Forum Based Sapce Game

[Gwen]

A lot my friends have moved away and so we don't get to roleplay like we used to- some have even moved to other parts of the world which makes chat based roleplaying also difficult.

What I want to create is a roleplaying game with a forum layout much like the Forge.

Each day in real life would also represent one day in the game.

The setting would be in space and the players would represent the governing body of a different planet.

Each planet has ratings in specific attributes, which might be something like:

Food (Where food can anything from wheat, water, rocks, or whatever the specific race eats.)

Technology

Population

Military

Industry

Commerce  (The Galactic Currency)

Each attribute starts at 1, representing the beginning of a successful technological race.  For example, Technology:1 is the ability to travel to other planets.

The Popluation attribute can never exceed the Food attribute, otherwise there is planetary starvation.

The Industry attribute represents how much raw material a planet produces and can supply to the military, so the Military attribute can never exceed the Industry attribute.

The Technology attribute represents advances in weapons, transportation, media, etc...

Commerce is how weathly a planet gets by buying and selling materials from and to other planets.


DISTANCE

Each new planet that is established can be positioned in one of two ways.  Either 100 light years away from every other planet (known as the Cluster) or it can be located 100 light years directly one single planet (known as the Expanse)

Planets must be 100 must be 100 light years away, for the sake of ease and mathematical simplicity.  Each point in the attribute Technology represents 10 light years a ship can travel in a day.  So a ship that comes from a planet with Technology:1 can travel to another planet in 10 days.  With Technology:4 it would arrive on the third day.


ADVANCEMENT

Each week the planets are all given one point to distribute to any one of their attributes.  This can increase Food, Population, Industry, whatever the leader desires, but never Commerce.  (Explained later)

Leaders can also trade technologies, which could lead to alliances, by flying a ship to another planet and coming to their own diplomatic agreement.  Some can be given at no cost, while others require you to give up a point to give a point to someone else.

Food:  You must give up a point to give it to someone else, representing the food you took from your own stockpiles to give to someone else.

Technology:  This can be freely traded to another planet, representing the inexpensive schematics.  However this increases military power and will usually be horded.

Population:  You must give a point as a colony ship moves your people to the new planet.  Populations can be moved in the scenario of a military takeover, and populations consisting of multiple races must be kept track of like so:

Population:4 (2:From Planet Althogar)

Food requirements must be same for the new population, or the planet must provide the necessary Food, otherwise they die.

Military:  You must give up a point, representing the military troops moved to thet planet.  Treat the combined military like combined Population.

Industry:  You must give up a point, representing the raw materials you gave up.

Commerce:  Must give a point, representing the money you gave them.


FOOD AND POPULATION:

As stated above, your population can never exceed your food.  If it does, your population automatically drops to your Food rating in 4 days.  Food can be stockpiled and go above a rating of 10.


TECHNOLOGY

Technology represents the speed, attack power and defensive power of your ships.  With a Technology 4, your ships move 40 light years a day, attack with a rating of 4 and defend at a rating of 4.


MILITARY

This is how large your army is.  A rating of 1 is merely 1 fleet of ships.  Military 5 represents 5 fleets.

Since your military must be staffed by people, you can never have a military higher than your population.

And sicne it takes materials to build an army, you can never have a military higher than your industry.

Military is always considered to be at your planet, unless moved to another planet.  Moving one fleet to another planet reduces your military by 1, but increases the other military by 1 as well.


INDUSTRY

This is how much raw material you produce, allowing you to build more ships.  This can also exceed a rating of 10.


COMMERCE

Commerce can be spent to purchase points in all other attributes.  Weekly points cannot be spent on Commerce, but Commerce increases by one point automatically each week.

Two points of Commerce must be spent to get an extra point at the end of the week.  No sooner.

Commerce can be given to other planets in exchange for goods and services, as well.


DISCOVERY

Each week a new planet is discovered in the Cluster and lies 100 light years from every other planet (except those in the Expanse.)

The first person to this planet can claim it as their own and each attribute starts at 0.  However, they now receive two Advancement points, which can be spent on either planet.

If the planet is ever taken over by someone else's military, they then receive the extra Advancement point.


WAR

A war is based on two attributes:  Technology and Military.

Technology represents how tough your ships are, Military represents how many ships you have.

If you have moved one fleet to a newly discovered planet, and have a technology of 4, you have Military:1 and Technology:4 at that planet.

Your ship(s) attack with a rating equal to your Technology.  If it exceeds the opponents technology (which represents their shields and armor) then they lose one ship for every ship you attack with.

If your technology is less then your opponents, you can add the Technology of two ships to do cumulative damage.

Example:

Ben
Military:2
Technology:4

versus

Mike  (home planet)
Military:4
Technology:2

(The attacker goes first, unless it is at the Home Planet, then the defender goes first)

Mike's technology is not enough to exceed Ban's technology.  Even with 2 ships, he can't exceed Ben's technology, so he has to use three ships.  Together they have a Technology of 6, which destroys one ship.  Mike's fourth ship is essentially useless for now.

Ben has one ship remaining, with a technology of 4, so he easily destroys one of Mike's ships, reducing his military to 3.

However, Mike still has 3 ships, just enough to destroy Ben's last attacker.

If Ben had attacked with 3 ships, he would have taken over Ben's home planet.

TAKEOVERS

When a planet is taken over, the attacker receives all the points for that planet, including commerce, industry, population...  which the player is free to use or roleplay destroying.

If an attacker takes over a planet and simply kills off the population, then they will probably be attacked by other planets

Controlling this new planet gives you another weekly Advancement point.


LOSS

If you lose a planet, you move your home planet to another planet you control.  If you control no other planet, then you start over with a new planet and all your attributes at 1.


ALLIANCES

Alliances must be roleplayed out, where laws can be established, wars can be banned or can go to war with other alliances.

_____________________________

So, I've never done anything like this before.  This is just a brainstorming idea I have for right now, so I am looking for constructive advice to make this more successful.

Also, if anyone is interested in playing this game when I have it perfected and finished, I would like to have you play!  It will probably advance slowly at first, but after a while there should be a lot of planets to fight over.

I will also probably draw a map and update it weekly to show the new planets and who controls them.

Please let me know if you have any ideas or see any problems!

Gwen

[anonymouse]

Off-the-cuff thought:

Have you tried looking at the Master of Orion or Stars! computer games/simulations? I'm not sure what they don't have that you're looking for; it seems you want more like a traditional board/computer game than a roleplaying game.

[DevP]

I first wanted to say how much I like this idea, and indeed it's one of my (longer term) pet projects. I once created "Governor", an RPG where the players were all in mutual control of a single colony, and in some respects the abstracted stats were similar to yours. So by all means, let's see where this goes!

Now: one problem my game had was that (through unfortunate use of unnecessary exponential numbers) it became too complex. Purely strategic games are usually best handled by computers. (There was the interesting case of some people playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri in the form of a groupwide game, with the group voting on the actions of a single "faction".)

So, what kind of experiences are you trying to draw out of people playing this game? The growth of quarelling empires, the desperate politics of a frontier world (Red Mars, Alpha Centauri), or perhaps something like the larger-than-life Rise and Fall of political megalomaniacs (e.g. Londo Mollari)? The big question is: how do you want to your players to interact, and on what scale?

What you have is good, but I feel it could be abstracted up or down a bit - either to represent an empire at large by a single "score", or reflect the micromanagement of a few frontier worlds in a single solar system. Another thought is using word-based Traits instead of numbers to define your worlds (this and other issues of planet creation in an earlier thread).

There are lots of ideas I have, but I'd first like to hear more about *how* you'd like it to play out.