Hey,

after pondering for quite a while what type of game would be suited best for a new pbp game, I came up with the following idea. Let's see if you find it as intriguing and promising as I do:


First of all I'm going to create a grid-based world map with one of the available online tools especially designed for this (Cartographer, Fractal Mapper or MapTools). Players will then decide if they want to play together or separate from each other. In the first instance the game will begin with a larger kingdom that the players will share and each one will expand in different direction. There will be "Fog of War" covering everything besides your own region, to enhance the discovery aspect of the game. Most of the time you will have to deal with stuff on your own, but with important events or in dire situations you can discuss strategy and pool your resources to improve your chances.
In the second instance everyone will get their own small region to start with. Sooner or later you will come into contact with the other players, but if they are friend or foe will depend on the player. It could even remain a secret if this newly discovered civilization is indeed another player or a NPC controlled by me.

In the beginning you will have control over one city, one army and one hero. Similar to 4X games your tokens will have limited actions to move or interact with the environment in each turn. Besides the basic terrain like forests, mountains, lakes etc, there will be many "Points of Interest" which will be the focus of the game for the first part. These will be determined randomly by me beforehand and can be either beneficial (eg. you meet a hermit who helps you out with information about other nearby areas, revealing the FoW for you/you discover an abode of an alchemist who is able to heal your token/you find a magical item that enhances the abilities of your hero) or detrimental (an area of magical instability causes x-amount of damage/you release a bound demon who must be fought and will remain on the map if not defeated/your army suffers a curse and will lose troops over time).

At some point you will meet other civilizations who expanded just as you did. Now will come the time for diplomacy checks to influence those parties and maybe open warfare.


To make one thing clear, I want to keep this rather simple at the start. So no Tech-tree or other complicated micro-managing. You will get only one resource, that will be gold, to purchase upgrades to your town, hire new armies, level up your hero or improve your own abilities (Diplomacy or gold income etc).

Combat will be resolved according to mass combat rules for the Pathfinder game, which I found the best of all available ones.

Other possible options for this game, which can also be introduced later on, could be a questing system for the heroes, global random events, portals to other parts of the map or even other planes, etc.
I'm of course open to suggestions, wishes and ideas from you that would enhance your experience with this game.


I think this type of games suits itself perfecty for a pbp game as not all players have to be on the same turn count if they explore different parts of the world, and frequent or longer absences from the game won't hurt the other, more active players.


Anyway, this is only a rough first draft of my idea, more details can be discussed if there is any interest in such a game at all :-)

So let me know what you think!

 Sounds interesting. Building your civilizations is always interesting. Though i confess i personally dislike the players who enjoy backstabbing other players(diplomacy etc). Still i would like a spot when you get up and running.

Sounds good, if you go to the Fall From Heaven 2 website where you can download that mod for Civ4 it is actually based off a D&D game. It might give you ideas, you might need to snag some Chainmail rules to make it work better. I'd like a spot.

Possibly interested, yes

Couple predictable problems with this sort of game. (Pvp is more susceptible, but a group working against NPC's will still be vulnerable.)


One is pace - in a game that might easily have scores of Turns to see a big change, and easily hundreds of turns to finish, gotta keep things moving briskly, or you never see any real advancement.

(And if you expect Characters to RP challenges, then Game Progress has to be balanced against that.)


Another typical problem is w/ players who either flake/disappear, or quit as soon as things don't go perfectly.


On both counts, a GM needs to really screen the players, to make sure everyone will commit, will stick it out and will enjoy the journey, whichever way it takes them.

Thanks, will take a look!




That is of course correct. I still think players will be able to experience interesting and fun things often enough to warrant giving it a try, but as usual with pbp games everyone will have to focus on the long-term enjoyment. If we go into real roleplay remains to be seen, for now I only expect players to make decisions in social encounters which will be augmented/resolved with die roles. But such details can be discussed and implemented later on as well.



Yep, that's the biggest challenge I reckon. Introducing replacement players who will have to be brought to the same status as already existing ones could be rather tricky. Maybe just taking over the civilization of the player who left the game would be the most simple solution, but I guess we'll have to see.




Yeah, will try to make this point clear.


Thanks for the help and all others for the interest. Will start making a few test maps and come back to you :)