This is Henry’s original outline (May 17, 2010 at 6:30pm) for the new club:
Guys I had an idea >:0 It’s exciting. Here’s how it goes down, in confusing terms:
Precaution: The way I write is really irritating sometimes.
What we would do is start with a world map and gradually fill in its history, with a part creative-writing, part game system. Each member of the club (debating on whether it should be pairs or not, here) would be assigned a nation that they had to guide the history for.
Things would start out with a little tribal village for each member, and a little bit of background to start them off. Then, each meeting would look like:
<Repeat>
- A little slideshow or something presents THE WORLD NEWS, showing what has happened in the last “turn”. This will make more sense later!
- Then, everybody writes down a bunch of things that they’d like their nation to do! They dimly resemble the leader of said country for these matters. They might write down
OUR VILLAGE IS SO PUNY. WE SHOULD CONQUER THINGS – LET’S EXPLORE FOR NEIGHBORING VILLAGES! SEND AN EXPLORER
but they would have a little background! So they might say
A RIVER 3 MILES AWAY? WE SHOULD FIND A WAY TO GET WATER MORE EASILY. BUILD A WELL!
or they could react to previous occurrences, like
HOW UNFORTUNATE – A DISEASE KILLED A NUMBER OF OUR PEOPLE – WE SHOULD FIND A WAY TO STOP THESE.
etc etc
The player writes as many as they want! And they can be really simple like DIG WELL or more openended like FIND WATER or even more open ended like ENCOURAGE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH or they could be pretty specific like IMPLEMENT A MORE PROGRESSIVE TAXATION SYSTEM, PREFERABLE BASING IT ON THE NUMBER OF MEN EACH CITIZEN HAS KILLED IN BATTLE. - After this, club leaders gather up everything and there is a casual playing-with-toy-trucks environment while leaders zoom about and ask people what they think should be the outcome of various moves requested on the lists!
They’d ask questions like:
OKAY, THIS PERSON SENT OUT AN EXPLORER, WHAT SHOULD THEY FIND?
WILL THE WELL BE DRY? WILL THEY HAVE ENOUGH SUPPORT FROM THEIR VILLAGE TO BUILD THE WELL?
DO THEY CREATE ANTIBIOTICS OR A SILLY HERBAL MEDICINE?
Do people have enough of their basic needs satisfied to research things? Are they afraid of being burned for witchcraft?
Does the peace loving proletariat cry out against this BATTLETAX?
And as things got further underway:
Does nation A’s strategy in this battle conquer that of nation B?
Do the investigators from the [US] find the weapons of mass destruction in [Iraq]?
Does nation A’s culture spread along the trade roads, making their religion popular in nation B?
etc
- As many items are commented on as possible, and then the leaders take their papers home and discuss amongst each other over the next week and compile the slideshow of WHAT JUST HAPPENED to present at the beginning of the next meeting.
</Repeat>
Edit: This used to be split into two separate meetings, and it was completely ridiculous. Now it is just one.
In short:
1. People hear what’s up in the world.
2. They write down what they want their nation to do.
3. Some discussion happens about what was just written.
4. Everyone goes home. Leaders spend a week compiling A REPORT.
5. Repeat.
I think it could be fun! What do you think? :0
Some last ideas:
- Yo, more than one person for each nation, so that there is an element of Congress and elections?
- A homemade world map? We could start with some bland outlines of continents where nations are, and gradually reveal details like resources and mountains and Australias as they are discovered
- This could get pretty in-depth. We could have literature and languages (not full ones, but you know. Have a vocab word thrown in here and there) and mythology and politics and zoology and cartography.
The biggest question here is HOW DO WE MAKE THIS MORE A CREATIVE THING THAN A SILLY GAME?
I guess the best way would be to say “Hey! Write down what your country does in the next 10 years or so! You can be as specific as you want, even choosing propernouns if you want, or you can leave it very open ended. Either way, there will be some significant edits done by the club leaders, so don’t fall in love with something too much.”
I don’t know, discuss?