On reviving the Fan Council
There has been a lot of discussion over the last few days over both the history and future of the celebrated and bemoaned institution of the Fan Council, which once ran on this boards and provided a wonderful opportunity for role playing the gaming for the fans of the game. It was proposed that a thread should be started to discuss weather these games might enjoy a revival. This is no a simple question, and I think it can be broken down into several smaller questions:
1) Is the Fan Council viable?
2) If so, under what conditions?
3) If so, how can rules be found or made?
4) If so, what setting might be suitable?
One could probably do more or fewer points, but it seemed a good break down.
The first is pretty simple. I think there will be people out there who would argue that the FC is conceptually unsound. The idea of gathering together a large and diverse group for a long running game just isn’t really feasible. I don’t agree. I think the fact that versions of the game ran for years proves that such a game can have a type of stability. But, I do think that the other conditions must be factors in maintaining that stability.
As for the second question, the biggest factor to me is where the game is to be conduction and how it is to be supported. The most successful games were hosted right here on the official boards and received a limited amount of support from the boards and rumor has it from those involved with the game (I know the road ran the other way, in that many FC alums went on to work with/for the official end of the company). I think shunting the game off to an alternative site would doom the game, because it would never have enough visibility to attract the sort of player base needed. Now, that said, many who are in charge of this site have their own experiences with the game, and one can’t predict weather such support might or might not be forth coming.
As to the third point, I foresee the greatest struggle. I’d once hoped that a product like Interstellar Operations might have the sort of rules that would permit something like the FC using canon rules which, even if they were imperfect, would at least be likely to be agreeable to everyone. However, I’ve never heard anyone say anything about them being used in that application, and I don’t own the product myself (no FGCs to be a part of lately) so I can’t evaluate that. If there are no suitable canon rules… it has to call the viability of things into question. That’s no criticism of any of the various GMs from over the many years who did their best to make rules, but there never was one that didn’t attract some controversy, or be found to have unforeseen flaws, or that failed at the (probably impossible) task of achieving balance between the various factions with their wild differences in size and technology and tactical and strategic specializations.
Lastly is the question of setting. If a space could be made for the game, players could be attracted, rules found and agreed on, then it would be important to find a setting that reflected both the need to keep and attract players, and the reality of playing on the official boards and what to me would be a sort of moral obligation to try and enhance the game in some subtle way. To that end, I’d advocate using the very newest products as a starting point, so the 3145. There are, mind you, key down sides to that. The setting is explicitly out of balance, so it would be hell for many players of factions that haven’t been winning so much lately, and we also know that the setting is set up in anticipation of some serious turmoil to come with new releases that are even now in the pipeline. But, the FGC’s very genesis was in working with and on new releases and pushing into unknown spaces.
I’ll also concede that the longest running (and perhaps must successful) FGC started in 3063, not 67 which was then current. To emulate that, 3085 to me has the look of having better balance, stability, and so on, and would thus be a setting into which the players would be able to supply the drama, rather than having to step into a setting with drama already preset. The worry would be if the players chose (rationally) to be conservative and not do anything foolish (as I was wont to do) then the game could be boring, while in a 3145 game it would probably prove impossible not to have a lot of excitement right from the outset, because things are so unstable and in such flux.
Well, those are my thoughts, and mine alone. Here is, I suppose, the opportunity for any and all to say if they think such a thing should or could be done, or if it should or could not be.