New NESes, ideas, development, etc

How about a fictional space empire that functions like a roman republic?
 
Or ImmacuNES II. Which needs a revival.

BY THE WAY! I'm running something based slightly upon it at McMUN next year, if anyone goes. (mcgill model UN.)
 
next school year, so that's in like 4 months.
 
An Italian city state based NES would be cool too. And about the galactic republic, we have Star Wars :)

In the medieval theme, would best be based fictionally or historically? I think it would be cool to invent the names of the families and their "slogans".
 
The inherent problem with the medieval idea is that it requires a player to be a king, which means that they would have some kind of ultimate power which couldn't be taken away short of assassination. Monarchies don't lend themselves to rules-lawyering the way that republics and democracies do, and rules lawyering is a pretty big part of the game :p

The election of a an executive leader is also meant to be a big deal - you've got to make deals for it, and may end with you offering things to people who wouldn't support you otherwise - its the primary vehicle for the gaining of positions - and I'd rather keep that in there. As such a medieval monarchy is unlikely.

I'm not discounting the possibilities of a medieval monarchy with a similar focus on houses and clans, however. After all, its not like 'house' can't be a merchant house. :p And its not like assassination isn't still a possible method for gaining the ultimate executive positions.

I'm not 100% sold on a post-soviet country, because post-soviet Russia or Central Asia didn't have personal armies running around. Warlord era-china or revolutionary Mexico works, because its essentially anarchic and having players be politicians as well as warlords is pretty good for the anarchy theme.

Space Empires are also a possibility, but making it basically Rome kind of misses the reason why I picked Rome in the first place (I know a lot about it, more than I know about post-colonial Africa or renaissance Italy) and trying to turn 'land reform dilemma' into 'land reform dilemma in SPACE' just seems like extra work to me. I might as well set it in Rome.

Thinking about it, the setting is probably something I should decide before I start coming up with mechanics - I might need to include other stuff based on the setting (using Intrigue points to buy support from foreign powers during the cold war, as an example).

Just as a note, the whole 'negotiating with foreign powers' mechanic in KhaNESII will be right out. It got super confusing super fast and will be drastically simplified in the NES, likely through a 'buy support with intrigue points' mechanic.
 
@Grandkhan if you take early Middle Ages, say from 800 to 1300 (post-Charlemagnes period), you'd see that the power of kings and the Emperor was very much reduced. I'm not sure about elections, but becoming a religious or secular lord required a lot of support from other nobles and the church. One thing you could do is make the king, emperor, pope NPCs and make the players fight for title. Another is to lower the scale. When we were playing Nessos we were governing just one city (similar to Rome) with a few villas and villages outside the walls. The idea was that it would grow to become a huge empire. Same players would manage the empire as they did manage one town. So setting the game in an expansional medieval city could also work. Players could representing patrician families. The idea would even work better for an Italian or German merchant (city) republic than it would for another type of town.

Then there's another idea. There was an old game (cannot remember the name now) where you would take control of a fictional Soviet republic in a dissolved fictional Soviet Union. There were five republics of nearly equal population and number of minorities that had just become independent and are facing numerous social and economic problems. Once you had picked one your role was to conquer the other four and solve their problems in the meantime. In this scenario (as long as you'd keep the nuclear weapons safe) you could have private armies, rebellions, as well as numerous social and economic variables to deal with. Players could be fighting for control over the cabinet and there will surely be presidential elections (unless a clever general stages a coup with his loyal army :mischief: ).

EDIT: Found the game, it was called "Ashes of Empire".
 
Guys, I'm new here and do not know how everything works, I just know you guys always do a great job. Regardless of the theme, I will participate.

Arrow, glad that my idea has been useful. You can count on me.
 
More ideas (or "Who said the well was dry?"):

I know some of you guys felt disappointed that the MES/NES crashed, but I admit it is my fault, because trying to coordinate the efforts of 8+ people is HARD (reminds me of the troubles the DrNESes went through, we never got around to finish a freakin' mission :lol:). Also, making the rules was difficult, especially when it came down to developing the abilities.

However, this morning I remembered one NES that had the chance to become really good, DragoNES: Secrets of Darkspace. Dragonson also had a couple of good RPG NESes I joined when they were up.

I thought, that, maybe, an RPG NES in space could be made. Missions would be posted, players could join factions, gain levels and training, build their own spaceship... Everything would take place in the same solar system - although a huge solar system like in Firefly - so it would be interesting to make things up, see if people would combine forces or go on their own... I have nothing yet to show, but, well, you can imagine how the idea would work.
 
I have several recommendations.

Never allow people to cooperate for a lengthy period of time. All interactions should be temporary alliances for the same goal and brought to them by a chance event. If the characters refuse to be split apart voluntarily, split them apart.

This is the only way to keep enough people interested. If a person involved in a game discovers that a person he is paired with is no longer interested in the game, it is a huge morale destroyer.

Best way to do this is to hit the characters with a sci-fi situation in which supernatural situation is occurring, so that you can justify hostile forces separating characters. A good knowledge of horror tropes will be paramount if you take this approach. for a world choice, Lovecraftian universe is ideal. Silent Hill is also pretty decent.

Normal update pattern does not work in this context. Each "update" must be personal and directed only towards relevant characters. Daily update is good.
 
I have several recommendations.

Never allow people to cooperate for a lengthy period of time. All interactions should be temporary alliances for the same goal and brought to them by a chance event. If the characters refuse to be split apart voluntarily, split them apart.
Yes. This idea is good. I have an idea about doing something based on Paranoia, giving players certain orders when they are part of a guild/secret society, to force them not to collaborate unless necessary.

This is the only way to keep enough people interested. If a person involved in a game discovers that a person he is paired with is no longer interested in the game, it is a huge morale destroyer.
That's right.

Best way to do this is to hit the characters with a sci-fi situation in which supernatural situation is occurring, so that you can justify hostile forces separating characters. A good knowledge of horror tropes will be paramount if you take this approach. for a world choice, Lovecraftian universe is ideal. Silent Hill is also pretty decent.
I was planning to give a touch of pseudo-supernatural powers, like Mass Effect's biotics or Tabula Rasa's Logos. Of course, I would have to develop it. Also, putting Eldritch Abominations in-game as potential enemies makes for an interesting thing.

Normal update pattern does not work in this context. Each "update" must be personal and directed only towards relevant characters. Daily update is good.
Yup. That's the best thing to do. It's the same thing that happened in Dragonson's NESes, each person went its own way and PMs were exchanged. When several people worked together, then it went through MSN, although in this case it would be difficult, because it would be complicated to find a time in which everyone was available to RP a mission.
 
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