So, I like Empire building games. Especially with elements of 4x play (Explore, Exploit, Expand, Exterminate).
I haven't seen a lot of interest in that kind of thing here for the most part. I would love to play that, so is anyone putting something like that together? Or is this just not something people are interested in with a PBP arrangement?

Those that I have seen here tend to fall apart due to Rpolian attrition.

I see says the blind man.

Now, don't get me wrong, but wouldn't it actually be easier to do on something like RPOL? I mean, I am running 1 game with a lot of players. Attrition has struck in my loosing 2 players (out of 10) with a suspected additional 1 or 2 losses.
Granted, I am not doing a 4x campaign so maybe this has something to do with it, but even so 6 or 7 players isn't a bad sized group.

One would think you would be right. I don't know why they seem to fall apart more frequently than others.

Because when doing empires; the loss of a player is not as easy to ignore and overlook as the loss of a single character. A character can be NPCed; that sort of game though is harder to do that, as though one might 'officially' be GM for under who's name the game is filed; all the players are equal.

Also, you can't just write in a new player the way you can with more RPish games.

Oh idk. You could encounter them laterm in the game or something.
Though, I think there is some legitimacy to that statement.

An EB game can work depending on how complex the rules are and the time scale.  Players who drop can be replaced in my experience if the position is still viable.

I'm interested in Empire building games, but attrition is definitely a problem. It usually sets in as soon as the players realize they have to do some math******s (apologies for the dirty language). Running an empire is more rigorous than running a character; in most rule sets (and empire-building rules tend to be complex) you need a spreadsheet just to keep tabs. Many players don't want to do that much work.

The sheer complexity of most rule systems is another problem - again leading to a lot of work for your fun.

If a player is not the sort of person who is exhilarated by the exactitude of the exchequer, one can easily become exhausted, find the tasks execrable, excuse oneself, and exit the game. Often there is an exodus, leading to the game's extinction. :)

I think the rules for empire games have to be very simple. You need a ruleset not much more complex than Risk or Diplomacy, otherwise you'll struggle to find and keep players.

You can recover from an occasional loss by decreeing that the 'missing' ruler has died and must be replaced by the appropriate heir. If no heir can be found, the land is in a state of anarchy and is potentially up for grabs.

As someone who runs an empire game here... I can say that the previous statements have a fair degree of truth to them.

I love running it, but attrition sucks.  As a result, I've had to factor that directly into the rules - thus, now if a player leaves the game; I have to pull their whole empire from existence, otherwise silly imbalances get created.

Also, one's ruleset has to accommodate (or it is helpful if it does) the ability for new players to join midgame.

Can you give us some broad (Not asking for trade secrets here ;) ) rules for what you mean? I mean I get that some things have to be fairly open for other players, but In some ways it just makes sense to give them roughly equivalent stuff in the game and set them oose on the other end of the galazy, system, whatever the scale happens to be comprised of.

No problem!

1) Handling loss (attrition).

- One, my game features a lot of "Secrecy" (players are not totally aware of everything about each other at the outset).  Thus, if a player "leaves" - I just blank out all of their information.  Where they are "poofs", their "stuff" poofs, etc.  However, if they left any mark on the game (such as destroying a city); that stays in effect.

- - short version: remove the footprint of the player, but, not necessarily the results.  This way no one benefits from that player leaving, but, there's no sudden whiplash on the world itself.

2) Handling new additions.

- This largely depends upon how you feel about new players entering altogether.
- In some games, I've said "you start exactly as everyone else has started."
- Others I've provided some small startup bonus (so - the game I run uses "gold" and "actions" as key resources.) - I've gone ahead and provided an "X amount of gold" multiplied by the # of turns that have taken place.  - They're in no way ahead of the existing players, but, typically aren't impossibly far behind either.

I'm not sure what you're describing there, GH. If the outgoing player was the King of France in a European war, how do you 'remove' the pivotal nature of France from the war zone?

On a more 'open' game where everyone is aware of each other, #1 won't work at all, unless you NPC everyone that quits.

I expressly wrote my game for PBP in the first place, under the notion that players would quit; thus outright removing all of that player's characters and Units has little direct impact.

In a game that looks more like Axis-n-Allies, or any setting where players are almost complete aware of one another; that doesn't work so well.

I see, so your players wouldn't be Kings of nations known to all, but would perhaps be courtiers secretly vying for power, whose schemes die with them, or maybe kings exploring unknown territory from different directions, each unknown to the others.

Yes, I like the analogy.

Oooh. That made a lightbulb sound.

So the emperors are tools of the player characters. the pcs would be like eunuchs in imperial china, or advisors for medieval kings, or other persons directing empires from behind the scenes. Hmmm. Illuminati? Fnord.

Anyways, this is similar to what i had in place for my games, the noble leaders just getting a new figurehead when players switch- i ran the leaderless faction in the mean time. Keeping players interested in the game is imho done with some minimal rp content, and letting the player feel his actions actually change the game world.

In reply to Morty (msg # 16):

Agreed. I am in a RP strategy where I run the nation. But...not really only the character. IE, my character could die, but most likely I am not going to be out of the game if that character dies.

GH, would you be open to my sending you an rmail to discuss this a bit more directly?

no problem at all!