Saintheart posted:

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All right. Let's back up a little bit. It's an interesting idea, no doubt. Let the work in progress begin!

First thing you need to decide: what's the scope of your RPG?

That is, what are your players going to be? Are they leaders of their nations? Generals of their armies? Are they just ordinary folks?

The reason you need to answer that is because many people make the mistake of just creating a world for their players to operate in as opposed to creating a game for those players. The main problem with doing it that way is -- unless you've got a very creative group -- players will usually wind up lost and bored. If you created a post which basically says "This is the world, now play in it" without some limits, you'll probably wind up with one player who wants to be British king, one who wants to be a Chinese general, and one who just wants to be an American merchant banker.

See the problem there? If not, it's this: how in any realm of plausibility would these people ever interact -- that is, meet one another in the game world? And if they can't meet, they'll basically be writing about themselves on their own. In most cases this means people get bored and leave. Interaction is the soul of most RPGs. There are exceptions to the rule, such as War of the Galaxies, but in the vast majority of cases you want an RPG where people can meet, talk, fight, love, argue and do all the wonderful things that human beings do.

If, on the other hand, you are aiming for a world where all players are at a very high level of power and influence (everyone's a king, for example) then that can work, but it means your players may have to be content with less interaction and more issuing orders and strategies.

So let's start there. What scope are you aiming for?

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