Alpha Centauri 2 - New Faction Concepts Inspired by Beyond Earth

[BlaneckW]

I've never role-played, but I'd think you'd find more than enough volunteers at a DND site.

[Trenacker]

The key is to find people interested in the setting, especially the ideological conflict, and who enjoy writing, not roleplayers per se.

Have you taken a look at the links? I think you guys would make ideal players.

[BlaneckW]

Have you taken a look at the links? I think you guys would make ideal players.

I'm not saying I am unwilling to attempt to participate, but I don't even consider myself creative or imaginative.  I have done enough reading to tell you that there are people and forums very interested in pen and paper/dnd.  I don't think they would be turned off by sci-fi setting.

[Vishniac]

I could roleplay a game of SMAC but if it's only pen-and-paper....Bleh! 

[BlaneckW]

I could roleplay a game of SMAC but if it's only pen-and-paper....Bleh! 

Pen and paper was the term I used.  I assumed they were synonymous.

[Yitzi]

I don't really think a pen-and-paper game of SMAX-as-empire-builder (which roleplaying as faction leaders would pretty much have to be) would work very well; there are just too many variables.

What would likely work a lot better, though, would be to roleplay D&D-style as not faction leaders, but rather important people (talents etc.) who are citizens of various factions (though some might be from the same faction).  You'd then get the philosophical aspect as members of different factions interact with each other.

[Trenacker]

I'm not saying I am unwilling to attempt to participate, but I don't even consider myself creative or imaginative.  I have done enough reading to tell you that there are people and forums very interested in pen and paper/dnd.  I don't think they would be turned off by sci-fi setting.

I've got seven or eight different sites in mind to recruit from, but seeing as the theme is Alpha Centauri, I figured this place might be fertile ground.

I could roleplay a game of SMAC but if it's only pen-and-paper....Bleh!

It is a web-based geopolitical simulation in the spirit of Paddy Griffith's book, "Sprawling Wargames: Multiplayer Wargames." If you're interested in some examples of how these games are played, I offer the following:

1. Example of a space empires game.

2. Example of a game set in the Command & Conquer universe.

3. Example of a game set in the Battletech universe.

4. Example of a game set during the Long Nineteenth Century.

As you will find, Yitzi, "empire-builder" games can and have been played with great success. They combine elements of roleplaying faction leadership with roleplaying the faction as a whole, playing off the injects and advice of one or more moderators.

[Geo]

I'm looking to develop a pen-and-paper roleplaying campaign and game world, to be played on web forums like this one, by real people, using text.

Dunno, but fetching PBEM's sounds more alluring to me.

[Trenacker]

I don't understand what that means.

[Buster's Uncle]

He's talking about SMACX Multiplayer.

Sorry 'bout the buzzkill talk; don't let it get you down.  You have great ideas and clearly understand what it will take.  Keep at it.

[BlaneckW]

The most I think I could contribute to Roleplaying would be what I contribute to anything else: refrain from criticism.  if you need that, private message me.

[Buster's Uncle]

[BlaneckW]

I could also, with help, try to elaborate how totalitarianism is feasible in an iron-age polity with sufficient willpower.  Establishment of a bureacratic China in the second century B.C. would not have been possible had the feudal class been able to resist the emperor and his party, while absolutist Byzantium in the west lasted for more than a thousand years after the collapse of the Roman republic.

[Trenacker]

Consolidation of power in imperial hands in second century B.C. China owed primarily to the need for and consequences of the hydraulic monopoly necessary to control flooding. The bureaucracy emerged as an alternative to the nobility, while the revenue generated from fees related to usage of the government's hydraulic infrastructure allowed the throne to prevent emergence of substantially independent power-brokers. Big Brother not required.

Byzantium is a good example of autocracy. That empire's perpetual instability -- indeed, its synonymic relationship with intrigue -- is evidence that it never achieve totalitarian heights.

While various leaders have attempted to achieve totalitarian control throughout history, very few have succeeded, especially not on a large scale. Certainly none in the pre-modern era.

[BlaneckW]

Consolidation of power in imperial hands in second century B.C. China owed primarily to the need for and consequences of the hydraulic monopoly necessary to control flooding.

Ridiculous.  Qin originated in the mountains.  Their major engineering plans consisted of irrigation, not mere flood control.  Chinese unification may be unique but imperial consolidation is not.

Byzantium is a good example of autocracy. That empire's perpetual instability -- indeed, its synonymic relationship with intrigue -- is evidence that it never achieve totalitarian heights.

You should read the Dusan Code and get back to me.  Change of hands at the top is hardly indicative of instability elsewhere, anymore than a temporary fever in the head indicates a problem in the bowels.

You may be assured that Orthodoxy was imposed on all Byzantine territories throughout the middle-east and Africa, a feat not achieved by Islam even today, save by Turkey when the Christians left in the 1900's.