Come on the Silk Road!

[ysabetwordsmith]

There is a now a community, silkroadallies, for the shared world project The Silk Road Allies in which Italy and China become friends.  This grew out of conversations amongst myself, thesilentpoet, and marina_bonomi.  Poems are posted there for discussion.  We also talk about historic resources, timelines, linguistics, cultural dynamics, alternate history, and related topics

Comments

[tuftears]

I've thought that a game set in the Silk Road era would be fun. :) A trading/merchant RPG kind of thing, maybe an online browser thing.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

I think a game would be awesome. I'd go for tabletop RPG myself, because I'm no use with computer games. On tabletop, there is extensive material already about ancient Rome, which is popular with historians; and a fair bit for China.

So once we know more about our timeline -- which we are just now beginning to develop -- it should be possible to figure out some good scenarios. You're the Lost Legion, try to survive. It's the Age of Exploration, go find some trade goods. Court intrigue in Italy or China, try not to start a war. Much fun could be had.

Re: Yes...

[tuftears]

Could be a board game with RPG elements. The obvious route would be to have players competing for control of the Silk Road/making the most money, but an interesting alternative might be to have all players nominally on the same caravan, travelling the Silk Road, at each stop they get to try and get to trade goods first, or bid against one another, but they have to cooperate to fight off common disasters like bandits, share supplies for the caravan, etc.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Hmm ... both of those ideas work. It would probably be possible to design a board game that would allow multiple scenarios to be played using the same map board and pieces.