Thanks for the help moving this thread to the appropriate forum! Much obliged!
Welcome, new folks.
We are very happy to take aboard folks at all skill levels. The narrative focus is more the unintended result of wanting to avoid building a ludicrously detailed rule set than an attempt to squeeze New York Times bestsellers out of the lot of you. While I do reward those who produce creative writing in connection with the game, you are welcome to experiment with styles other than classic first- or third-party narrative, including the "newsprint" and "memo" styles familiar to the geopolitical crowd.
To create a faction, please review the original set of fourteen in Alpha Centauri and Crossfire, then provide a brief answer to the following three questions: (1) Why did civilization on Earth fail? (2) What are the irreducible truths of human existence? (3) What does your faction believe is necessary, politically and organizationally, for human civilization to succeed on Chiron? Think, too, about why even a very small cadre of Unity crew and colonists might accede to the leadership of your faction head during the Crisis of Planetfall.
The "aesthetic" of this game is late-1980s/early-1990s visions of the future. Feel free to use current issues and "hot topics" of the past four decades to fuel your thinking about faction design.
I do have "special" slots open for players of factions that will shape the narrative in specific ways. Unfortunately, because of the sensitivity of those roles, I can only give very minimum detail before I assign them. Let me know if you want to go in that direction.
I intend for the game to unfold episodically, and that is what we have done thus far. The game began when the command crew awoke to address an emergency on Unity's arrival in the Alpha Centauri system. Players have spent one regular and one double-long "impulse" (roughly 36 hours) trying to organize an evacuation amidst an orgy of looting and violence. The third impulse (12 hours) ends tonight (Monday night) at midnight EST. Moderation will follow by Wednesday, August 27. I will include all new players in the subsequent impulse.
The rule set is simple. Based on the Wargame Developments Handbook and the "sprawling wargame" concept introduced by late historian Paddy Griffith, each player submits their orders in the form of logical argument. Players generally take between one and three actions per turn, depending upon faction size.
The template is as follows:
Action: My forces SEIZE the Emergency Command Center (ECC).
Result: Spartan forces successfully storm the ECC and execute the remaining defenders.
Reason 1: Spartan forces open the engagement by planting C4 against the hatch, then employing grenade launchers to fire high-explosive and flechette rounds into the compartment. Once the bombardment is complete, smoke rounds are fired for concealment. Spartan troops wearing respirators and night-vision goggles then storm the section, armed with assault weapons.
Reason 2: Col. Santiago hand-picked each of the Spartan stowaways, and a high proportion of Spartans have combat experience.
Reason 3: Restoration forces defending the ECC are already severely bloodied, as described in the moderation last impulse. By contrast, Spartan forces have not yet suffered significant casualties.
Each argument will then be considered. If the move is unopposed, it succeeds. If two or more players present conflicting arguments, the Umpire compares their validity. Each faction has a set of general stats, called "pips," that gives the player a general sense of his/her capabilities. If necessary, I can set probabilities and use dice, but I haven't found that necessary thus far. Players seem to get enough time with me that the results of moderation are rarely a surprise. The point is to encourage you to take well-considered actions by forcing them to present your actions in a well-reasoned format.
What I'd like to do is run a pan-forum game, meaning that I'll try to post the latest moderation here as well as on the site hosting the original game, The Frontier. PM me for the URL. You will want to visit both to get a sense of the background and to identify folks with whom you may want to conduct diplomacy. I will begin building a general contact sheet that can be used to trade e-mails and the like.
Immaculate, looks like the Consensus is ready to go. Look my up on Skype (DesertJourneyman) or YIM (Trenacker) so that I can assign you pips.