World Domination (game)

World Domination is the FPH Clan's most innovative, unique and complex forum-based activity. Whether it is the most fun has been hotly disputed. World Domination remains a long tradition in the clan, though its current status is uncertain after a lengthy hiatus.
==Features==
World Domination is a loose-form, whatever-goes campaign in which each player commands a particular unit (ranging from a single individual to an army) and competes towards a destination. It is best understood as a combination of PnP D&D gameplay, wherein rules and regulations are largely replaced by the crazy whims of an overworked host. World Domination, ironically, has rarely enabled any player to dominate the known world. Shusky and Avenger remain the only known victors in any World Domination game, both in games hosted by each other. Allegations of a Polish-Korean conspiracy remain unresolved; defenders of WD argue that the rarity of outright victory is a philosophical statement about the transience of power in our world.
==Origin==
World Domination is widely thought to have originated with Darkflame on 2 December 2002 with the fateful words, "Okay... a game." The original World Domination was dominated by its creator's psychosexual eccentricities, such as an obsession with pink bananas and blue monkeys. Nevertheless, the game quickly caught on.
==History==
Unfortunately, much of the history of World Domination is buried under a series of server moves and forum rejiggles. The Department of I. Jones, esquire has long commissioned a complete recovery and archival of all WD-related evidence, but has suffered from lack of funding. The clan government suffered permanent budgetary cuts following the accession of the 40,000 Post Reich, with many commoners suspecting the money has been diverted into a secret-secret-secret Diamond Mountain housed away inside a giant prune-shaped tree.
The currently known World Dominations are as follows:
* World Domination (Darkflame), December 2002. A crazy about-nothing-in-particular game, it was abandoned when Darkflame ran out of Diet Coke.http://www.fph.fphblog.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=716
* World Domination II (FPHGagylpus), December 2002. The second WD came quickly, largely based on the clan game Age of Mythology. Unfortunately, only one player ever joined, and the game was quickly abandoned. Some speculate that this is when Gagylpus decided to leave the clan and become a traveling clown, peddling his storytelling talents to those who will better appreciate them.http://www.fph.fphblog.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=800
* World Domination v2, N00d-M0d War (Avenger), 2002-2003. Lost to history, this World Domination offered political commentary on the ongoing hostilities within the FPH Clan, and also borrowed from Clan Wars, the wildly popular/hated Age of Mythology competition system used at the time.
* The New World (Lief Ericson), March 2003. Other WDs in the interim period appear to be lost, if indeed there ever were such. This period sees WD begin to evolve from its anarchist roots into a more structured and 'gamey' setup. Although The New World was successful, this added complexity was too much for the undeveloped brains of adolescent templars, and the game was never concluded.http://www.fph.fphblog.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1453&st=0
* World Domination v4: Medieval (Avenger), July 2004. Widely considered to be the prototypical World Domination, it was around this period when WD crystallised into the form we know today. It achieved a longer running time than any WDs before it, but was eventually abandoned. The host, Avenger, knew little of what he was starting, as evidenced by glib comments such as "This will not be overly complicated". http://www.fph.fphblog.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3201&st=0
* World Domination 5 (Avenger), 2005? Avenger claims there was a follow-up World Domination that was similar to v4, but because of his old, decrepit brain status from long years of rulership and subsequent oldmanship, this record remains vague and unreliable.
* World Domination v6, May Contain Peanuts (Raider), January 2006. Based on Avenger's v4 model and set in the ancient World, WD6 looked promising until the host exploded (later digitally reconstituted). WD6 unfortunately showed that the host was the first to feel the pains of mature WD game.http://www.fph.fphblog.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6462&st=0
* World Domination: And Now For Something Different (Avenger), February 2007. As templars began to recognise that WD had become too complex and brainwracking, Avenger began exploring possible solutions. Army sizes and range of abilities were more limited, and a detailed, handcrafted map of the route to Rome was provided for a more focused experience. This was a partial success, with many players making it to a grand finale that declared Shusky possibly the first actual winner of any WD game. However, this WD could not resolve problems with the players, with the likes of Raider defeating his enemies using the power of extraordinarily long posts and 27 contingencies. The bastard.http://www.fph.fphblog.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8703&st=0
* World Domination 9: The Hippopotamian Fields (Shusky), April 2008. The last recorded World Domination, there was at least one other WD in the late Heroic period now lost to history. WD9 took after the format of Avenger's previous WD, but harked back to the glorious Classical era of the FPH Clan, and was based on clan staples such as Cockroaches and Cookies. Generally successful, WD9 ended with victory by Avenger.http://www.fph.fphblog.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10742&st=0
==Today==
World Domination has faded from public life in the last years of the Heroic period, as the dwindling FPH population made it difficult to sustain the high attrition rate of the games. Many despaired. Yet now, under the glorious iron fist of Lief Ericson, there are murmurs that World Domination may be returning. Avenger, the most frequent host of WD games in the past, remains coy and largely incomprehensible.
==References==
Category:Forum games