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[Kadzar]

The way ein's Apothecary game quickly turned into a drug trafficking simulation made me realize that we need to a LCS forum game. Now, how would we go about doing that?

[Armok]

each player is a member of the squad, and RP doing various illegal promotion of left wing politics?

[Kadzar]

Well, that's the basis of the game, but we need to handle the specifics if we want to make anything meaningful.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I've seen a few ways to handle a forum game, feel free to add or correct:


A: Multiple input for single character. Anyone who passes through gives input, possibly voting on a single action, possibly each suggested action is taken. Updates tend to occur after at least one, but not all, players have posted. Examples: Housestuck, Expedition, 404

B: Multiple input for group of characters. Anyone suggests actions for some or all of the characters in the game. Again, updates happen when there's enough input. Examples: Apothecary, Cavemen, Post Apocalyptic Tactical Game

C: Single input for multiple characters. Each player has a character, which they each have exclusive control over. Updates happen when everyone has posted actions, except there is a deadline past which tardy players lose their turn. Examples: Treachery Sounds Alot Like Treasure, Foot Soldiers, MyWorld: Kingdoms

EDIT: Or did you mean specific game mechanics? Aren't those in the game itself?

[100killer9]

What about
D. Each player gets multiple characters.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

That would get pretty insane. Like with the MyWorld: Kingdoms, one could argue that you have multiple characters because you can make your villagers do different things. But because the characters don't have any features, I consider the village to be your character. Gaining villagers is like gaining Action Points or something.

So to qualify for your D, I'd expect that each character has at least a class even if it doesn't level up. So if the game differentiated between those villagers able to cut wood and those able to mine for fish ...

But at that point you have too much stuff going on per turn. There's a point beyond which processing a turn becomes too much work and the referee isn't going to keep up with it. Imagine each player running an entire group of D&D characters.

If you had a squad of goons, and they had simple stats, I'd call that squad your character. I'm sure everyone would disagree.

Notice I left out any variation on having only one player participating in the game, because that's not really in the spirit of a forum game.

[Kadzar]

Okay. We need goals. What do we want out of this game? What features are needed? What can we leave out?

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Well, you could always change the Squad part to be more like ... a family maybe. And instead of Liberal you could focus more on the Mafia side of things. And crime is all old hat. How about teacakes instead?

Mafia Teacakes Family. It's basically exactly the same thing. Sort of.

[Alexhans]

posting to see if this develops into something interesting and well thought

And maybe even to give suggestions

[Wimdit]

The real trouble with doing this is that a squad member's actions are usually abstracted: there's not much point in saying 'today I harass websites' over and over. Perhaps giving each player command over a squad would make it marginally more interesting, but really, you'd have to redesign the game a bit, because as it is it only works as a singleplayer thing. Maaaybe you could do onsite raids as a turn-based thing where each player controls a Liberal. Hell, the strategy involved in team-based sieges might be good: LCS versus corporate mercenaries or whatever. The Liberals set up a fortress, the Conservatives try to crack it open.

Apart from the sieges, the best format I could think of for an LCS game would be to depart from rules entirely and make it largely a role-playing affair. Although that has problems as well, since writing about harassing websites can be hard to keep from becoming too banal. Still, if you can get a proper story going, like in The Fires of Revolution, that would be good too.

Ooh, and you could have someone who writes about your exploits for the Liberal Guardian. That could work as the GM's summary of the turn.

[Cheddarius]

You could have vague "turn goals" like "break into Pentagon" or whatnot. Each turn would be a month or so. Also, each player would control 1 squad of up to 6 men, like in LCS. What would happen is this:

My squad, Black Ops, attacks the Genetic Labs

Brock O'Bama plans a daring attack on the Genetics Labs. His men spend 2 days making suitable disguises. They are eager to fight, but Brock advocates caution. First they spend a few days stealing from the downtown apartments. They leave for the Pawn Shop and sell their loot, buying some magnums and plenty of ammunition. Dressing themselves up in lab coats, they go into the labs, smuggling their Magnums under their clothes. After venturing partway into the lab, a Conservative scumbag researcher rats them out! Brock and his crew pull their guns, blasting him full of lead. "Quick, men! We must free these creatures from the Conservatives' foul hands!" They run frenziedly from room to room, opening cages, but they are attacked by a mutant abomination! They take fighting positions, aiming and quickly firing on the creature's vital organs, but Urist McGunner is swiped in the stomach. The squad runs for it, leaving the lab only to be tailed by a small force of policemen. Thankfully, they outrun the police.