In order to give a more fleshed-out idea of what I'm talking about here, this is a list of some of the more common features I've seen in my experience Space Battles: Players control capital ships (ISDs, Mon Cals, you know, like Rebellion) and fight above planets or in deep space Ground Battles: Players control their troops from their ship(s) when assaulting a planet, while the defending faciton/neutral GM controls the planet's troops; fight until surrender or all of one side is killed Diplomacy: Diplomat goes to a planet to convince them via storylining to join the faction they represent; interesting when two factions go for the same planet at the same time Planets: Divided into sectors; planets ranging in number from dozens to easily over 100 (depending on sim); divided into factions or independent; some sims allowed discovery of more planets; also given a tax value, which usually were described as Very Poor, Poor, Average, Rich, Very Rich, and Capital (faction capital); taxes collected once a month, usually, sometimes twice, rarely once a week Ships, Troops, Etc.: Each faction has unique ships, troops, fighters, vehicles, etc (Imps have ISDs, etc); also were neutral techs (technologies, blanket label for all that stuff, sometimes called specs) that were available to every faction; shipyards, fighter plants, vehicle plants, training centers were all used to build these things --- and could all be attacked by enemies Factions: Most sims had at least four --- Rebs/New Republic, Imps, plus two neutrals (Hapans, CSA, Yevethan, Chiss, Black Sun, Hutts, etc); factions could be allied with each other, could trade with each other, could kill each other; most factions controlled sections of territory and were often divided up into majors (Rebs, Imps, Hapans, etc) and minors (Black Sun, Hutts, Tenloss, etc) Research & Development: Every month factions could submit three new techs that they wanted to introduce into play, could be ships, fighters, anything; High Council (comprised of the GMs and maybe elected ones) would then vote on the new tech Fleets: Factions would sometimes have limitations to the amount of ships they could have, whether by type (a certain amount of Smalls, Mediums, Larges, and Supers) or by length (total meters of length of all ships used by the faction); major factions would be allowed more; factions could keep ships in reserve and these wouldn't count towards the limits; players would be given a ship or several ships depending on their rank and their standing with the faction leader Characters!: Each person would control a single character that they could flesh out with a biography (necessary for joining) plus the usual storylining (RPing) posts about their past or what they're doing in the present; factions would often hold events, and then there were always the occasional huge space battles where everyone could get involved; there were also "mock battles" which were basically just free-for-alls to have fun and have nothing to do with the real sim I can't quite think of anything else that's major that I haven't covered. This is all carried out on message boards. For the most part it's like your standard RP except on a different, galactic scale, rather than having all the action concentrated on a single planet. The only parts where rules play a prominent role are the battles. Personally, I think ground battles can be conducted without rules, and they really aren't all that common compared to space battles. Space battles are all about moving and firing, using an easy to follow hit point system that incorporates simple multiplying (ex: each turbolaser does 12 damage, you fire 6, so you cause 72 damage). The rules can be as simplistic or as realistic as the members like; but the rules allow you to have fun without arguing about who killed who or who's ship should be destroyed. Hopefully this'll interest people even more. Feel free to ask more questions.