NPC Nations

Sasten suggested an idea in "The Off Map" thread about NPC (or Non-Player Character) Nations in our little TNP roleplay universe. The more I've been thinking about it the more I've been convinced that it's actually a rather good idea.

One of the biggest problems that sometimes faces us here is continuity. To build the history of a country or region it's inevitable that there was interaction with other countries or the establishment of various systems, languages, religions, etc.

Having one or two NPC nations that had rough but consistent histories would give us the chance to assign and build-in things that are difficult for us to deal with, the example used in another thread was that of Christianity where it's difficult and risky to assign to any player nation that may disappear, not to mention future nations that might have already assigned it to their history. Syrixia raised a valid point that in an era of satellites, GPS, and planes and ships capable of circumnavigating real-life Earth without so much as stopping for supplies means that having these things come from far-off unknown lands can be a little unrealistic, occasionally nonsensical. To have a set, visible place where some of these things could be said to originated from makes considerable sense. As McM mentioned in another thread, these nations don't have to be huge either.

With a bit of (non-)strategic positioning we could place these nations somewhere relatively out of the way on the map, and certainly not bordering any player controlled nation. They would be fairly neutral nations and might participate in ambient trade of the simplest, uncontroversial goods (no arms deals for example). It would be a rule that these nations are not to be attacked and I imagine too that they would only be interacted with in very minimal ways.

It is possible that these nations could also be used by the RP Mods to set-up the premise for special region events. Maybe one of these nations announces the discovery or invention of something new that has occurred in real life that now should be introduced into the game world, or a tanker from this nation crashes in a different part of the region and several nearby nations must work together to clean up the pollution. Those specific ideas aren't the best, but the point stands that the oppourtunity exists.

In addition, establishing guidelines for the NPCs gives us too the guidelines that we would need for any nations we elect to hold in Trust that would likely fall under much the same umbrella of minimal interaction but significant historical impact. (Not to say we couldn't develop those independently of having NPC nations or not).

Assuming we include the trust nations of McMasterdonia and Imperium Augustum as Semi-NPCs that would give us a total of 3 or 4 nations that could each have some history that other nations or the canon of Eras itself could build off of without fear of these nations disappearing and requiring vast swaths of ret-conning. It would give us a new avenue of flexibility in organizing events, and it would populate our map just a little more.

Thoughts?

I've long been a proponent of having NPC nations on the map that would allow locations for wars, history, random events / inventions / etc and would be a nice neutral ground for things to happen. It's also a good place to stash / assign hot potato items like religion founding locations or to have regional disasters located without wrecking a player nation but still be able to have people participate in something big. I think there should be a few of them on the map to allow variety.

"Syrixia raised a valid point that in an era of satellites, GPS, and planes and ships capable of circumnavigating real-life Earth without so much as stopping for supplies means that having these things come from far-off unknown lands can be a little unrealistic, occasionally nonsensical. To have a set, visible place where some of these things could be said to originated from makes considerable sense."

There are two parts to this comment. First, I think there should be some NPC locations on the map in TNP that we can point to and say it's came from THERE and work out the details with the NPC nation. However it seems that this might also be referencing erasing other regions from Eras which Syrixia doesn't want to exist on the map and is a strong proponent of having TNP being the only thing on Eras. However I disagree.

The fact that we don't see the other regions on the TNP map doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. Yes, we're in a world of GPS, satellites and long range freighters circumnavigating the world. However in TNP RP we're talking about and FOCUSING ON a particular region on the map. It'd be like puling out a map of South America and then saying nothing else exists in the entire world because we're looking at a map of South America. The rest of the world exists, and nations in South America interact with the rest of the world, but they interact most with the nations they're next to rather than worrying about what's happening in the Republic of Nauru in the Central Pacific. Just because you can't find the Republic of Nauru on a map of South America doesn't mean it doesn't exist in the world.

When the map was created way back when it was said that other regions exist on the globe but that we are only looking at the TNP map. Therefore I see no reason that other regions can't exist on the map and we can't have some level of interaction with them in non specific ways as though they're a collection of NPC nation. It would allow the rest of Eras to not be just water, it'd increase our trade routes, it'd balance out international trade as well. A number of people have similar trade goods and lack of certain goods in all nations in TNP, we don't have a properly balanced trade economy. Somehow this lopsided trade network with way too many of one good and near zero of others makes a considerable profit selling these items to whom? The other players with lots of that trade good? Either they sell it to the land of Handwavium that needs lots of that trade good because everyone is selling that trade good or we need some global market in which to sell these items. These regions beyond our regional border can be where we sell all our regional excess and buy things not found in our region.

Since I've been RPing in TNP it's been the case that other regions exist. As such I've interacted with these other regions in the intended prescribed manner. If you'll notice my airline connects to other regions, I've RP'd completion of trade with other regions when TNP RPers left trade threads for dead, Leaders from my nation have been written as going to, coming from, or being away on important matters in other regions. This has also given a reason as to why my military is not always present in large numbers or can be found traveling through certain areas of the map. While my nation enjoys robust trade with nations in TNP my nation still has regular trade with 'other nations' in other regions.

I know I'm not the only one that has their nation interact and trade with other regions or have characters travel to other regions.

I think there should be like 2 or 3 NPC nations in TNP though that are controlled by a non player or a couple non players that wouldn't mind on rare occasion stepping into RP and generating an event or briefly RPing as one of the NPCs. Other than that they're mostly off limits and treated as quiet players you just don't interact with much.


TLDR:
Make a few NPC nations in TNP for us to place sensitive topic items like religion founding locations, permanent historic locations we can play our history off from without involving others, and a staging ground for disasters or events.
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Other regions should exist on Eras and can help solve plot holes for TNP such as economics or why someone's navy might not far from their homeland. Other regions should be handled in a not specific manner and are somewhat akin to a nearby region of NPC nations. We concentrate our play in TNP, we're talking about TNP, but like the real world if we're looking at a map of South America we know there is more to the total map and we know those nations interact with that greater map... but we're LOOKING AT TNP not Eras.

Maybe their should be a nation where most major religions come from, like Christianity or Jewish.

I think this is a good idea and as I said in the other thread, I would be happy for my nation to be an NPC utilised by an RP moderator if I disappear again.