I think it can be simplified quite easily. For instance, imagine it as a cardgame in the spirit of Magic the Gatherling... First all the players draw a mission card at random, this card tells them what the world's characters have to do before their mission is complete. Then, everyone puts a broker/religious leader-card in front of them at random, ...

If your broker is similar to a religious leader, and you represent a god, then through telling him your devine will, he will relay it to his followers. Ofcourse, he also has an agenda of his own and he might twist your words for his own personal gain. This means that to get the people of the gameworld to do what you want them to, you might have to ...

The reason Diplomacy is a game with moral implications is because it gets personal, so if we take Hawk's idea and make it personal, one way of doing it is to put distance between the players and their avatars (sounds contradictive, I know, but let me explain). Most often in RPGs, your ingame avatar represents you. And still, if you look at MMOs ...

Getting gamers to feel morally engaged by the ingame characters is certainly a big challenge, and some consider it the holy grail of game design. But I think it'd be easier if we wheren't talking about a singleplayer game. Have you ever heared of a little (non-computer)game called Diplomacy? Around here it's nick-named 'the game that ends ...

I feel I made a bit of a mistake there, I'm not trying to discourage you from thinking outside of the box like that. As you said, one thing can lead to another and a bad idea can lead to a one. I certainly don't mean to tell you to stop coming up with things, even if they sound totally crazy. Just emphesizing the 'eye on the prize' way of thinking

With games, you can often cheat your way through those laws of physics... Is there a enough reason, gameplay-wise that you should keep track of earth movements and universal expansion to impliment it, or can you cut some corners for the sake of being able to spend resources where they matter more? The prime rule of games is ''it must be fun'' and ...

You could attempt to write stories for Eve online (they frequently write chronicles for it) and send them in to see if they'll hire you as a writer. They'll want to know that you can deliver stories on a regular basis, not just once. It's practice and has a low entry-threshhold. Check it out sometimes... -Aynen

I've participated in a thread about designing a game with time control in it before, it was quite interesting. Can't recall what the name of the thread was but if I remember I'll link it. Might be interesting read... Some things that where discussed where things like a person shifting to different times beyond his control. The idea was as ...

That one reminds me of Myst Myst meets the Room meets Portal meets Deadspace... hmm, quite the melting pot

Well, the idea is on the table now, let's add some more ideas first... Got any?