User blog comment:LaviBookman/Interest Check: Sandbox Universe (again)/@comment-2089817-20120609205748/@comment-973828-20120610005600

I may appear like I've thought through everything thoroughly, but I do make mistakes too. I can completely overlook something simple that people can work with. It's only through discussion can an idea become fully fleshed out.

In regards to "country whoring," as you called it, I never saw it as a problem. All of us who participated in Wazurai 1.0 wrote articles for countries, including Ten, creating leaders and the like to represent the country. I remember you had a unified Korea secretly controlling the Russian Federation, which I still cannot comprehend. In my experience with role-playing nations, players appear to be more attached to the country than the character, treating the government like a single entity. It makes role-players more willing to accept character deaths for the sake of a story, since the restrictions on character creation are usually near nonexistent. Ideally, I think a setting like the Three Kingdoms era, where there were many factions (ie. little governments) dotting a map, would be incredibly fun, but I'm sure not everyone will like spending quality time creating necessary backgrounds.

If people feel like controlling countries is the wrong way to go, I had been considering the magic portion be in the form of a martial arts universe: where we can still have techniques in a manner like Naruto, but not absolutely necessary for character creation. This works as a fantasy setting by having different schools of martial arts all underneath a single government. So, you can be in charge of a school based on TKD or boxing or some fictitious art. In Chinese history, there was a period known as the Ming Dynasty. It was partially known for the Emperor's decree to eliminate martial arts in China, using the Jinyi Wei, a secret police force, to enforce the law. If necessary, this kind of starting plot can help get things moving. Unless someone has an idea that we all like better.