Advertisement: Interactive Histories in the Chapter House

[GeneralHankerchief]

Hey folks,

Do me a quick favor and open up a new tab for the main Gameroom page. Above all the stickies and regular posts but before the forum menu are two subforums. You might be familiar with the first: The old Gameroom Assembly Headquarters, where games are designed/balanced for your perusal, but you might not be as familiar with the second: The Chapter House.

The Chapter House has a longer and even more distinguished history on the .Org than the Gameroom itself does, and it's the repository of a certain type of long-term, freeform game known as Interactive Histories. These games vary in scope, but in general you take over an aspect of something - a country, a military grouping, a ship captain, etc - and take it through the scenario the host has designed for you. Interactive Histories are very freeform in nature, allowing you nearly total control and where you're only limited by your imagination.

Franconius is trying to start a new Interactive History - "17th Century", based one of the more popular and longer-running IHs from some time ago - and is looking for players. Here's what he has to say about the game:

Here is what it's all about.
The story sets up at a certain age: 17th century Europe. Each player is the leader of a kingdom, for each kingdom the starting conditions will be as close to history as possible. As a ruler you can have diplomacy with other rulers, you can set up reforms, raise taxes and - of course - make war. The game is round based, all decisions are send to the host, who writes a new chapter after every turn. So you can rewrite history and lead your realm to glory or disaster.

The players are expected to have at least some interest in history, have enough self-confidence to rule a country, are willing to play with/against other selfish megalomaniac and an unjust fate, represented by the host. And of course, they should have some time to waste.

If this sounds interesting to you, here is a link to the Chapter House, and here is the recent discussion about starting a new game.