http://i.imgur.com/ksTgr1U.png Game Details: RaF will be a game starting out in ancient history. However, unlike our original timeline, no one has really banded together to create a full nation just yet. Starting out with a small territory and a rich history, you will create a nation from scratch and build an empire. The game will technically start at year 0, and technology will be ancient. Spears, copper blades, etc., will be the norm to start out. Eventually, as years progress, nations will be able to progress forward in their tech and invent weapons, etc. I am looking for 5 nations to start, as I believe that number is perfect for me to role-play with. As the Over-god, I will make sure wars are balanced, growth is fair, etc. I will even RP out some NPC nations people can gang up on. I am merely looking for interest right now. I am currently writing out mechanics which will probably be point based to start. If there are any ideas or comments, please do so. Again, merely looking for interest before I write out something huge on the site.

Year 0 and only starting with copper weapons? Man, what plebian technological growth is this? Besides, even if you do start this in the third millennium BCE the major issue would be the pacing. Anything that'd actually be worth writing a story in would be way too slow for any meaningful details. Given the orientation of society in this period to the city-state and not anything larger. We actually probably would not be able to build the great "classical empire" as you're hoping while keeping a compelling pace where we can have actual characters. If you still want to do anything that moves at a clip that would make the kids with ADHD die of boredom then it'll have to move so fast that it being a "bronze age" RP would be meaningless. And rather dry in the world building and character sense, we'd be introducing characters and soon after leaving them behind. And any player to player conflict would become awkwardly placed. Frankly, for this to work realistically it would need to be severely localized. Or drawn more into a later classical period where the old classical Empires do come about. But Bronze-age society (which I hope you mean by "copper tools" since copper is shit for tools and weapons) isn't as grandiose as you think. It's very small in the relative sense. So nothing would happen on the current scale of the RP.

Hmmm, that is an issue. My main problem is trying to find a way to create something ancient/medieval but allowing others to create their own Empires/Kingdoms. I could make it more early medieval and just allow people to create Empires from that. Tech from early 1200 but no political lines of any sort.

Hmmm, that is an issue. My main problem is trying to find a way to create something ancient/medieval but allowing others to create their own Empires/Kingdoms. I could make it more early medieval and just allow people to create Empires from that. Tech from early 1200 but no political lines of any sort.

This will still need to have some sort of history for that unless you're flying the silly, "Yea whatever, re-write everything" option of story. The Kingdom of France didn't just happen, and I'm sure people will try to make that just happen. The other option might be to center everything on Egypt for this period, since that's the only place in way-early Bronze Age with anything significant going on. Later on would by the Assyrian City-states half-way through that epoch. But most of everywhere else probably didn't have enough proper city-states to cover significant ground in intrique and conflict or were pretty much tribal. And spanning across all of Europe, Anatolia, and the Middle East is too much for a period with so little political happenings. Hell, you could probably focus down in on Bronze Age Germany and make it out to be Barbarian tribes too. But not everyone. Doesn't work.

I did have an idea that might fit though, since the bronze age does not seem possible. What if: During the 1300's, the Black Death ravaged Europe. Spreading across the continent, the plague took no prisoners as it slaughtered farmers, artisans and royalty. Finally, after over 10 years of destruction, the plague seems to have finally dissipated. What peasants find however is their nations ruined, the populations decimated, and their rulers either dead or exiled. Through the ashes of destruction, new nations are to be born, ruled by daring men and women. We could do something like this. That way, new nations can emerge, some even based off of old ruling kingdoms, etc. We could even retcon it further, making the plague last even longer and killing even more people then historically. The game would have a slight apocalyptic edge to it and allow player creation.

I did have an idea that might fit though, since the bronze age does not seem possible. What if: During the 1300's, the Black Death ravaged Europe. Spreading across the continent, the plague took no prisoners as it slaughtered farmers, artisans and royalty. Finally, after over 10 years of destruction, the plague seems to have finally dissipated. What peasants find however is their nations ruined, the populations decimated, and their rulers either dead or exiled. Through the ashes of destruction, new nations are to be born, ruled by daring men and women. We could do something like this. That way, new nations can emerge, some even based off of old ruling kingdoms, etc. We could even retcon it further, making the plague last even longer and killing even more people then historically. The game would have a slight apocalyptic edge to it and allow player creation.

You are aware that's pretty much happened, minus total national destruction. The Crown has a way of finding new heads so there wouldn't have been a total political upheaval, even if the Black Plague took more. If anything, it would cause a shift in the social framework in these nations; just to a greater extent. It's that sort of business that laid the beginning ground works of what would be the Renaissance. But assuming everyone dies sort of thinks ill of everyone at the time and implies they're dumber than they were. They had their ways of handling disease. Frankly, the easier thing to do would be to go a fictional world. They way no one takes anything for granted, misrepresents everyone poorly, or has to make some wild and stupid event happen just so we can turn France into the medieval United States of Gaul.

A fictional world is probably easier. Or, if you want to use a Europe map or something, just go total alt-history and create the kind of background you need. I know you tried to do that with the Black Death thing, but: a) That's too similar to real life, some people will go on and on about people not being 'historically accurate' even if it's not supposed to be. b) If this point of divergence occurred, there would be a substantial possibility for an invasion of a severely weakened Europe by Islamic nations from Africa and the Middle East, and probably the Mongols from the East as well. And the Vikings survived relatively unscathed IRL (relatively, they were hit by it like most others), so there's the potential for a northern invasion. I don't see any low-tech level new city states racked by plague surviving in the face of threats from three cardinal directions. The book, 'The Years of Rice and Salt' by Kim Stanley Robinson explores such a scenario from a global perspective. As you can likely tell, I am one of those in danger of falling into the trap of point A :)

The Vikings were all gone by the 14th century so they wouldn't be able to mount a second age of heathen raiding like they had practiced between the 7th and 11th centuries. By the time the black Plague hit Europe all of Scandinavea was like the rest of central and western Europe: staunchly Catholic. Frankly, it'd still be easier to do a fantasy setting because even an alt history to a point where we could have original nations (donut steel) still causes a lot of issues with what will need to diverge and how far away it'd need to be from this point. Trying to work out such a scenario as well would be far too difficult to try and explain and to address all the plot holes and inaccuracies.