Making the epic of history come alive

[Michael S. Miller]

I've got a game idea in my head. It's been there in one form or another for over a decade. I think it might be ready to be born.

I want to make a game about the sweep of history. About the growth and death of kingdoms and empires. I want a game where we can create something in the style of Shakespeare's Henry V, or Antony & Cleopatra, or the history of Joan of Arc, or Hannibal, or Alexander the Great, the rise of Augustus Caesar, the Wars of the Roses. I want wars, politics, passion, natural disasters, arranged marriages, and betrayal. I want Sid Meier's Civilization with a soul.

In my mind's eye, I see players huddled around a map. They move chess pieces from territory to territory to represent their actions. Each player has their own stable of characters whose growth and prosperity they fight for, and myriad supporting roles in their fellow players' scenes. In making their decisions, they need to weigh the support of the troops, the ambitions of their main characters, the position of the board, and the broken promises they've played out in role-playing scenes.

I've been chasing my tail on two issues for the past few weeks, and could use some outside perspective.

1) The basic structure of play eludes me--I keep waffling between a few options:

(a) Two players, two nations: Each player has her own nation and is trying to advance, often at the expense of the other player. Each player would also portray the supporting cast of the other player. The game itself would need to dictate some common threats to promote alliances as well as conflict.
PROS:
* finding one other player is easier than arranging for a group meeting
* Parallels w/ chess lend themselves to this structure--everyone understands 2-player games
CONS:
* Competition risks overshadowing creative investment. Switching back and forth from portraying allied to enemy characters can be draining.

(b) Multiple players, one nation: Players' primary roles are the vassals, counselors, administrators, general, etc. in service to a single central authority. The game itself (or possibly a GM, but this really feels like a GMless game) provides lots of external conflict to enhance the jockeying-for-favor internal politics.
PROS:
* more players = more imaginative content = more fun
* fundamentally, the players are cooperating to play a game and create a fictional history. Mirroring the real-life social structure is helpful.
CONS:
* Doesn't feel "grand" enough. In a game built on the majesty of Caesar and Antony, it feels wrong to cast PCs at Cicero and Agrippa.
* The classic "captain problem" every Star Trek RPG has. Players are equals and peers at the game table, but some characters are clear commanders in the fiction. How to make this feel alive and vibrant without crushing player agency?

Give me some perspective! Grill me with the hard questions! I'm stuck and I need another point of view.

2) The name of the game. I suck at naming games. I'd call it "Annals" or "Chronicles" or something bland like that. I've only named one of my published games, so I'm very open for suggestions.

[Luke]

I define a roleplaying game as: "A game in which a player advocates the goals, priorities and survival (or doom) of a persona who, in operation of the game's mechanics, is confronted with one or more ethical choices."

How does the advocacy of a character appear in the game? How does that advocacy work in terms of mechanics? How does it push one toward making the meaningful choice?

And, because it has to be said, what is this game about, Michael?

On the ground, the "sweep of history" is a very dirty, petty, sordid affair. Is your game about the truth of these personalities? Or is this a romance about the power of the individual in shaping history?

-L

[Jason Morningstar]

Some general thoughts -

You can solve the Captain problem by making "being the Captain" either a goal of the game (the Birthright model; a war of succession) or by making the Captain an NPC.  Something I've always thought would be cool was a game where the central big man was played by different people (maybe based on conflicts - your reward was to play the big man and thus shape policy for a while).  So your PC fades to the background (perhaps fortuitously) while you assume the shared role of the King or whatever.

What you describe sounds like the bastard love child of Divine Right and PTA.  Maybe what you really want is a tactical board game coupled with a weepy emo RPG, which you switch between based either on a set progression or when certain mechanical thresholds are met.  Obviously the board game's outcome impacts the RPG's fiction and vice versa. 

Ben Robbins' game Microscope covers vast swathes of time on a grand scale without explicit protagonists/personae - might be worth a look.

--J

[JoyWriter]

Polaris does quite well with four players. If you are concerned about adversarial behaviour crowding out being an audience to other players contributions, then perhaps having two players "neutral" in the conflict, but able to provide support based on interest, or perhaps provide advantage based on stuff they included in their scenes, may provide the kind of engaged audience you were looking for.

To do this you need to central but semi-independent conflicts, for the opposing player pairs. Picking from categories might do it, but there should be enough variety there that they can still get what they want if the another two players fist pick the conflict they want. Actually, you'd need each player to be able to have some influence on the conflict they were in, but perhaps they could be given some privilege for the price of choosing later when their choices were more constrained.

Secondly, how much can you turn it into a role playing scene? You want Civ with heart, can you turn a battle into a battle of speeches? Or more abstractly of your people's strength and their willingness to fight under your banner, again built by scenes of various kinds. So a man can exhaust his people in another aim, and find his armies and farmers without strength. I've almost recreated your system I know, but I like the idea that the battle itself is a roll, except perhaps for the bonuses due to what the bards say of it, with different bonuses for different narrations, depending on the kind of victory won.

[contracycle]

I don;t think the captain problem is a problem at all; I've seen games with a strong authority rleationship among the Pc's work very well indeed,  So much so I kind of prefer it, as it tends to cut down on the indecision and shilly-shallying as they try to assemble some sort of plan of action.

I think the real question though is the one Luke asks (with the exception of the "ethical" bit, which is spurious): where does the actul RP happen?  There are plenty of tabletop games of kingdom-making and like.  A major issue here is that of time; if you, say, contract a royal marriage, its real implications may only be felt a generation later.  For many of these actions to be meaningful, time will have to move in rapidly and in quite large chunks.

[Bill_White]

What contracycle derides as the "ethical bit" is actually going to be central to the design, in that it involves the "theory of history" (i.e., your model of how history in fact gets its sweep) that your mechanics are going to simulate. The game-mechanical connection between the role-playing of characters and the subsequent flow of historical events (and vice versa) is the key problem, in other words (as people have said). One solution is Jason's: board-game the historical details, then role-play the situation that emerges. The question is how to connect the game with the fiction and vice versa. You could steal from Jason's playbook and your own theatrical sources of inspiration and structure the game as a set of pre-determined scenes, perhaps taking place over the course of generations, with players playing characters who age over the course of the game (so that old characters die and young characters age from scene to scene), which encompasses the flow and ebb of a particular era: an empire's golden age, the taming of a frontier, and so forth. You could do something Ganakagok-like, where the outcome of particular scenes contributes to the historical legacy of the characters (so a character lies and cheats his way to the top, but amasses enough Reputation points that he's remembered as the founder of a dynasty) and the kingdom ("100 years from now, my skimping on armaments leads directly to the collapse of our armies against the Hin invaders). Maybe you can call the game "Legacy." Or you could steal from that With Great Power game, and tie the ebb and flow of historical forces to "tactical" card play at the scene level. The narration in that case would cover months and years, though: "After the priests report their vision, I muster my armies and march east, founding new cities at important crossroads as I go." The GM provides opposition: "The emperor of the east summons his warlords to oppose you." The other characters support your conquering boy-king: "The philosopher accompanies the armies of the boy-king, teaching him to observe closely as he passes across the countryside." The focal character eventually dies, and it's the next player's turn to frame up a new focal character.

[Vladius]

This sounds really cool.

I don't think the two systems are mutually exclusive; you could have the players decide whether they want to be in one nation, or in two or more. You could also have it so that the players have a stake in the success of multiple nations - they would have some characters in one, and some in another. This would prevent them from outright conquering other kingdoms in brutal and unrealistic methods, and it would also serve as a safeguard against competition. So it would work like this:

Kingdom 1 desperately hates Kingdom 2, and is poised to attack.
Player A has a character, Character X, who is in love with Player C's character, Character Y.
Character X belongs to Kingdom 1 and hates Kingdom 2, but Character Y belongs to Kingdom 2, and does not hate Kingdom 1.
Player B has a character in Kingdom 1, and a character in Kingdom 2, and a third character in Kingdom 3. Therefore, they do not do what most gamers would do, and team up with one side to steamroll the other when the war starts.

This leads to all sorts of interesting situations, like people assassinating their own characters, arranging their own characters' marriages, and generally behaving like there is an actual social hierarchy.

I have some questions about the game. What are the "winning" conditions? Is there a way for the players to compete if they so choose without derailing the game?
I think a good way to do win conditions would be for each kingdom, family, etc. to have points for "Happiness," which is achieved by healthy marriages and relationships, having children, having a prosperous economy, etc., and points for "Glory," which is achieved by winning battles and wars, inventing things, creating a good culture, etc.
Lastly, how are nations that are not controlled by players going to behave? Will they be controlled by the GM? Will they be run on different conditions depending on their rulers or system of government? (ie. City States vs. Feudalism vs. Anarcho-Syndicalist Communes, etc.)

Don't get too hung up over ethics and how a roleplaying game is defined. Just do what's fun.

[Luke]

I think the real question though is the one Luke asks (with the exception of the "ethical" bit, which is spurious)

You seem like an otherwise smart fellow. Why is it that you're such a dumb asshole on these forums?

[contracycle]

I didn't  "deride" ethical dilemma's, I just pointed out that making them central to RPG's is erroneous.  Some games require them, other games require a challenge to step up to or a dream to celebrate.

Was that really so hard to figure out?

You seem like an otherwise smart fellow. Why is it that you're such a dumb asshole on these forums?

Does correcting you make me a dumb arsehole?  I'm not sure that it does.

[Bill_White]

contracycle -- I should have been clearer. Regardless of whether the choices made in play are thematic, competitive, or mimetic, in this instance they're both (a) revelatory of character (and thus "ethical" in the broadest sense), and (b) meaningful to the "epic" only to the extent that they contribute to the larger sweep of history, if only in ironic counterpoint. We're all pretty much in agreement that figuring out how to do (b) is the central part of the question, so let's not get sidetracked into pointless quibbling about the extent to which character-revelatory choices are "ethical" or not.

[Vladius]

Why on earth did you bring up ethics on the first place, if this is about game mechanics?

Stop talking about ethics.

Start talking about game mechanics, and answer the original question.

[Bill_White]

Why on earth did you bring up ethics on the first place, if this is about game mechanics?

Stop talking about ethics.

Start talking about game mechanics, and answer the original question.

My point exactly.

[Robert Bohl]

Michael,

I had a few ideas reading about this.

You could make the game do both, make it extensible. In 2-player play, it's rival cities. In more-player play, you add additional characters to each city.

Be comfortable with the Captain Problem, and make it a part of game design. Captains can do some things that others cant, but seneschals, lowlifes, criminals, priests, etc., have other areas where they shine.

Have ownership/authorship over characters rotate. In this episode, maybe I'm the captain, but maybe you're the captain in the next.

Also, I'm with Luke, I'd like to know what you want the game to be about.

[Patrice]

I think the real question though is the one Luke asks (with the exception of the "ethical" bit, which is spurious)

You seem like an otherwise smart fellow. Why is it that you're such a dumb asshole on these forums?

This is way off the tracks as far as I'm concerned. I love this place because I always felt it open-mindedly respected different aims and perceptions at game design. I'm not sharing the least the love many people around here have for Narrativist designs, but I totally respect and understand their passion, fun, and designs which often amaze me. The only reason why I'm still thriving around is that, while stating quite openly my interest in Gamist designs, I've never felt rebuked nor off-bounds. Now, as I read more and more of your scornful answers, Luke, I'm sorry to say that I feel you are trolling this board and I can't think of a good reason for such haughtyness. I'd like to remind you your most recent fame is 95% based upon an IP that's not yours.

Now, you can define RP as you wish, of course but nothing allows you to push that definition into being THE one and only definition of RP to rule them all, enforced by insults. Yes, I'm moderating you.

[Luke]

Patrice, Vlad, C0ntra: Stop with the knee-jerking and thinly veiled trolling -- don't even pretend that C0ntracyle didn't start it -- and THINK. I presented a challenging idea and the knee went up so fast it hit your collective chin.

First, you should respond to the OP and not have inane conversations down thread.

Second, think. If you think that this site exists to validate your AWFUL, BENIGHTED ideas about game design, then you are WRONG.


And Patrice, get the fuck over yourself.