C3 (command, control, communications) is also something to consider. Not everybody just sorta knows what's going on, and messagers from various places could just sorta show up to report trouble, ask for help or advice, etc. Could help keep the pace at times, to make it feel like all hell's breaking loose somewhere, to just have noise coming from certain places, or to give the player weird stuff (a disembodied head with a note attached?).
Dunno. Just throwing stuff out.

It is always interesting to feel that what you do in a game has an impact. This post actually deals with a major part of one of my game ideas(ambitions slave) so its encouraging to see so many responses. I think the essential factor is that something must happen as a result of your actions. So you kill the evil warlord Ming the Mercyless who is ruling the planet then what happens? In order to get the player to feel the most involved in the game then other actions the player performed before and after kill Ming should have an effect. This where I think it is important to have existing NPC come into play.

If every VIP NPC is represented by an actual in game character that particpates in the game world and the player can interact with then those VIPs can have an impact on the result of the power vaccum. The more powerful vips may fight amongst themselves until one emerges as the new leader, or any number other possible outcomes you choose to encode.

Hmm... I just thought of something rather interesting. Let's say that a leader has a set of statistics that describe him or her. These statistics are basically what the city runs around. The city also has a set of statistics, but these are secondary and are more or less an average of population's opinion. Lets say that the leader isn't what the people want, and they have him assassinated. You kill him. The city then has a template for a leader type they want, and would pick a person who's statistics are closest to the cities goals.

When I think about it it shouldn't be all that hard to implement. Just a set of preferences, abilities and whatnot. For example, lets say that the current mayor of a city has a very low need for security for some reason. This means that he fails to post guards at gates, or even have gates at some entrances to the city. In this example, he is assassinated by someone in the population, a sort of poetic justice. That's how bad safety and security was for this city. The city's average security rating is higher than the average of galaxy wide cities, so they vote some paranoid dude in and he intensifies security to the point where people have to go through a checkpoint to leave their home. It's your job to take this guy out.

The dynamics of this can be random, or there can be a breakpoint, or whatever. Formulas for this wouldn't be too complicated to produce either. Aside from simply electing people from the population, corporations could also move to take over a city but I don't have any wonderful ideas for how that would function. This is simply an interesting system for a city's basic election system.

It's Jotaf, I just don't have my password ATM :)

You see, that's exactly my point. The same simple method works for mega-corporations and governments too! The loss of a percentage of the faction's people represent a loss in power; otherwise you're not having such a big impact by repeatedly assassinating the leaders of a faction (it will reach a point when the faction is destroyed, even for big factions; maybe this could be a bit more elaborate, like if 5 leaders were killed in the last month, the faction automatically falls apart). The biggest issue is that usually the player kills a leader because he doesn't agree with the faction's policy (which is defined by the leader's characteristics). If a new one is chosen randomly, there's a chance that they will stubbornly stick to the same rules (like they aren't threatened by terrorists), because the characteristics are alike; and there's also a chance that the policy will change radically. The player can kill leaders until one to his liking shows up, or have one ready to replace him. You see, the intrincacies of election comittees and boards of directors are hidden for simplicity, because we can assume that as long as a faction is alive, the highest ranks will take care of that somehow.

The delay until a new faction pops up, and how the player knows about it, is one of those things that have to be balanced depending on the rest of the game. If you make it depend somehow on how quiet the area is, it will work great without a lot of fine-tuning.

I shouldn't have necessarily said 'multiplayer', because there are a few multiplayer style games where a player (or even group of players) could take over a small political portion of the game, or even be designed around them taking over part of the game world. MMOGs though, it's only practical that players take over parts as a group (guild), with officers making the real decisions as a group. Even then, it's difficult to really balance it well. Governing really is a full time job and only an NPC should be able to handle the hundreds of decisions that are made every day, otherwise you'll end up with a guild or individual bored out of their minds making all these decisions and if you allow them to get out of it, then you are basically allowing the PCs to have all the benefits while dealing with none of the responsibilities.

I also think of political leaders as being quest givers. Without an NPC political leader, there are no quest givers for the big things.

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Original post by solinear Governing really is a full time job and only an NPC should be able to handle the hundreds of decisions that are made every day, otherwise you'll end up with a guild or individual bored out of their minds making all these decisions and if you allow them to get out of it, then you are basically allowing the PCs to have all the benefits while dealing with none of the responsibilities.

Isn't that what gaming's all about, escape from responsibility? [smile] Actually, we pretty much agree. You'd have to make a political sim otherwise, and I'm not going there!

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Original post by Jotaf The same simple method works for mega-corporations and governments too! The loss of a percentage of the faction's people represent a loss in power; otherwise you're not having such a big impact by repeatedly assassinating the leaders of a faction (it will reach a point when the faction is destroyed, even for big factions; maybe this could be a bit more elaborate, like if 5 leaders were killed in the last month, the faction automatically falls apart).

Yes, but I think the problem is that large factions like corporations or governments should be expected to have a contingency plan. If you kidnap the president, the vice president steps in. If you annihilate the entire board of directors, new people are automatically chosen. It's only when the faction is based around an individual's charisma and connections (as with most despotic or cult-like factions) that you lose the faction when you lose the individual.

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The biggest issue is that usually the player kills a leader because he doesn't agree with the faction's policy (which is defined by the leader's characteristics). If a new one is chosen randomly, there's a chance that they will stubbornly stick to the same rules (like they aren't threatened by terrorists), because the characteristics are alike; and there's also a chance that the policy will change radically.

This idea I don't mind. Actually, it reminds me of Master of Orion, where you could assassinate a leader and risk a new one being even more volatile in his place.

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The player can kill leaders until one to his liking shows up, or have one ready to replace him. You see, the intrincacies of election comittees and boards of directors are hidden for simplicity, because we can assume that as long as a faction is alive, the highest ranks will take care of that somehow.

Again, I see this working for a strong man government where no one has legitimacy, but I don't think it makes sense for a democracy or corporation. The exception is if the person you want to replace them with is already next in line and you've forged some kind of alliance / conspiracy with them. It just doesn't make sense that if you kill of the president of the United States you can put your own president in power, for example.

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Original post by Sta7ic Or just don't let important allies and enemies "really die" the first time around; have them escape w/ a teleportation charm, three of their buddies drop in and keep you at bay while they run, or if you're not there, they just "headed to the hills" in the confusion. Kinda cliche after the fourth time, but encourages really mean grudges, and provides a stock of "bad guys" to drop in every now and then.

If this happens too much you may actually feel like you can't make a change with THAT character. They're invulnerable, or what have you.

Now I don't mind an escape hatch, but I want to be very careful about making it feel like "oh, this character can't be killed because the designer doesn't want him to be."

What I'd rather put faith in is randomly generating new character with stronger and stronger abilities with the rare spice of an enemy or ally returning from beyond the grave, plot-wise-- because like you said, too often and it's cliche.

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Original post by Bincho When I think about it it shouldn't be all that hard to implement. Just a set of preferences, abilities and whatnot. For example, lets say that the current mayor of a city has a very low need for security for some reason. This means that he fails to post guards at gates, or even have gates at some entrances to the city. In this example, he is assassinated by someone in the population, a sort of poetic justice. That's how bad safety and security was for this city. The city's average security rating is higher than the average of galaxy wide cities, so they vote some paranoid dude in and he intensifies security to the point where people have to go through a checkpoint to leave their home. It's your job to take this guy out.

I'll have to weight this careful so that it doesn't become overblown, but I do like the idea that the people act as a faction wanting change, and based on who they are, choose a method to enact it-- which can present you with a mission.

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Original post by TechnoGoth If every VIP NPC is represented by an actual in game character that particpates in the game world and the player can interact with then those VIPs can have an impact on the result of the power vaccum. The more powerful vips may fight amongst themselves until one emerges as the new leader, or any number other possible outcomes you choose to encode.

What would be cool is to somehow confer with these VIPs before you make a change in the game world to get a sense of what they would do if you made the change; or to have some sort of advisor / analyst tell you, "If you take out Ming, Flash is likely to come in and liberate the people..." or whatever (Ming and Flash being two VIPs in the world for argument's sake).

(Oy, did you have to use Ming the Merciless??? [lol])