RE: Nation Roleplays: How many mechanics is too much?

[GraySkye]

To begin, an introduction. I've recently been contemplating the idea of running a game. Coincidentally, I was hovering around the NRP section lately, I've only done one in ages past, I've found really interesting ideas and concepts. Needless to say, I felt like trying it out again. While I haven't run across one that was something that I particularly wanted to play, my brain went wild and started coming up with an idea that I can run myself.

The setting (low-fantasy Napoleonic era) is chugging along nicely, but a large part of my processing power is being dedicated to coming up with mechanics to add to the game. For example, I want to run battles as a bit of a skirmish game played out on a map, where the players as the commanding presence of their armies would issue orders. Here comes the iffy bits: I had imagined that players would get to stat their units accordingly, which would decide combat along with dice. From there, it evolved to giving nations the ability to raise said troops and supply them. Then comes along the idea of allowing each player to come up with perks for their nation, which would add personality - which is honestly my favorite part of the NRP idea - to nations, but would obviously add more complexity to the game.

...somewhere along the line, it ends up sounding like a video game or maybe a trpg, even to me.

Now, I am personally not against the idea of running such a complex game, but I'd like people's opinions. Should I allow the madness to take over? Or maybe I should tone it down? I would also be happy with just advice in general.

Thanks for reading through that~

[ArenaSnow]

Sounds like Napoleon: Total War with roleplay posts.

I doubt that's very helpful, but it's my only real thought on the matter.

[GraySkye]

I can't actually deny that... text-based Napoleon: Total War with Fantasy Elements

I could probably scratch this itch if Napoleon was a better game. Or if Warhammer Total War had much more guns. >3>

[The Nexerus]

First of all, I'd like to affirm--before anyone has even had the chance to post it--that the standpoint that a roleplay isn't really a roleplay if it has mechanics is idiotic. Anyone who has ever said anything to that effect is too stupid a moron to warrant taking anything that they ever said, ever, even half seriously. There is nothing more innately roleplay-ey about freeform roleplays versus structured roleplays. It's as hair-brained an idea as accusing limericks and haikus of not being true poems.

To answer your question: the ideal amount of mechanisms to add to your roleplay is precisely the amount that improves your roleplay. That quantity is going to be determined by the tolerance of your players to the mechanics, how much of a workload they place on you as GM, etc. There is no perfect anount of structure that always works for every roleplay.

[Goldeagle1221]

First of all, I'd like to affirm--before anyone has even had the chance to post it--that the standpoint that a roleplay isn't really a roleplay if it has mechanics is idiotic. Anyone who has ever said anything to that effect is too stupid a moron to warrant taking anything that they ever said, ever, even half seriously. There is nothing more innately roleplay-ey about freeform roleplays versus structured roleplays. It's as hair-brained an idea as accusing limericks and haikus of not being true poems.

To answer your question: the ideal amount of mechanisms to add to your roleplay is precisely the amount that improves your roleplay. That quantity is going to be determined by the tolerance of your players to the mechanics, how much of a workload they place on you as GM, etc. There is no perfect anount of structure that always works for every roleplay.

@The Nexerus

I wholeheartedly agree with Nex. It is a situational basis, and depends on the factors of the roleplay, its players, its GM, and ultimately the theme and purpose of the game.

[BrokenPromise]

It's actually quite simple. The more complex your game is, the fewer people there will be who can actually understand it. That's not always a bad thing mind you, as the people who do take interest will often be more appreciative and stick with the RP longer. You will need to really sit down and think about how the game will be run though. If you have a system where battles take twenty turns to resolve, and each player posts once a week regularly, the average fight will last ten weeks, or two and a half months. You will also have people taking momentary or permanent leaves for various things, and they might not always tell you about it. You will need a way to resolve these battles. There will also likely be a shift from storytelling to winning, though I've been told that's the norm for NRPs anyway.

If you have interested players already, pitch this idea with them and see what they have to say. If you haven't made your interest check yet, maybe try making this game and testing it yourself. Maybe you can even lasso a guinea pig into trying it with you in PMs before releasing it to the public. The question isn't should you or shouldn't you, but can you, and that's not something anyone in here is going to know.

[GraySkye]

Thanks for the input guys! It'd probably be easier to modify something to fit the interested parties than the other way around.

Looks like the best way to figure out at this point is to solidify the ideas into something that works and try to find some mooks adventurous individuals to test it out with me.

[mickilennial]

It may be a simple and stupid answer – but it is only “too much” when you are asking the question if it is too much.

[Sierra]

First of all, I'd like to affirm--before anyone has even had the chance to post it--that the standpoint that a roleplay isn't really a roleplay if it has mechanics is idiotic. Anyone who has ever said anything to that effect is too stupid a moron to warrant taking anything that they ever said, ever, even half seriously. There is nothing more innately roleplay-ey about freeform roleplays versus structured roleplays. It's as hair-brained an idea as accusing limericks and haikus of not being true poems.

@The Nexerus

The validity of game mechanics as part of a roleplay experience is a subjective construct which an individual can choose to accept or reject. THere is nothing innately wrong with considering roleplays with game mechanics outside the scope of what said individual considers a valid roleplay. The standpoint that said individual considering such roleplays unfit is wrong is idiotic. Anyone who has ever claimed anything to that effect is too stupid a moron to warrant taking anything that they ever said, ever, even half seriously.
(This is what your comments read like. There is a line between wit and derision and this reads much closer to derision.)

To answer your question @GraySkye, it partially depends on your target audience. Different groups of people enjoy different quantities of game mechanics. I am more of a purist but there's plenty of people who are happy going full D&D dice-and-stats-for-everything style. In that regard its a case of "if you build it, they will come." The other major consideration, people already touched on. Playability. Overcomplicating things is a great way to narrow down your audience to zero.

My counsel would be that, if in the course of writing a normal post for the roleplay in question, you have to refer back to more than one additional reference page (or a singular reference page more than 4 or so times) .... or if you have to spend more than 10-15 minutes tops working on math for stats, you may want to evaluate the possibility of cutting back. Those are some tests I suggest to check how burdensome the systems are. Burden will very quickly turn to burnout and that will ultimately kill a project.

[GraySkye]

Hmmm... I may have given off the wrong idea with my opening. Currently, I am strictly at the brainstorming stages, any ideas I have are not fully developed. I was asking mostly as a preventative measure and to test the waters, hoping to get an idea of a rough estimate as when to stop as I lack self-control at times. In that regards, it seems I'm pretty successful.

To clarify, I'm not trying to make a rule-set (though maybe I should, as a separate project, haha) my main reason for adding mechanics is to a) give people incentive to play to quirky nations and reward them for doing so (Who doesn't want to see a a tide of nationalist orcish light infantry picking off dinosaurs riding bigger dinosaurs from lands unknown. An exaggeration, but allow me to dream.) b) allow for a way for players to judge their progress compared to others (and thus show who are ripe for conquest) and c) to help decide matters that are a bit messy to do so strictly in character (I find combat tends to rub egos). My goal is still for people to play as their nation outside of the number crunching. Kind of like an After Action Report, for those who read those things, but during the action.

So far, it still sound like a bit of temperance is required, but testing is still the best way to go.

[Mae]

at the end of the day, if you make a roleplay without many mechanics, you'll get roleplayers who like not having mechanics.

If you make a roleplay with alot of mechanics, you'll get people who like mechanics.

Make the roleplay to the best of your ability and infuse your passion into it, and things will be fine. You can always tone it down or up as you need to. Just make a game you would like to play and I'm sure you'll find others out there who like it too.

[Ironsides]

As someone who has recently done a Nation Roleplay I can tell you for certain the more complexity you have the less of a crowd you'll have. The objective here is to have a good balance between mechanical complexity and traditional free-form roleplay.

As someone stated before this all depends on what you're looking for. I personally have mechanics in place to keep Mary-Sues and Powergamers in check because we've all been there that we have that one guy who wants to steamroll everyone with his seemingly invincible armies. A simple principle I adhere to is you keep the storytelling elements free from the mechanics as possible where mechanics are only there for policing players with nations going on power trips.

One thing I've toyed with recently is using mechanics to create a challenge to write a story around the results in a die roll of something hypothetical or planned. In NRP if roleplaying is the act of telling history of your setting then mechanics are those variables of fate that dictates the outcome of certain events in history. What you want is collaborative storytelling, not a game.