Heirs to the Final Empire: A Generational RPG

[Wyrmhero he/him]

I certainly agree with Wilson that I don't want to hard-force any specific types of play. If players want to be isolationist, they can be. The nature of the game is that doing so is viable, if not what I'd do personally. I would like to know any ideas you have with regards to this; ideas that encourage interaction but don't force it.

 

Also with regards to this, the fact that player interaction/contracts do not have enough room to be rewarding. I have toyed with vastly changing the way Wealth works, but I don't especially want to do that. What do you guys things?

 

...Also, remember that any changes are ones I have to implement. No point suggesting something that'd make me take days to check for the rollover .

[Seonid he/him]

Hey, I was mobile browsing in the RP thread, and accidentally hit the downvote button on Blank Fate's post. Could someone fix that for me?

[Wyrmhero he/him]

For those wishing to join the game, it will restart on the 4th of October, so let me know before then.

[STINK he/him]

House Domos is making an appearance with Lord Leyton in charge!

(For any more info about the house and Leyton, please send a PM. All PMs will be in character and client confidentiality will be enforced upon myself.)

[Wyrmhero he/him]

To be precise, I wasn't annoyed with you talking to people before joining in (that part I have no real issue with), but that you talked to people about other players' plans. Feel free to chat to the other players, but just don't act as an information broker or anything. It's dishonest towards players who think you are not yet playing and thus may be more free with information than if you were in this Generation. Plus, there's no real way to enforce retribution on you if you do divulge their plans, which isn't really fair.

[TheMightyLopen he/him]

My signature last-minute sign-up here! 

 

Lord Owain Nohr of Keep Nohr joining the Empire! (If I'm not too late.... )

[Creccio he/him]

Inor Haze Olimac from House Olimac would love to join

[DeathClutch19 he/him]

Soren Jormündgand  from the House of Jormündgand  would like to join

[polkinghornbd he/him]

Just to let people know, this game has started.  PM Wyrm if you want to join in the next generation

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Yes, you should PM Wyrm, but this thread is where the sign ups go too so that everyone else knows.

[polkinghornbd he/him]

really?  then I should let everyone know I will join as Elijah house Lignum

[Halefyre]

Hey, all! I noticed a turn just ended in your thread, and I was wondering if it's too late to jump in. I was also curious as to whether or not another game is planned once this one ends.

[Wyrmhero he/him]

New players can start playing at the beginning of a Generation, rather than a Turn. But sure.

 

As to whether there's another game planned... Well, I don't have anything planned, but who knows what will happen then?

[Halefyre]

Okay, I'll keep that in mind Is it too far along in the game for a new start to be practical?

[Wyrmhero he/him]

The game is designed to be drop-in, drop-out, so while you won't be at the same stage as the older players, you certainly won't be in an impractical position.

 

Bear in mind though - I am not planning on starting the next Generation until January.

[Kasimir he/him]

Okay, I'll keep that in mind Is it too far along in the game for a new start to be practical?

The game is designed to be drop-in, drop-out, so while you won't be at the same stage as the older players, you certainly won't be in an impractical position.

 

Bear in mind though - I am not planning on starting the next Generation until January.

Besides, we're not a vicious, cut-throat bunch, not like those Sanderson Elimination people... It's more about having fun, whatever works for you individually, and personally, I've given up on metrics or any idea of 'competing' with the other players and am just muddling along and RPing all the things. So I wouldn't really say (from a player's perspective) that you're quite at any sort of disadvantage...and the gap does narrow down with time. Took me about 1-2 Gens to get stable, since I started a Gen later.

Edited November 29, 2015 by Kasimir

[Halefyre]

Awesome! Thanks guys I'd certainly be interested in joining the next gen

[Ashiok]

Can I hop in for Gen 6 too?

[little wilson she/her]

Ash! Welcome back!

[Comatose he/him]

I will probably have time to start running House Elariel again come January, but I will let you know for certain closer to the date.

 

Also, if there are 100 years between each generation, am I correct that we are half way to the events of the series?  Will the game be ending there, or continue on?  

[Adamir he/him]

Due to various problems I'll have to drop out at this point - could  I re-join a few generations down the line, when I've mapped out a character and gotten more free time? Feel free to dramatically murder Lord Farrsolin, if you like.

Edited December 26, 2015 by Adamir

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Will this be starting up next Sunday?

[Wyrmhero he/him]

So, taken me a while to get around to this, unfortunately, but I wanted to check on timings, as I wasn't sure when this would be able to be started up again.

 

There are two current issues with the game, I think, that I would like to fix.

 

1) Wealth. We have some players with very high amounts of Wealth that does very little, and a few players basically scraping by, creating a wide Wealth gap (there is also a huge MP gap). This would in theory be fine (as Wealth is meant to be converted into things), except that it seems people are thinking about it as the end-product of their House, rather than an enabling force. The other issue is that some things (changable contracts and upgrading Properties) are making things very complicated and delaying less-Wealth-based things from happening. The other aspect of this love of money is that it is taking over Actions. I understand that getting a working economy is important in a long game such as this, but it has taken over, it would appear.

 

2) Roleplaying. The game was always intended to be more RP-heavy than game-heavy, but we get very few people consistently RPing. This makes writeups very difficult for me, and makes things less interesting. Related to this is that people are not doing new and interesting things with their Actions, when the idea of the game is to encourage people to explore the setting and change aspects of The Final Empire through the ages. The other aspect of this is the fact that the Global Events seem to have been mostly ignored through the game.

 

At this just-prior-to-halfway point (the idea is to continue up to the events that create The Survivor of Hathsin, assuming no drastic changes occur first), I am happy to continue the game, but I feel it needs these two aspects to be addressed, and perhaps a little simplification if possible. At the moment, my most liked idea for balancing the game is to remove the concept of 'Upgraded' Properties from the game and up the Standard Action Cost and the amount of Wealth Goods give people to compensate. I may also make Luthadel Keeps buff Wealth and MP to help deal with the standard deviation in these areas.

 

I do not yet have an ETA for restarting the game, as I would like to have peoples'  thoughts on these matters first.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Wyrmhero

[Aonar he/him]

So long as after the gameplay changes I still have enough income to maintain my city and do what I want to do, then I'll be happy. (Seeing how, at this particular moment, I'm kinda barely scraping by. )

 

In terms of RP: I'll try? I don't know how it is with most people, but I've got a fair chunk of RP that I've written, and just never posted, because I didn't turn out well. Unless there's a particular scene I have in mind, based on my actions, (you have no idea how often I've had a great idea for RP, only for me to realize that I might not want to make the actions involved public ) or current events or whatever, I find it really hard to create a decent character and give them a story in just four weeks. Maybe you could work in some sort of incentive to writing (and actually posting, even if it isn't greatest quality) RP? Something like a small Rep/Respect boost, depending on the content? 

[Araris Valerian he/him]

I kind of agree with Aonar as far as RP goes. Having characters that die off every 4 weeks does make it a little hard to get to know them very well. It might be a little easier to get RP out of people if you increased the number of public actions to 2 each turn. Most of my RP has just been for my actions anyways, and it has been incentive for me to make pretty much all of them public.

 

As for Wealth, I actually found myself struggling to get rid of it for a while. I am not sure that there are actions that are really expensive enough when you have a lot of income. There is the donation mechanic, which those players can use much more successfully than the players that are struggling to get wealth. Removing upgraded properties seems fine to me, and I don't really like having .5 increments of things to deal with. Perhaps, instead of boosting production, upgrades could become more of a flavor thing, with secondary benefits the player has to explain within their action. For example, an upgraded lumber mill could choose to specialize in hardwood for weapons, or something that smells nice to make better furniture. I think that this might be a good way to deal with all of the people that have already gone and upgraded things.

 

One thing that seems we could use to balance out Wealth is to have not every House have a Keep, and have the Keep be something you have to pay for, rather than getting it automatically. In the books, being a Great House required a lot of wealth to pay for a "Keep Tax," so we could implement something like that.