I wonder how many of you folk would be interested in engaging in a role-playing game based on real life rules of trying to operate a railroad. I think it would be an excellent excersise in seeing how the professionals do it. We may not cut it compair to the real CEOs but you never know, we maybe better, who knows but the important thing is we would have fun doing it.
I am particularly interested in what Bergie would have to say because I think it could be a fun part of this website if we all wanted to do it.
Are you refering to Railroad Tycoon 2-I have a game going where I bought out the investor for sole ownership and run 400 trains right now. I ship alot of intermodal and have had to use 4 and 6 track mainlines because the stupid game doesn’t allow for scheduling or CTC not to mention that you can’t run trains over 6 cars long and you can’t bridge over or under other lines. You should see how I had to design “Chicago” there is enough diamonds there to open a jewler’s shop.
Knowing me… If I was the CEO, I would probably just cash in my stock options right away and retire… That way I could just spend the money watching trains instead of running them.
I’m always up for a new game. I have played all three versions of Railroad Tycoon to a greater or lesser degree of success. Would this be a new game? How will it be set up?
If you ever have played Dungeons and Dragons or have had a pretty good idea how it is done, it is similar in that their are players and a dungeon master except in this case their are CEOs the players but their is a small group that would represent the shareholder, the government and the stock exchange. Also the group would have to give out little news flashes as so the game could work around it for example a dice could be roled by a game master and it would determine whether there was a natural disaster or not and if so than the players would have to work around it. If you want to buy or sell anything, hire or layoff, make financial or operating decisions than you have to go through the “gambling” process and sell to your shareholder, the bank, governments, court, etc (game masters). There would be real prices on everything and you would have to consider wages for your workers and when their contracts go up. You make announcements on a thread and the game masters annouce general news on a thread. You can loose for example if you are caught doing insider trading, fraud, bankruptcy and if the shareholders hate you enough they can fire you.
A little complicated but who said running a business let alone a corporation, was easy. You have heard of Trains Simulator well this a role playing game of Railroad CEO Simulator.
I have played D & D, Rifts and other “real” RPG games so I know what you’re talking about. Unlike RR Tycoon this game would have more emphasis on gameplay than graphics (if any graphics at all).
At the risk of sounding like a killjoy I am wondering how long the rules of this game will need to be and how it could be policed. I am familiar with D&D (I actually played it a few times when I was in High School, before any of the books were hard bound) and the rules came in a multi-volume set. Also, the corporate operations of railroads are a lot more complex than you realize and there are many more factors than could easily be represented by a few people. I think RR Tycoon is a good effort, but even with all those megabytes of programming there are a LOT of corners cut and a HUGE amount
