Roleplaying an RTS Game?

[HigherTomorrow]

I only play RTS games with friends, and there's a reason why. I like 'roleplaying' RTS games. And by that I mean, I like pretending the battle being fought is legitimate. So my friends and I set up war plans and we say, for example, "Hey man, I've fortified a squad at ____. How about you guys try and surround us? Make sure to put your units on no attack though."

We make a story of sorts with our strategy games. A war movie, perhaps. And it's a lot more fun than a legitimate game.

Does anyone else do this?

 

[HigherTomorrow]

I can honestly say, I've never even thought about doing this.

It kind of sounds like you're doing RTS machinima, without doing any actual filming.

That's it. Yeah. The biggest problem is, though, that not all of my friends, "A.) Enjoy doing this, B.) Have proper consoles or games."

Right now my friend and I are trying to get our computers to run copies of Company of Heroes, as WW2 would make for an interesting battle.

 

[Kiefer13]

This has happened a couple of times for me during RTS games. Mostly in various installments of Command & Conquer. It was both hilarious and great fun. Usually involved giving one player plenty of time to set up a huge base on their side of the map, and then them setting objectives for the other players to complete, like a singleplayer mission, and having the players talk to each other over the comms pretending to be actual commanders. It was actually tons of fun. Shame it doesn't happen more often really.

 

[The_Spirit_of_Epic]

there is this one map on Warcraft 3 that is basically an RP map, where one player (the "GM", if you will) sets everything up. problem with that was that the only thing to do with that is "hey, you there, go kill that"

other then that failure, i haven't done that, although i would add in witty comments now and then, depending on the situation.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I generally like to imagine that my force isn't just Random Generic Army #3492. I'll make custom maps where I create my own story line or I just pretend that the battles I fight have some sort of connection.

I've never been able to RP with friends, but one of them has told me about how he and his friend would do stuff like this in Age of Empires 2. They'd build up big cities during games and in sounded pretty fun.

Of course with games like Civ IV, Total War: Rome, Hearts of Iron 2, and Victoria RPing becomes a lot easier...

 

[Sion_Barzahd]

I've never considered doing this actually. Sounds kinda fun though. Personally my friends and i would get fed up and just start slaughtering one another before there is a chance to set it up.

 

[Flying-Emu]

I do this.

Except it's more that I give all glory of my victories to the Swarm rather than myself.

 

[LogicNProportion]

I do, I do!

I find it to help what a drag RTS' can sometimes bring with them. I make up challenges and stuff for me for that game, like in Dawn of War, I disallow myself the power to rejuvenate the squad, etc.

 

[cerapa]

I used to put my enemies on the lowest difficulty in red alert 2, then steal their base, build a new base somewhere and then RP a battle.

 

[Altorin]

I sometimes get into an "RP" mindset when I'm playing Zerg.