DLNESI - Godwin's Law: Preview

By preview, we mean preview. As in, we don't even really know what we're doing yet. This is a "gauge interest" thread. We don't even really have a ruleset yet. But we're just throwing out an idea since, hey, you know, why not? Nothing to lose except pride, and frankly that's not worth much on the market these days.

Also, the title's just a placeholder. It's pretty lame.

The basic premise is this: A lot of NESes nowadays have been pretty, you know, macro. You run a whole country, by yourself. You work with the whole world and it's pretty grandiose in scale. dldnjstjr and I want to try a more micro NES.

The concept is this: The world is standing on the eve of destruction. Fall Weiss has been initiated two days ago. It is September 3, 1939. The United Kingdom has just declared war on the Third Reich.

How will things go from here? Well, we'll leave it to the players to find out.

The big twist though, is this: Only two countries are open. The player can be playing for Germany, or he can play for Great Britain. Each person will literally be a person; he can do his own independent thing within the game world. The way we envision this working is somebody can be Hitler and the others can be the generals under him; likewise for Britain.

All the other countries will be NPCed. You can argue about tactics within yourselves, do whatever. Maybe even a chain of command can be set up.

But of course none of this would be possible without you, the player. And so we invite you to try this out. A co-modded NES.

And contrary to the idea of a Never Ending Story, this game will end when WWII ends.

Everything subject to change, including the date. dldnjstjr wants right before the Fall of France, but I was too lazy to change what I wrote.

Nice... I'm not too keen on Britain, but Nazi Germany is definitely a good setting for one-person political NESes (though it's no Revolutionary France ). Not sure if I will play, but this is certainly worth keeping an eye on.

A question: generals only, or other political figures too? I might be partial to Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.

Well, if no one shows interest in Britain, it could just be another country. We just want to concentrate players into two countries. Like, you could be France, I guess, and get blitzkrieged...but hey, you know, whatever.

A response: other political figures are definitely all right. Probably not something inconsequential like Mayor of Berlin, but admirals, diplomats, and generals will probably be good. Although diplomat will probably just be merged with Head of State. And if we missed any others, feel free to suggest!

In fact I just thought of one: leader of an opposition political party (understand this can only happen in Britain, of course. ). So if you want there can be intra-country drama.

Eh? What's this? I'm back!

And totally in.

Given the high degrees of factionalism that existed there, Japan sounds nice, but that would mean all players playing for the Axis (unless the Japanese decide to stick with Britain, ofcourse). Then again, the odds were definitely against it historically, so that might not be so bad. Democratic countries have an entirely different kind of factional strife, though it is active; the Soviet Union had been calmed considerably by now, which limits player options considerably.

Still, all things considered, Britain might work out well enough. Possibly keep it and add Japan if enough players are interested?

By the way: we don't plan to work this NES 100% historically correct, because then everyone will just bust out their history books (or wikipedia) and do exactly what they did. Obviously, the historical situations will be taken into account.

das said:

Given the high degrees of factionalism that existed there, Japan sounds nice, but that would mean all players playing for the Axis (unless the Japanese decide to stick with Britain, ofcourse). Then again, the odds were definitely against it historically, so that might not be so bad. Democratic countries have an entirely different kind of factional strife, though it is active; the Soviet Union had been calmed considerably by now, which limits player options considerably.

Still, all things considered, Britain might work out well enough. Possibly keep it and add Japan if enough players are interested?

Click to expand...

Oh yes, of course. It all depends on the players. Of course, we were modest with our goals. I mean, who'd want to play an NES by two untested mods/players? Sheesh.

But yes, probably.

The original idea was to have Nazi Germany (because apparently Nazi had a lot of internal drama) as the only available country, but LF suggested otherwise.

because then everyone will just bust out their history books (or wikipedia) and do exactly what they did.

Click to expand...

Still, hopefully there will be some pressure for people to stay in character.

If you add Japan, wouldn't the USSR (or China) be required in order to have the players doing something?

~Darkening~ said:

If you add Japan, wouldn't the USSR (or China) be required in order to have the players doing something?

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Well, you know, it depends. Japan can have fun busting up NPCs, right? But I would be partial to adding the USSR or China. The thing is though, we need to get enough players so that we need to add two more countries, so really...I'd rather have two countries that are a bit crowded with people than four countries that are more spread out.

I want to play as the ghost of Lenin who will try to turn Stalin more humane through visiting him in his dreams.

If not possible, I might enter as a totally average awesome (as in, not WW2-FPS-hero-type) footsoldier of some random country.

We know from the video games that they alone were responsible for historical victories, not the leaders.

~Darkening~ said:

If you add Japan, wouldn't the USSR (or China) be required in order to have the players doing something?

Click to expand...

Very true. We were planning to have the players have most contact with one another (as enemies, of course).

Britain did have holdings in the Far East, you know. This way the historical balancing act of fighting Germany while keeping an eye on Japan would be preserved in full order.

Although possibly it may be expanded to the greater Commonwealth, so that Canadian and Australian leaders could have their say here - they did in OTL, after all.

flyingchicken said:

I want to play as the ghost of Lenin who will try to turn Stalin more humane through visiting him in his dreams.

If not possible, I might enter as a totally average awesome (as in, not WW2-FPS-hero-type) footsoldier of some random country.

We know from the video games that they alone were responsible for historical victories, not the leaders.

Click to expand...

Not that micro...

Come on now, take it semi-seriously.

Then we'd have to have 4 countries opening (at minimum, to balance it out), and that's kind of deviating from the original plan.

I want the French .

Seeing that you'll most likely just smack that idea, if opened up I'll take a russian conscript .

But I thought it would be fun practically writing out action-packed AARs of my FPS exploits...

Maybe Himmler. I want to be historically accurate save for the methods of killing. I'll try to be more creative.

Then we'd have to have 4 countries opening (at minimum, to balance it out), and that's kind of deviating from the original plan.

Click to expand...

No, just three. Three is, incidentally, a decidedly wonderful number as far as geopolitics are concerned; just ask Orwell. Though five is even more awesome, it might be going a bit too far.

Maybe Himmler. I want to be historically accurate save for the methods of killing. I'll try to be more creative.

Click to expand...

Go team Nazi!

Wow, this is getting quite a bit bigger than the countries originally planned. But then again, it would be nice for the consumer to have some choice in the matter.

So the countries confirmed FO SHO so far are Britain and Germany.

Japan/China? (they're kind of a package deal), USSR(?). I think if we add more than that, the whole thing would start snowballing into other countries. Keep a cap on the number of countries.

Edit: does it some like everyone is rooting for Germany? I am! Of course, I can tell, all the weeaboo shall flock to Japan. If we have one, that is.

Also, I think three is a perfectly lovely number. Five/four is a bit much, I agree.