OK, this post has been in the works for some time (I'm a little shy to shamefully plug my NES). But I think some of you who like to write may not know exactly what it is, or it might seem intimidating. So it's only fair if I give this to the community.
I would not call this "my" NES. Rather, I would call it the NES that belongs to those who participate in it. Each player is an author of short fiction. This can be as brief or as lengthy as you want. I think quality trumps quantity any day of the week.
As an author, you get certain perks. You can take liberties with the world you write in and you can interact with other players and myself (the "worldmaster"). I control NPCs, the weather, monsters, and so on.
This is set in a fantasy world. The world itself is massive; almost the size of Earth, to be precise. There are several continents. Our story, for now, is centralized to a region called
Sekai. There are many reasons for the story being centered in Sekai. In the future, if the NES can keep going, I want to allow players to colonize other lands and explore more of the world. But for now, there are very potent reasons for remaining in Sekai.
This is not a "fresh start", but it does allow you to create ideas and concepts and transplant them into our world (from scratch). I will weave those ideas together to create the world in its entirety. The setting is traditional fantasy, though outside of Sekai, tradition begins to unravel (we haven't gotten there yet). The world is in a tech-era similar to late Middle Ages and even elements of early Renaissance.
What you can play as is really up to you. There are many options: polity, guild, or character. You can even play as a group of characters.
Polities right now are rather limited. If you want to join as a polity, you may - but probably not a massive kingdom, because then the history will have to be changed (and we already started). I would allow tribal polities, still working to become stable governments. I would allow small city-states in regions that are not particularly in the middle of current events. And I would allow small, civilized, potentially powerful kingdoms in areas not in the middle of current events. We can probably work you in somehow, so don't be shy.
Guilds are anything. Do you want to simply brew beer and send that beer to the major cities of Sekai? Do you want to host a writer's guild, where your members scribe tomes of old? Or do you want something a bit more exciting: mercenary group, archer company, and so on?
Characters are also quite flexible. We don't work in traditional RPG classes here. Check out the rules
here for more info.
* * * * *
Oh yeah. No orders. No updates. There are chapter summaries, though, which are kind of like updates. Taking the place of updates are stories posted by me, the worldmaster. I will post stories giving you stuff to do. Responses to your stories. Etc.
Yes, you must write stories to do anything. However, these stories do not have to be epic novels. They can be brief, descriptive paragraphs. I like meaning, symbolism, and general content - not necessarily length. If you have an imagination at all, I think you would be well-suited for this NES. You can create interesting situations for yourself or for others. Taking liberties is not frowned upon.
Well, that's all I can think of to say for now. You can check out the
In-Character thread herehttp://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=447374 or the
OOC thread herehttp://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=444260 (you should post your proposal in the OOC thread).
Most of all, the point is to have fun and participate in a grand story with other people. So far, it has been really fun to be a part of it and I am in awe of some of the writers we have around here. If you want to flex your creative writing muscles or simply have fun in a role-playing game, you're welcome to join.