IOT Developmental Thread

[erez87]

I think most neses died before they even started, and I do think over-complexity played a role.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Ttrpgs make for very different games and stories than nation based neses and iots. They scratch a very different itch. You can’t really replace one with the other and expect the same result.

Yes, in that you can actually play a TTRPG and expect it to go past the first session, while with majority of IOTs/NESes that is far from actually guaranteed. Besides, there are TTRPGs that can simulate nation-based games - just a single example would be GURPS. But in fact, the obsession with simulating nations is one of the petards of both communities, because nations are impossibly complex to simulate, especially with the traditional conception of an IOT/NES player as some kind of a spiritual embodiment of their nations. You have to in fact throw in the players in the muck and the dirt of being an actor within a nation, which would, of course, reduce the ability to create your own, perfect heaven, and instead, would be forced to deal with an already-existing structure as you struggle to change it. For so long, this has been essentially forced on by RP, where players created characters to view the world through; yet, seemingly, no one thought about enforcing this mechanically by making you actually play as a character.

 

[Sonereal]

With that said, Traveller Pocket Empires and GURPS Realm Management are pretty cool but they're also kinda/sorta dressing for establishing context. As in, it is less important that the Clovis Empire is sending an armada to conquer Xenon and more important that the Emperor of Clovis ordered General Travis Duncan-Idaho, his uncle and on-again off-again competitor in palace intrigue, to do it to get him offworld for a few years.

Those games also don't think every player is playing their own country either. Generally, it's more interesting for multiple players representing multiple competing factions within the gears of the state and policy making than it is for each player to run the show on worlds dozens of lightyears apart.

You have to in fact throw in the players in the muck and the dirt of being an actor within a nation, which would, of course, reduce the ability to create your own, perfect heaven, and instead, would be forced to deal with an already-existing structure as you struggle to change it.

This is honestly an argument to bring back Realpolitick more than anything. At least then the GM's efforts aren't needlessly repeated over and over again. Wouldn't it be nice if a new items in an update affected multiple players because they're all Senators of, like, the Midwest, instead of trying to create events that the UK, Germany, and France all give a **** about. How little did we know that Lighthearter was on to something with RP2/3.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Does the scale really matter?

We can simulate atoms and you still need to write a reason why one being hit by a photon is relevant to another atom. I am being facitous, but characters, states, nations, planets and galaxies all interacting... Its up to the GM to create a compelling situation, and the players themselves to seek interaction.

Some players want a sandbox to play whatever they control, others want to break other people's toys. Further deviants want to manipulate both.

You can force interaction, reward it, or ignore it. A lot depends on the willpower alone of the GM to keep dragging along these separate parties.

I intend to start things already in a situation, one that is unavoidable for most, and that few won't get drawn into quickly.

It may help to give players challenges to do. If there is actually something to 'win' again you can sway the direction of play.

 

[Sonereal]

Does the scale really matter?

We can simulate atoms and you still need to write a reason why one being hit by a photon is relevant to another atom. I am being facitous, but characters, states, nations, planets and galaxies all interacting... Its up to the GM to create a compelling situation, and the players themselves to seek interaction.

Do you, personally, get invested in the going-ons of electrons, neutrons, and protons in an atom? Does Warhammer 40k's "constant galactic war" have any value when the story doesn't eventually meander its way to depicting how this war affects people? The scale people relate strongest to is the personal and people generally get more out of reading stories set on this scale than Wikipedia articles.

Some players want a sandbox to play whatever they control, others want to break other people's toys. Further deviants want to manipulate both.

You can force interaction, reward it, or ignore it. A lot depends on the willpower alone of the GM to keep dragging along these separate parties.

Yeah, but the thing about it is that this is almost uniquely an IOT/NES thing. I've been running TTRPGs for years now and I've never had to *drag* people to show up at a specific time on a Friday night or get them to do things, but everyone who has ever ran an IOT/NES knows you practically need to put a gun against heads to get people to send in orders before a six week deadline. It's generally because these games get too complicated, the scale gets too big for a quick turnaround, and people lose interest when there's forty years between updates that in 50k words might reference your own country, like, twice.

On the other hand, I've watched Vampire the Masquerade Discord severs will player counts way outstripping peak IOT keep a constant thrum of activity over periods of time largely unfathomable to any IOT GM. Turnaround is faster, the scale is personal, people get invested.

Not to say the idea won't work and that you shouldn't shoot for it because hey, what does anyone have to lose really

 

[Red_Spy]

Yes, in that you can actually play a TTRPG and expect it to go past the first session...

You've clearly never been a player in something I have run; whether or not I even show up to my first session is a crapshoot.

 

[Sonereal]

You've clearly never been a player in something I have run; whether or not I even show up to my first session is a crapshoot.

Roll a 1d6, 4+ success, 1 a bomb goes off in a player's neighborhood

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

Tossing in my two cents, I don't play NES's for TTRPG-style personal stories, I do it to describe cultures and evolution of national policy. I GM a lot of TTRPGs and for any given campaign I only can have one or two major cultural or political shifts in a given campaign, given the stretch of time they take place over in-universe. NES's/IOT's can take place over decades to centuries with plenty of outside forces influencing decisions instead of just me talking things through with friends.

I personally think that a very small NES/IOT would be fun, with a couple of players and the GM instead of trying to shepherd a dozen or more. Updates could be smaller so the turnaround could be a lot faster, each update would be much more focused on the active players which would keep players invested, and if you only have three or four players then you probably won't have to prod them for orders constantly.

edit: I also don't really get why players would ghost a game, which seems to be a major cause of GM burnout? Writing even half-assed orders isn't exactly a major time investment, most NES/IOT's only have a handful of levers to pull and most of the time you can spend five minutes writing up pretty generic actions (or just give the GM broad intent instead of specific actions) if you can't invest enough spoons to think up something cool or mechanically intricate.

 

[Sonereal]

Tossing in my two cents, I don't play NES's for TTRPG-style personal stories, I do it to describe cultures and evolution of national policy. I GM a lot of TTRPGs and for any given campaign I only can have one or two major cultural or political shifts in a given campaign, given the stretch of time they take place over in-universe. NES's/IOT's can take place over decades to centuries with plenty of outside forces influencing decisions instead of just me talking things through with friends.

TTRPGs can also do too (see GURPS: Realm Management, Stars Without Number's faction system, Modern AGE's Companion, and Traveller Pocket Empires/World Tamers/Dynasty). Not that you're wrong of course; most games probably can't reasonably be generational.

edit: I also don't really get why players would ghost a game, which seems to be a major cause of GM burnout? Writing even half-assed orders isn't exactly a major time investment, most NES/IOT's only have a handful of levers to pull and most of the time you can spend five minutes writing up pretty generic actions (or just give the GM broad intent instead of specific actions) if you can't invest enough spoons to think up something cool or mechanically intricate.

Believe me, you would think that, right? But people can't get half-assed orders in in three weeks: it's just a strange fact of this community. I've seen this happen regardless of complexity of the game or number of players. My last two or three IOTs didn't have this problem but:

1. One was based on Silent Legion's (TTRPG) cult system
2. One was Fate-based
3. One was based on REIGN's (TTRPG) company system

So like, maybe the problem is that IOT/NES deep refusal to just pick up systems that have been around for decades and have gone through some sort of QA and playtesting lol

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

I wouldn't really want to sit around a table doing a generational story like an IOT/NES can do, I enjoy having a week between order sets to think about ideas and percolate. Using the rules from one should be fine, I don't particularly care one way or another about the ruleset unless it actively prevents me from doing what I want to do, and if someone ran one using those rulesets I'd be entirely on board (I was part of the Silent Legions game for the two turns it lived). I just wouldn't want to play it as a TTRPG, with a four hour time block set aside once a week or something. Having time to think things through, to pester the GM, etc, etc is an important part of the experience for me (though admittedly I also incessantly pester the GM between sessions of DnD the few times I'm allowed to play instead of run, but doing so during a session when you're working out rules is pretty obnoxious). I'm curious what GURPS Realm Management is like.

That said I do think that there is something special about playing with a homemade set of rules, janky as they usually are. December World was far and away my favorite NES/IOT style game and a big chunk of that is because of the janky ruleset that was steadily refined and adjusted as Ahigin worked out the kinks. They're not as slick as something that was refined and adjusted by professionals, but there usually is a lot of charm to them and the GMs have a strong tendency to adjust things on the fly with rules they made up themselves if you ask them if/how you do specific things not explicitly laid out in their rule document, something a more refined ruleset I suspect a GM is less likely to do. Its been my experience that the more defined the rules the less the person running is likely to bend them, and if they wrote the rules they *want* you to like them so they're more likely to figure out a mechanic just for the thing you ask about. Most GMs know their janky-ass rules are janky and love it when people engage with them enough to talk about modifications or corner cases where they either break down or are absent.

 

[Tani Coyote]

"Janky rules"

Oh, Multipolarity's espionage mechanic... lmao

"Hello, I'd like to bankrupt your entire nation with a single action"

 

[Gelion]

Looks like none have picked up on what I was saying in my previous post, i.e. "can we attract a new generation of Forum games players?" I suppose some nostalgia gaming is good too.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

The main issue is the lack of cross pollination. With little to no live games, anyone lurking and doing a drive-by won't find anything to hook their interest. Similarly, if none of this community is also active in Civ6 parts of the forum, its unlikely and "new blood" would even become aware of this backwater part of the forum (no offence!). Similarly OT doesn't seem to get much flow either.

I've posted in a few older "Forum Games" threads and it is almost utterly dead.

It will take quite a shock to revive such matters. You need probably 10-20 active players to set off the chain reaction.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

My development thread is gathering pace. I would welcome any to join and all feedback too!

 

[Lord of Elves]

Like, just do it, man.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Done! Come, one and all

 

[Crezth]

i like hyping people up with vague promises



Nation, Cities
People's Republic of China, 41
United States of America, 38
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 34
European Union, 34
Republic of India, 24
Russian Federation, 22
State of Japan, 18
Australia-New Zealand, 16
United Mexican States, 13
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 13
Federative Republic of Brazil, 12
Argentine Republic, 10
Republic of Turkey, 9
Islamic Republic of Iran, 8
Federal Republic of Nigeria, 8
Republic of South Africa, 7
Republic of Poland, 6
Arab Republic of Egypt, 6
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 6
Republic of Cuba, 5
State of Israel, 4
Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 4
Republic of Korea, 4
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, 4
People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, 3
Syrian Arab Republic, 2
Democratic People's Republic of Korea, 2
Nuclear Weapons, yes

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Very interested in Nigeria!

 

[Crezth]

More stuff:

Lookin' to get a thread up soon, I moved to a new city and I'm feeling good about life and I want to celebrate with some thermonuclear war, which is very fun.

 

[ZeletDude]

Reminds me of a very old NES once upon a time, ran by god knows who. I am so in Crezth