Thread: Political RPG?

A few years back I was a member of a Swedish forum-based RPG and the upcoming election(s) in the United States reminded me of it. The reason for this is quite simple, the RPG was based on politics and governing (as opposed to the adventuring most RPG are based on). I'm sure this isn't a completely original idea but it was fun and was very different from other RPGs I've played in. Thus, I'm thinking about recreating it in a international form. (I know, I've just started the bad guys RPG. Too much free time, I guess )

Anyway, in the previous RPG (I can't seem to remember its name) each player created a character to play as in normal RPGs. In addition to that each player controlled a number of citizens in a fictional nation. These citizens could protest, riot and get organized but most importantly, they could vote. An election was held every few months and usually a few parties had to cooperate in order to form a majority government.
Anyone could create a party (although I seem to remember that it took two players to create one to avoid one-man parties) or some other organization (I ran a secret society myself) and the parties spread all over the political spectrum and beyond. Some of them where mostly a joke but most of them had real agendas although often strange opinions (very few players used their real opinions).

Most of the time was spent intriguing with other players in order to secure victory (a good deal of back-stabbing was involved and even a few coups) and running the country (creating a budget, starting projects, etc, etc). All of this was done in character which gave an opportunity for more classic role playing.

So... what I'm looking to do is to recreate this lost RPG in one form or another. Due to the complex nature of it, the best solution would probably to create a forum of it's own for it (ezBoard or some other free solution) but I figured WF would be good for some recruiting (there has to be someone who's interested, right?) and early planning. Considering that WF obviously has members interested in both politics and role playing I'm hoping to get at least some support. I'm just praying that I'm not the only member with both interests.

I'm not very good at explaining stuff (especially not in a foreign language) so I realize that some people won't even understand what the hell I'm talking about. Feel free to ask questions though.

Omg, this combines the management factor of games I love (Civ, SEIV, etc.) and RPG. Which I may add is one of the best thing the world has ever come up with.... ahem /geekmoment

So I say that yes I'm pretty interested... and as it would be a pretty difficult thing, and many threads may be needed perhaps a forum made by yourself Faust would be an excellent idea.

Maybe you could pm the URL to me if and when you set it up?

Oh and btw, if you are saying that English is your second language, you speak it excellently!!! (I really like it when a foreign person can speak English well, I hate it when they don't have a clue lol)

So yeah, post some more maybe? Any restrictions? And I guess that it's purely fictional? I mean it doesn't have any restrictions on...er... realism? Hope I get my question across lol.

Yay! At least one person interested. One problem with this kind of RPG is that it needs at least something like ten players to function (preferably 15+). Otherwise, the elections doesn't work very well. Normal RPGs usually gets better with more players as well (provided they aren't too many) but can theoretically work with five players or even less (I once ran a pen'n'paper RPG with only one player. It worked suprisingly well).

When I've created the board (which I'm working on right now) I'll probably include the URL in my signature. If nothing else, that might attract the attention of the people at the debate forum.

Thanks for the compliments. I take some pride in my English skill although it's honestly not much better then that of the average Swede. I read somewhere that out of the non-English speaking countries Sweden rates among the best at speaking English.

Pure fiction, yes. While parties can be inspired by the real world they shouldn't be a rip-off of them and it's probably funnier if they belong to more obscure ideaologies (technocrats, plutocrats, etc.)

I'd be interested in this. Sounds like it has some serious potential, provided enough people are interested.

The board has reached the fetus-stage. It's created but it's ugly and sure as hell not ready to be launched into life yet.

Link have been added to my signature. Feel welcome to check out it's ugliness.

Cool, I'll check it out.

Looks good so far, Faustling.

Thanks. The forum is slowly getting better. It still looks like crap but by now people can hopefully see how I mean to structure it.

Looks like a good start! The name is a hoot.

It hopefully is. Also, I might add that I think most forums will be invisible to guests (I think I could change it but it'll take time) so if someone's even a little bit interested, register in order to get the full picture.

EDIT: My 1000th post Woohoo!

Looks good. I've registered.

I noticed. Check your PM's on that board.

To everyone else; I've been bored and worked pretty much on the board. The structure is becoming clearer and I've created myself a character and a party to serve as examples.

Tsaebs making me so i'm in

Forcing others to join? Tsaeb has a bright future in the world of politics.

I'm in. I've also got a party and a character done up.