DescriptionFantasy Nations is a play-by-e-mail role-playing game where players rule their own fantasy nation. Each beginning player chooses a nationality, creates a royal family and lays out the terrain features of their new nation. This is submitted to the Game Master who adds the nation in along the chaotic frontier of the known world. Players then submit weekly turn packets by e-mail to the referee. Each turn represents the passage of one season in game-time. Each turn packet gives the player-monarch's orders for running his nation that season, items such as: · Tax collection · Military garrisons and campaigns · Construction of monumental projects such as castles, dungeons, temples, coliseums, libraries, etc. · Maintaining the physical health and welfare of your people by building hospitals, orphanages, and distributing food in time of famine. · Maintaining the spiritual health and welfare of your people through support of the priests and sacrifices to the gods. · Each member of the royal family and your loyal retainers can participate in activities including military campaigns, quests, royal balls, diplomatic functions and more! The King may be leading an army with the prince off on a quest of his own. Meanwhile the princess hosts a fantastic costume ball hoping to meet her One True Love and the queen has become pregnant again. (Which may turn out to be a serious problem, what with the king having been away.) Each turn the activities of the various monarchs are announced in the game's weekly newsletter on the game's blog site where players can keep in touch with the goings on in other parts of the game world: fantasynations dot blogspot dot com. Characters may have talents such as charisma, leadership, strength or guile. Others may be magic users. Certain nations have intrinsic talents, such as dwarf miners or elf rangers. More children can be born to a player's royal family, to grow up and enter into diplomatic marriages with the monarchs of other nations, expanding your influence and control. Players deal with various obstacles including plague, famine, pirates, enemy nations and more! Fantastic monsters hoard magical treasures and may ravage your villages if not subdued. If your people prosper their numbers will grow and increase your tax base. Unlike certain on-line games (World of Warcraft) where nothing a player does ever changes anything and the monsters respawn almost while you watch, in Fantasy Nations a player can actually conquer and build an empire, ruling a nation, and over time either improving the lives of his people or squander them in ceaseless wars of conquest. What can you accomplish in a game where your actions change the world? Fantasy Nations is similar in concept to AD&D's Birthright campaign and shares certain similarities with the computer game Heroes of Might & Magic and the board games Lords & Wizards, and Blood Royale. But the design is not fixed in place like those games and can grow and evolve with the players. The activities your characters can participate in are effectively limited only by your imagination. You can have them do virtually anything: · Embark on a quest · Study ancient scrolls · Supervise construction projects · Scheme and plot with or against other players · Host or attend fancy dress balls, weddings, tournaments, and hunting parties. You'll get out of this game what you put into it, so exercise your imagination. The game only ends if one player manages to conquer the world, and in previous sessions some of the best games were where the free peoples of the world had to cooperate to stop a player from doing just that. The Gamemaster has over 12 years experience running play-by-e-mail games including the well-known Struggle of Nations game. For more information or to download the rules check out our web site at fantasynations dot com.
|
Played the game? You can send me comments to be placed on this page by writing lindahl@pbm.com. But don't write me attempting to join the game -- write the GM, whose address is above.
Are you the GM? Then you can update your listing by writing lindahl@pbm.com, or you can enter an announcement for your game.
Don't see your favorite game? Then you can add an entry for it.
Greg Lindahl