Since it's the in thing to do now.
MPV Development Diary – Overview of the Brand and Changes
Has it been five MP games already?
It is no secret that within my games, I have a particular taste in fantasy and soft power that dates back to the Sons of Mars series which tried and failed to implement such things. My interest in soft power has been stimulated by my love of stock trading as well as the games Balance of Power and the Cold War campaign in Rise of Nations. When I first created Multipolarity I, I had finally come up with a system that more or less got the job done, but was crude; regardless players were able to fight in ways besides wars, and this was the ultimate goal, as conflict is a must for good story and keeping players on the edge of their seat. The game was perhaps one of my best, but died due to faulty war mechanics allowing a massive snowball at the end.
Come the second game, I desired to outdo 1 in every aspect. I played with espionage, and while it was not as hilariously stupid as the first game’s, it was far from flawless. While I found great value in Thorvald of Lym as a sub-GM due to his skill in managing NPC personalities, ultimately I found the concept of a sub-GM a bit hard to work with mechanically and because it also tended to create a conflict between player and NPCGM desires. MP2 had many ideas such as stock markets and corporations but ultimately it proved too unwieldy in terms of reining in aggression, and the game ended after a massive powerplay destroyed balance in the same vein as Scotireland in the first game.
I confess I barely even remember 3 without looking it up. Looking at the thread again, however, it was obvious it was continuing the trend of MP games having little to do with each other besides a focus on interference in minor nations and the brand name. Answering grievances about economics, I created a system of raw materials and energy that grew with territory… but ceased growing once expansion ended, leading to a cap-and-trade system that fostered conflict. While the resource system was an interesting experiment, it was a pain to manage and the micromanagement discouraged many; the flawed client system also made it so the market could rapidly shift at any moment.
MPIV had many improvements over prior games. For one, I came up with the idea of separate espionage accounts in every country; this idea was also developed independently by fellow GM Sonereal in his games. Thorvald’s suggestion of making clients more dynamic and not so easily swooped up gave birth to an influence system similar to the one Mosher had designed prior; unlike espionage I did borrow this idea from his Shattered Europe. And I will say, it was a fine idea; clients were extremely competitive, and there was continued tension between various major powers from Turn 1 to the very end. The espionage system also was of great merit; coups were few and far between and while there were several breakthroughs, no one was invincible. I finally found a system that wasn’t garbage after three games of trial and error. By filling in the map on turn one, I eliminated the stagnation that follows the end of expansion in most games; there was no expansion to get attached to, barring a few imperialist players.
The game quickly did run into some issues, however. Despite my disdain for them wars did break out over tensions, and the mechanics were such they were often critiqued. I remained adamant about them solely because I had no intention of allowing MP to become a war game, no matter how vocal the complaints for such were. The game ultimately died as a result of my allowing nuclear weapons to be launched from submarines… and without a valid mechanic to check this, there was really nowhere to go but Hell in a hand basket after that.
However, MPIV was ultimately the best game besides the first, I believe, having fixed espionage and clients, while also being where I developed a way to model global trade in a manner that kept me sane. I also came up with a revolutionary idea: the use of spreadsheets for each player to facilitate copy/pasting orders into my own spreadsheet, cutting turn times enormously. At one point I did 8 hours in the span of an hour, which was simply remarkable. As the players did one debate or another, I was checking what worked and what did not. I saw enormous merit (and ease) in clienting, espionage and economics, while I saw little use in military or WMD mechanics, for I simply could not model them well and any adjustment I made was sure to be criticized.
And that is how we arrive here, MPV. 5 is a wonderful number, being half of ten… it represents something special numerically as a result. Developing MPV, I felt I’d have to do the number proud.
One of my first decisions in design was simple: an end to war. Much like a game of Civ, when I GM wars, they slow the game down and are seldom enjoyable by whoever loses them. When I make war a valid move, I was delicately balance combat and occupation, or just erect a massive wall for defenders and bear the brunt of criticism by those who prefer violent play. If I make nuclear weapons an issue, no matter how much I try, they are sure to become overused at some point due to lack of regard for fictional millions’ lives. Furthermore, war allows one to focus on a small group of targets, whereas soft power forces one to often consider the big picture. I deemed war to add nothing to the game for those who did not live to fight them.
So I removed it. Entirely. I decided that if a player ordered so much as one troop across their border they would be struck down for it. But how would I justify this? A mass WMD arsenal wouldn’t do much good given time. It would just seem incredibly unrealistic to go to war against small countries but not majors, and with alliances being what they are, wars would inevitably spiral out of small occupations. How then, would I justify an end to war that was both easy on me mechanically and also made some semblance of sense in-universe?
It hit me like a ton of bricks. I had always disliked how little use the UN often got in games. It was frequently torn between idealists and players who wanted absolute power within their realms. It seemed like a clash of IC and OOC desires wrapped into a messy casserole. The UN’s sole use was often in-game bonuses rather than anything concrete.
So I decided to replace the UN as it was known. Instead of an international organization, it would become a world government. Nation-states would become simply states within a grand, worldwide federation. With the proper establishment I would be able to negate the influence of players who might try to disband it from within, yet keep enough freedom at the local level to keep those apathetic to global politics interested in the game itself. The UN would be more powerful than ever, a federation with its own money, military, and offices for players to fight for control over; conflict would shift from tanks and bullets to words and backdoor deals.
Of course, with the nation-state aspect eliminated, I would need to redevelop the game from the gound up, as the tools available to a player – political, economic, military, etc. – would change rapidly. With a new world order, would come a whole new set of mechanics.
