Follow TV Tropes

Following

Roleplay / Realpolitik CIV

Go To

"Danke. I've been missing you guys. You're like a family to me if by family I mean bitter political rivals." ~ Sonereal

"BANGS. HEAD. ON. DESK. .... REPEATEDLY." ~ Whosit

REEAAALLPPOOOLLLIITIIKKK!!!

Realpolitik is a CFC (CivFanatics forum) play-by-post roleplay based on the Paradoxplaza Realpolitik series. A Realpolitik is where the Gamemaster plays a turn-by-turn strategy game (in this example Civilization IV). The players role play as immortal politicians living in a democracy who want to become rulers of the said nation. An election would take place every turn set, where player characters (and sometimes non-player characters) would vote on who should rule the nation for the next turnset. Each player was awarded two votes to put into parties created by themselves or other players - with one catch: only one vote per party. Parties were thus encouraged to band together in "Coalitions" to unite voters. Some of the elections got quite vicious. After the second turnset, there would be another election. Elections were entirely thread-based affairs, taking about a week.

The first one was created by Lighthearter (LH) who was the Gamemaster of it as well. It was played as the nation of England and went for about a year. Eventually, LH got tired of taking an hour to play each turnset and declared the game over, writing an epilogue that neatly wrapped up all storylines. After a brief stint of utter confusion LH resigned indefinitely as a Realpolitik GM, only to realize that what he thought had happened had happened but hadn't happened, even though it happened.

There was a brief Beta that Lighthearter hosted as well. This introduced new rules such as NPC voting. These rules were refined for Realpolitik II: Dark Storm Rising. It began in March of 2011, and ran through early July. It had its fair share of challenges and difficulties, and there has been a reboot in Realpolitik III: Dark of the North. It included a lot of elements from the game genre of Action Chatroom and changed the setting from immortal politicians to LOTR style wraiths, who were the bad guys in Realpolitik II. Eventually, this became inactive as well.

LH's last game was Star of the Shogun, in which the players are running Japan. A lot of the rules have been refined for this one, allowing the players more freedom with their options as politicians. It ultimately flamed out in 2012 however, and others weren't made since.

Realpolitik contains examples of:

  • Awesome McCoolname: Magnive, who began calling himself "Gaius Magnivius Caesar", upon becoming the steward of Rome.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The Epilogue has left many players sad that the game didn't continue - and that England doesn't rule the entire globe.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Nadia, torturing Catherine for fun.
  • Distressed Damsel: Catherine, captured by Ukrainian forces in Pripyat.
  • Department of Redundancy Department:
    Dem Taqat: We need: sacrifices, darkblade, sacrifices, dead good guys, sacrifices, power, sacrifices, the dark lords aid, sacrifices, to break up the alliance, sacrifices, wraith unity... did i mention sacrifices? We need them as well.
  • Elites Are More Glamorous: Only the special forces of the nations are generally characterized.
  • Expy: The Night Eagles to the British Special Air Services (SAS).
  • Insane Troll Logic: Ilduce's plans to kidnap Catherine from her kidnappers and then marry her.
  • Obviously Evil: "The figure has no hair, and neither any nose. Instead, he has twin slits on his face in an inverted V, and small red eyes. He stands eight feet tall and you feel an aura of power and disdain emanating from him."
  • What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Sonereal's decoy plan started with faking a heart attack in the middle of a city so the other players can steal Dragonbane and ended with him wiping the entire city off the map with magic and nearly causing the underground tunnels in the mountain (where the others were) to collapse.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Notable example: During RP2 near the opening election, to Nuke and DT talking about plans to Arya - but stopping when Sonereal(a NEW opposing party member) appears.
    “You've been telling your political secrets to an ASSASSIN-FOR-HIRE WORKING FOR RAVUS!”

Top