To whomever follows me: apologies if I get a bit ramble-y or vague in this text, but hopefully the core ideas come across. In the spirit of this challenge, please do feel free to change whatever you wish. I look forward to seeing how this turns out. Good luck!

L’esprit des Nations (working title)
#Threeforged by 1541, [####] and [####]

Overview

In L’esprit des Nations, players play out the drama of a self-made history, each as the “spirit” of their own civilization through the ages. Each session of play represents a chapter in history, be they measured in years, decades, or centuries (and this might vary from one session to the next).

The personal stats of more typical RPGs, such as strength, intelligence and wisdom, are replaced with “national” stats like military, economy, technology and culture. Instead of equipping and using items, players may “equip” institutions or notable persons. Adopting different systems of government, religious/cultural beliefs, and the like might applyå appropriate advantages and disadvantages in various circumstances.

Players will not be personifications of their nations a la Hetalia, nor “real” anthropomorphisms like Uncle Sam or Britannia (though such symbols may certainly be introduced as part of the narrative), but neither will they play as any given, “diegetic” leader of their country, as one might in Sid Meier’s Civilization. Instead, the players will act somewhat like real-time historians, “recounting” the customs and deeds of their respective cultures by steering them via roleplay and the game’s systems, which serve to abstract the workings of government; internal and external conflicts; technological and intellectual advancement; and more.

A game master (GM) will be appointed to help run the game and act as any non-player nations (NPNs) which may interact with the various player nations (PNs). As with real history, the scope of the game may, at first, be limited to a local region or continent, but may eventually expand to include the entire world (or even multiple worlds, should the group decide to play beyond the present day).

It is very possible that events in the game will drastically change a nation many times over: it may spawn other nations (which may then be played by the GM as NPNs); it may assimilate other nations; it may experience revolution and change its name and/or system of government; it may suffer defeat or collapse and become a diaspora (which may then become—or be assimilated into—another nation); or any number of other things. Ultimately, this game is about seeing how a nation grows, how it interacts with other nations, and how its past does or does not influence its present and future.

Basic Mechanics In Brief

In each round of play, players take turns managing their nations and making whatever moves they intend. Since turns, like sessions, are abstractions of the passage of time, everything the nations do during these turns is assumed to be simultaneous, so order is not particularly important.

Each nation will have a count of the RESOURCES at its disposal. A nation’s base resources value is determined randomly at the beginning of the game, representing natural resources and the like, and various stats, particularly ECONOMY, will determine how many additional resources a nation produces at the beginning of each turn. Most moves, such as creating military units and attempting to improve technologies, will have a specific resource cost.

A nation’s attributes are generally listed as die values between d12 and d4, with smaller dice being better.

The dice mechanics are generally roll-low (x)d(y), where y usually represents the level of advancement/proficiency a nation has in the stat in question; and where x represents a number of “units” allocated to a task, when applicable, such as military units engaged in a battle. Units will usually roll independently of one another, and a number of cumulative “successes” (see below) may be required to complete a task or win a conflict.

Many rolls will be tests to determine success or failure based on a relevant stat—MILITARY would be used in a battle, for instance. The difficulty of the task is a numerical value determined by the GM (perhaps determined by a table and/or affected by current circumstances, technology levels and the like), with lower values representing a higher difficulty. The player’s goal, to earn a success, is to roll equal to or lower than the target value. A good enough attribute may mean an automatic success, but, even for the lowest-level nations, a success will always be possible—within reason, narratively speaking; a stone-age civilization probably won’t be launching a manned rocket into space.

On any roll, a nation may spend additional resources (perhaps one-to-one) to decrease the difficulty. In other words, any roll may be a guaranteed success given that the nation is willing to pour enough resources into it—which might not always be the best idea in the long run.

In versus tests (nation against nation), the nation that rolls a success will beat the nation that rolls a failure. If both roll successes, they may sometimes both succeed (both sides lose a military unit in a battle, for example), or the nation with the lower roll will win. If the rolls are tied and they can’t both succeed, the side with the better stat/attribute wins. If there is still a tie, the GM may decide how best to break it (or call for a stalemate) based on the circumstances.