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View Full Version : Dangerous Tides (Civilization + Pirates = RPG)



CarpeGuitarrem
2011-07-13, 11:14 AM
Paper Empires: Dangerous Tides alpha (http://playerside.blogspot.com/2011/07/paper-empires-alpha-release.html)

Well, Playgrounders, I've finally hatched something. FOR SCIENCE!!!! Or at least dice-rolling. It may be a freak of nature, a Frankenstein's monster...but I think it's pretty cool.

What's in this unholy abomination?

A healthy scoop of Sid Meier's Civilization, a few dashes of Blood Royale, a bunch of heaping spoonfuls of Eurogames in general, and lots and lots of six-sided dice. Oh, and a glaze of Pirates of the Caribbean for flavor.

It's currently in a rough alpha, so check it out, feed me back some input on it, and eventually I'll make another release, updated, fleshed out, and with more rules. I really need playtesting to figure out how the math is.

playswithfire
2011-07-15, 06:28 AM
Looks very interesting. Still reading through it, but I like it (I expected to as I enjoy Civ).

Couple quick questions (sorry I'f they're answered later in the document; I just finished turned summary):

I guess the first one isn't a question so much as a clarification. I occasionally found myself tripped up on the Leading Power and how it passes. I get that, at the beginning of a turn, it's assigned by testing influence and then within a turn it rotates clockwise. Stupid terminology thing, but should each player become the 'Leading Power' by rotation or should there be a different term for that (being the player that picks the phase)? That is, one player would be the 'Leading Power' for a turn by the test of influence, but the Initiative, for lack of a better term, would rotate. It may be that I just confused myself by skimming at it's not a problem.

Second question is about war and expansion: does proximity/adjacency play any role in what province(s) a player can attack or expand into? Or perhaps grant a bonus when doing so? Or is distance sort of arbitrary since we're playing whole cultures?

Like I said, looks like a great system so far and I'll keep my eye on the Finding Players forum in case a game of it starts.

CarpeGuitarrem
2011-07-17, 02:11 AM
I guess the first one isn't a question so much as a clarification. I occasionally found myself tripped up on the Leading Power and how it passes. I get that, at the beginning of a turn, it's assigned by testing influence and then within a turn it rotates clockwise. Stupid terminology thing, but should each player become the 'Leading Power' by rotation or should there be a different term for that (being the player that picks the phase)? That is, one player would be the 'Leading Power' for a turn by the test of influence, but the Initiative, for lack of a better term, would rotate. It may be that I just confused myself by skimming at it's not a problem.
I'll re-check back through the document...it's probably me not explaining properly and forgetting to put things in writing. The Leading Power is determined with Influence, and then each player in turn picks a phase, going clockwise. I think phases are picked one-at-a-time, but I'm not positive. (i.e. the Leading Power picks a phase, everyone goes through it, then the next player picks a phase, everyone goes through it, and so on.)

The Initiative definitely rotates.

Second question is about war and expansion: does proximity/adjacency play any role in what province(s) a player can attack or expand into? Or perhaps grant a bonus when doing so? Or is distance sort of arbitrary since we're playing whole cultures?
At this stage, I haven't written any proximity rules in. I couldn't figure out an elegant way to do it, and I figured it was abstractable enough, at least for now.

Like I said, looks like a great system so far and I'll keep my eye on the Finding Players forum in case a game of it starts.
Thanks for the interest! I've been a bit busy, but I think I'll be putting a post out soon.

Dust
2011-07-18, 03:04 PM
I really wanted to like this. The fluff is awesome and it's obvious you're very passionate about the project. But I can't actually see myself sitting down and playing this with friends, and in good conscience refer to it as a roleplaying game as opposed to a board game minus the board.

CarpeGuitarrem
2011-07-18, 07:17 PM
That's cool. Different people have different ideas when they come expecting "roleplaying game".