I wanted flying warships.
The players had other ideas.
Can we try that?
Tell us how.
War Room is a Discord game where you help run a government or another big institution. The people sharing that responsibility won't always agree with you. That's rather the point.
Join War Room What kind of game is this?If you want one, you'll have to persuade the other government.
You don't need to play War Room by picking from a list of approved moves. Rather, you are responsible for an office that has actual work to do. In CITS, that meant helping run a country. Next time, it will mean running part of an underwater city.
You can come up with something we Control had never anticipated. We won't make you find the right button first. But a proposal isn't a finished machine, and agreeing to fund it doesn't magically produce trained crews.
Control is the human GM team running the world. We look at what the situation can actually support. If you've prepared properly, your plan deserves a fair chance. If it fails, there should be a reason for it.
You can try almost anything.
It still has to make sense.
A civilian competition became a reconnaissance project.
Then Eagle flew it over two other countries...
Panoptes was a player-led development, there was nothing planned before hand that made it a possible path from the Control side. But it worked, and then its deployment created a diplomatic problem almost immediately. Nobody fired though :D
It's play-by-post, not a live match. There is time to ask questions before committing an order. The pace can vary between campaigns.
Control publishes what has changed and what your department knows. Other offices may have received different reports.
Talk with the people you need. You might find that another department has plans for the same resources.
Explain what you want done and what you are using to do it. It does not have to be a twenty-page proposal.
The human team works through what could actually happen. The next briefing reflects the decisions everyone made.
You don't need to know how to run a treasury or a reactor before you join. Your fictional department has trained staff who understand their jobs. Ask them what they know, then decide what you want to do about it.
That was the original idea behind Castles in the Sky: giant flying warships, tense borders, probably a war. Buttt instead of that, the players spent a surprising amount of time trying to run functioning governments. And Eagle and Hawk prepared for a war they never actually fought.
F.I.S.H. made itself commercially useful while staying neutral. Schwalbenheim tried to modernize and ended up having a failed coup. Somewhere along the way, the paperwork became part of the game.
There was no tech-tree button for any of these. People proposed them, worked on them, and Control had to keep track of what had actually been built. Not every project reached the same stage.
F.I.S.H. tightened screening around Carke. It made sense on paper, until the queues grew and other areas went short of attention. Security eventually changed the policy. The consequences of the first order did not just disappear.
The attempt to seize power failed. The president got away, and the rest of the government did not simply fall into line. Meanwhile, the Economy department had prepared banking measures that helped contain the financial fallout.
Hawk spent much of the campaign improving readiness and building up its economy. The Lighthouse programme reached a successful major prototype test. Preparing for a war that never came was still part of the result.
CITS had its problems. We changed where Final Orders were supposed to go far too often, and the ending caught people off guard. Those are things to fix for the next War Room, not things to pretend never happened.
CITS also left us with sketches and some excellent fictional propaganda. The artwork below came from players from the game.
The next campaign will be set somewhere completely different. Hopefully people will keep surprising us with what they decide to build.
See what's nextAbout 46,000 people live deep under the ocean. Somebody has to keep the city running.
Pelegos is a permanent underwater city, home to around 46,000 people. It is by no mean a temporary research station. There are families living here, schools, hospitals, markets and entire residential districts. For most residents, Pelegos is simply where their world is. Where they live. Even if there is an awful lot of ocean above them. The city has been growing for decades, largely through scientific research, mining and industry. Not everything was built at the same time, and keeping everything running requires a considerable amount of effort and cooperation. There also is the matter of maintaining connection with the surface which Pelegos still relies on for trade, transport and a number of other things.
This time, the players are responsible for different parts of the same city. You can still start projects of your own. Just remember that the department next door might need the same engineers.
Interested? Come meet us in DiscordEARLY INTEREST VIA DISCORD · LAUNCH DATE NOT ANNOUNCED
We asked the people who played CITS. Some loved the freedom. Others had a fair amount to say about the paperwork. Both are worth hearing.
A group of guys who larps Soo hard they learn new things while playing the game
War Room is a room without any war. 10/10 cold(ish) war simulator, would defend Carke again.
be a part of a government where each department strangle each other over their mistakes and demands and pray that they did enough to not have the country shatter in pieces
Its a still developing roleplay with a lot of moving parts and interesting rivalries.
it WILL be slow. turns take IRL days for you to think and about as much if not more for GM to decide, but it does actually feel like you are impacting shit either as diplomacy or economy.
From the CITS end-of-game feedback forms. Each quoted player permitted publication. Wording is left as submitted; some chose to remain anonymous.
You can have a look around first.
The next War Room is being prepared in our Discord. Come in, read what's there and ask about the game before picking a role. Turns happen over several real-world days, so you don't have to stay online waiting for the next move.
Enter the War Room DiscordNO SEPARATE GAME CLIENT / DISCORD IS THE GAME SPACE