What do you think of this PbP Idea?

[Devmaar]

The idea is a standard political intrigue game. Players are working 'behind the scenes' for major political figures in the kingdom. the twist is there are several teams of players working for different figures... and those figures are themselves a group of players playing an almost exclusively roleplay game where they try to leverage their position and do what's best for the kingdom, or for themselves.

There'd be be several groups of players, each in their own thread:

The King and His council. They want the kingdom to prosper, but they their own welfare to think about as well
Each member of the council has a few loyal (or not so loyal) servants (spys, assassins etc.) who work for them in the shadows, helping their postition or disrupting their rivals


I'm posting here not in recruitment because I'm looking for input into some of the finer details of running the game. Basically how best to maintain a consistent timeline between groups and any other problems people raise.

What do you think? Would you play? Do you have any questions/problems/advice?

[VGLordR2]

I think that this could turn out to be extremely awesome. Bonus points if you don't tell the players that there are multiple groups. However, you will likely run into several problems. First, you're probably looking at an upwards of twenty people here. That's a sizable group. It's more than likely that a couple of them get bored and stop posting (which is even common in standard four-player games). Also, every one of the ~20 people has a life outside of the game. With vacations, work, school, and illness, posting may be very irregular. This tends to work out in normal groups, but if you're trying to synchronize everything, it will be very difficult to keep things on track. I would recommend that every player finds an alt, who can step in to keep the campaign moving. This way, the games will move faster and be less likely to fizzle.

[smashbro]

Keeping player's attention would be an issue, but having an alt would be helpful.

In addition, it's a lot of people to control for one DM. I'd suggest having one DM per group. One for the king and his council, and one for each council member and each of their loyal group.



Don't spoil things here, but you'll need to know how the story will progress. Will players need to fight much, if at all? Loyal subjects might want to duel, representing their leige. Or is it only alliances? Will there be assigned roles (to make sure there is a traitor or two?)? Will there be a lot of deaths?

Finally, how do you know when it will end? Because once somebody "wins" and wants to stop, the others will still want to try to get more power.




I'd suggest each player (whether given the role or chooses it themselves) has a goal, at which point, their character is considered to have "won" or been successful. In addition, you need a hard deadline of when the game is over, or it can go on forever. Let's say the king dies, and a new kind must be crowned in 6 months, real world time. You could have 3 real world days be 24 hours or something like that.




It sounds good, I would play, or help DM if you need it. Though, if you would want me to help DM, you should know I haven't finished any of my PbP games that I've tried to run.

[Tyndmyr]

The idea is a standard political intrigue game. Players are working 'behind the scenes' for major political figures in the kingdom. the twist is there are several teams of players working for different figures... and those figures are themselves a group of players playing an almost exclusively roleplay game where they try to leverage their position and do what's best for the kingdom, or for themselves.

There'd be be several groups of players, each in their own thread:

The King and His council. They want the kingdom to prosper, but they their own welfare to think about as well
Each member of the council has a few loyal (or not so loyal) servants (spys, assassins etc.) who work for them in the shadows, helping their postition or disrupting their rivals


I'm posting here not in recruitment because I'm looking for input into some of the finer details of running the game. Basically how best to maintain a consistent timeline between groups and any other problems people raise.

What do you think? Would you play? Do you have any questions/problems/advice?

The biggest problem is people who show up missing. Say, the dude you're working for vanishes for a week...what happens?

[Ninja PieKing]

This. Is. Awesome. That or it will crash and burn. Depends on your groups' dedication and if you can keep groups straight to avoid spoilers, etc. So much could go wrong. I say go for it.If it does work it would probably make a great novel or series of novels too.

[Eldest]

That is going to either crash and burn, or be a legend. I want to play!

[Devmaar]

I think that this could turn out to be extremely awesome. Bonus points if you don't tell the players that there are multiple groups. However, you will likely run into several problems. First, you're probably looking at an upwards of twenty people here. That's a sizable group. It's more than likely that a couple of them get bored and stop posting (which is even common in standard four-player games). Also, every one of the ~20 people has a life outside of the game. With vacations, work, school, and illness, posting may be very irregular. This tends to work out in normal groups, but if you're trying to synchronize everything, it will be very difficult to keep things on track. I would recommend that every player finds an alt, who can step in to keep the campaign moving. This way, the games will move faster and be less likely to fizzle.

That's definitely a potential problem. Also an interesting idea for mitigating it, anyone else got an opinion on the alts strategy?


Keeping player's attention would be an issue, but having an alt would be helpful.

In addition, it's a lot of people to control for one DM. I'd suggest having one DM per group. One for the king and his council, and one for each council member and each of their loyal group.


Worth considering.


Don't spoil things here, but you'll need to know how the story will progress. Will players need to fight much, if at all? Loyal subjects might want to duel, representing their leige. Or is it only alliances? Will there be assigned roles (to make sure there is a traitor or two?)? Will there be a lot of deaths?


The 'agents' might fight if they decide it's the best way to deal with a problem or they get caught somewhere they shouldn't be. The 'Lords' are only likely to be in combat if they fall victim to an assassination attempt.


Finally, how do you know when it will end? Because once somebody "wins" and wants to stop, the others will still want to try to get more power.

It could go on indefinitely. Once you achieve a goal it could still take a lot of work to make sure it stays achieved. As to assigned 'roles' a character's goals and loyalties are up to the player, though I'd ask they informed the DM.


The biggest problem is people who show up missing. Say, the dude you're working for vanishes for a week...what happens?

If an 'agent' goes missing it can be dealt with the same as in any other PbP. If a 'Lord' goes AWOL maybe he had to deal with business at a country estate, or was ill and couldn't make it council. If any character looks to have quit the game permanently another plot-appropriate character can design a suitably cinematic demise.

Thanks everyone for the kind words, nice to see others like my ideas :smallsmile:

[stack]

Talk to Rizban. His Aldhaven game had a good run with numerous threads and DMs.

Synchronizing separate threads will be difficult. Might need to have 'time warps' and jump to set points to keep everyone in the same time frame (every so often you advance a week in game time, letting people post 'inactive' actions (long-term stuff), giving in-game time between 'active' portions (fighting, talking to PCs, etc). Some things, like longer fights or interacts, may have to continue while the rest of the world moves on. Very tricky to pull off.

I'll play if you do it though.

[Sewercop]

who are the power behind the throne?
who are allies?
who can you bribe to make em lead others into an ambush?
who can support an army if needed?

alot of options opens up in a game like this.. It should be fun for sure :)

But my initial reaction are what level,setting and bans would be in play?

[Devmaar]

The political situation will be almost entirely down to interactions between players.

Character Guidelines can be decided once I figure out how the game will operate

Here's my current idea for keeping timelines in order:

The game is divided into 'day' and 'night' sections
'Day' and 'night' are synchronised across all threads
The transition from 'day' to 'night' or vice versa is largely arbitrary, it happens when a day/night's worth of activity has been completed and there's no 'action' ongoing
In the day, 'Lords' will (usually) be in council while 'Agents' will be forced to work around the public
By night, 'Lords' are free to meet with their agents or have 'off-the-record' meetings with other Lords. Agents are free to go about their sneaky ways


Thoughts?

[smashbro]

I like that, as Lords would have no way to contact their allies during the day. I think this would work best if you could have private threads, which people could only get into at night, to talk to their group.

One idea could be using http://www.quicktopic.com/ for the Lord talking to their allies. During the day, there would be a thread for Lords, and then groups of others going around and doing stuff, possibly keeping their alliances secret from one another. Yes, players will know who is with them, but they won't know which Lord anyone else works for.

[stack]

Probably still need time-skip to keep things synched. If two players with different posting times are talking, just a simple back-and-forth conversation could take a week real time, leaving other threads hanging. Combat would make it even slower, potentially.