result from combat failures.  It's quite true to say that these are "disposable" characters and that protecting them from death is not a priority - I guess it would not protagonise them?  Anyway, fair Sim because after all you can kill a person with any weapon, and many things that are not weapons.  IIRC the dominant weapon is the mace and we should play up the precise cultural forms of violence.

We should probably employ some sort of character class framework - quite a lot of societies establish caste rankings through defined archetypes, and mesopotamia appears to have six, although I have not got that list either.  Or perhaps based on cities or the like, or a synthesis of the two.  Then there is of course the code of Hammurabi - quite interesting.  Its a late document, but the invention of law is one of mesopotamias claims to fame and we probably want to give it some prominence.  Maybe directly referenced in the mechanic?  The code has a fair amount to say about the assembly of evidence for trials, all based on personal testimony and lex talionas.
Seeing as we are looking at life time periods, we might also want to look at aging and the calendrical system mechanically.

In terms of sim premise of the game I would say that after some time percolating, my premise would be "how does society work"; or, lets say if I were running it, I think I would functionally be proposing a vision of how society worked and the players would be judging its plausibility, more or less.  

Magic.  One of the things that caught my eye was the story of gilgamesh - it ends with a surprisingly existentialist crisis.  They don't seem to have much of a sense of an afterlife either, although I need to do more reading, but instead of sort of existance as a whisp of dust in an empty room.  Gilgamesh's tale declares quite brazenly that immortality, for humans, lies only in human memory.  It's an interesting perspective and one I found contrasted in papers with the Egyptian system, first of the king only achieving an afterlife and then of this being achievable by cunning and artifice, more or less.  It made me think there might be more to be had from presenting neighbouring cultures than I had previously thought.  It might enhance the sense of distinct self for the mesopotamians, the nation of the "black heads" as they refer to themselves.  There is also quite a conscious relationship with the neighbouring chalcolithic peoples, and myths surrounding the incorporation or assimilation of nomadic tribes into the urban society, usually by seduction.  However, they are also looked down on as people who cannot talk properly, wash, or who will get a decent burial.

I think theres a lot to be had from the "critical mass" concept, especially in regards shifting scales as well as determining transitional moments.  Possibly, building up to a breakpoint could be a mechanical method.  Such climaxes should result in qualitative rather than quantitative changes in other mechanics - like being alive or dead, as it happens.

Well, I'm having fun:)