Feud -a Roleplaying Game focused on conflict between nations

[Anastylos]

I want some advice about a roleplaying system I have in mind.

I always liked the idea from the 'A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying' about having a house as an extra character. So I wanted to do something like that for a new roleplaying game. I want to make it easy to play with not to many complicated rules and it should be usable for any setting. The main idea is that every player has a nation or whatever it is called in the setting. It could be anything from a small city or an empire in a fantasy setting up to whole planets or systems in a sci-fi setting. Every player has about three characters too. It should be PvP focused so the states of the players will struggle against each other.

Each nation has three attributes: warfare, society and wealth. and can spend 12 point on those attributes. Then he creates three characters. Each character has three attributes as well: power, mind and influence one an can assign 6 points to them. Right now that is all of the character creation, but I am not content with it.

If a character is in conflict with an other character both roll a number of d6 that is equal to the value of the attribute. 4-6 is a success. Whoever has more successes wins.
If a nation is in conflict with another nation both roll the concerning attribute plus the fitting attribute of an involved character. Again the player with more successes wins. If someone rolls at least 3 ones the attribute of the nation will be lowered by one and if he has at least as much successes as the attribute then it is raised. This will be becoming more difficult if the attribute is higher and will become easier if a great hero is involved due to the added dices.

That are all the rules right now. I think it needs to be more custom. Both the characters and the empires are not very different from each other. They don't feel unique. Maybe they need some extra stuff like making it possible to reroll dices or to alter the the condition for a success like having at from 3-6 or from 5-6.
A alien empire with the same values should feel more different from a human one and a dwarfen empire should feel different than a elven one.

Do you have any ideas how to make it more custom? Do you have suggestions? What do you think about the idea of this roleplaying game? And would you volunteer to proofread the pdf once it is finished, because English is not my mother tongue.

[GSLamb]

What about taking an Amber RPG approach, where there is some kind of auction for special abilities (biggest navy; richest lands; largest populace; etc) if not also for the attributes?

[Anastylos]

I dont know Amber, could you explain the bidding system?

[GSLamb]

There are four attributes. Each player has 100pts with which to bid, each attribute is bid separately, in multiple rounds.
The first round is a silent auction, where players write down how much they wish to spend on an attribute.
After the first round, only those who bid a nonzero number can continue to bid. All bids are spent (not just top bid) and the characters are ranked by their bids (Amber is diceless, btw, so rankings are important).

If you have any points left once all attributes are bid, you can purchase other abilities (pattern use, trump artistry, magic, etc). Some games also bid on "Nth in line to the Throne" or "Military Command" as well.

[Anastylos]

Sounds like lots of fun. How does it affect the gameplay?

[Onix]

For nation building RPGs you couldn't go wrong taking a look at Microscope. It's a free game to boot.

[catty_big]

[Onix]

[catty_big]

[Anastylos]

I read a review of Micoscope and it is not what I have in mind. I want the game to be more about conflict between nations and each player will create his own nation. It should not be only narated, but it should have some kind of combatmechanic to solve conflicts of interests. The idea of a barter System is nice, expecialy for character (or nation) creating. But it could also be used in the game, maybe somehow like "Pace".
But I want not only the nations but characters as well. Important personalities who influence the nation, concerning the story but mechanlikly as well. And it should have an impact on the nation if such an important character dies. Maybe I will use a goal based system, like in "the hero's banner". There could be goals of the character improving the nation and others giving you points to barter with. And since you need both sometimes your characters have to do something that is not good for your nation.

EDIT: I have an idea and I am writing it down but it will take some time.