For over a year the Birth Pangs RPG has allowed readers to interact in a virtual world modeled off of the series. In the game, characters from the book make appearances. Players are able to visit locations featured in the book series and conquer cities and hold territory. However, the game often becomes dull for an unexpected reason: none of the players want to play the bad guy.
Horvath explains, “In the book series there are a number of villain type groups but everyone wants to be the hero in the game. That means that we have ten different ‘good’ clans all aligned against… well, no one. New players come in and sometimes join the ‘bad’ clans and then when they hear just how bad the groups are in the book, they tend to go off and form yet another group of heroes. That’s great, but hardly real life, and its hard to maintain interest in the game, too.”
As the administrator of the game, Horvath is prepared to offer ‘bad’ players certain incentives to help them get used to the game faster and become powerful players. Horvath adds that the game is free to play, but it does give out enhancements for donors. As part of this promotion, if a ‘bad’ player joins, he or she will receive enhancements whether they donate to the game or not. However, if they are ‘bad’ and also donate, they will receive resources that surpasses even what follows in a normal donation. Horvath says, “Our ‘good’ players have such a head start it isn’t even funny. I want to bring in some players that will add spice to the game and I don’t want them to be discouraged. So, we’ll take care of them right from the beginning.”
Horvath also says that this is a secret promotion. “We don’t want the players know that we just hustled in a bunch of rabble rousers and gave them special incentives. So, when you join please send a message to Horvath from within the game with the password “Pledge Wannabe” to receive your special advantages. Please don’t post this in the public area. We won’t be able to keep the promotion secret for long, but so long as it remains secret the promotion will remain valid.”
The website of the game is http://www.birthpangs.com/
