Just out of curiousity

H

Heft

TNPer
Would there be any interest in starting up some national roleplay? Since TNP seems to be finally calming down (for awhile, anyway), this might be a good time to do so. I would like to see TNP be able to offer more opportunities to new players, and the lack roleplay is something I've always seen as a glaring omission, since so many new players would be attracted to it.
 
I don't pay much attention to TEP. It would make since for them to have an active roleplay, since they don't seem to be as politically active as we are. Personally, I'd like to keep TNP from being focused on any one thing, like the government and politics. Not everyone who joins will care about those things at all. We're a feeder, we should have more to offer to people. Unfortunately, I've never really seen a real interest in creating a lively, active roleplay atmosphere.
 
I was thinking about it, and I really think we should start this (RP)! I think it would bring some regional unity, and perhaps get more nations active in the regional politics. Maybe a subforum in RP could be created for specific In-Character RP.

*ator people goes off to RP forum to think about what he'll post, while apologizing to everyone for the double post......
 
If we need a new forum, I wouldn't object... it'll only be our 69th, after all... <.< :lol:

I actually wouldn't mind joining in myself. I've never really been an RP'er, but it does look interesting. I'll go see if NS Wiki is working yet.

Edit after banging around the huge site...

Note: Only those links strictly relevant to RPing on this forum have been included. This is not the complete article either, for the same reason.
NS Wiki:
What is Roleplay?

Role Playing is acting, just without a script. If you've ever been in a play or had some sort of part, you have role played, or played a role. Role Playing is more like life, though. You have a part that you play, whether it's school, work, boyfriend, girlfriend etc.., it is unscripted. Role play is unscripted. You figure things out as you go along, putting up with rough patches (not ignoring someone, flamming, or getting your nation deleted over it), and most of all, try and have fun.

Role Play on NationStates

Roleplay is an extension of NationStates gameplay. The great thing about NationStates' forums is that they are "free form." Free form means there are no rules regarding Role Play. There are rules governing behaviour in the forums, but not how you role play. That means, you can decided to pick 20 random nations and invade them, yes, this is frowned upon by many, but it is just an example of what free form means.

The Role of the Forums

On NationStates, a main part of role play is war. These sorts of battles most often occur in the International Incidents forum. There are many happening everyday, yet, none seem to work out well. When roleplaying a war, remember one thing. That is not to try to win. Far too many times, one nation will be losing a battle, when the owner gets mad out of character and goes ballistic and starts to flame. Flaming is arguing beyond the point of a valid debate, and more along the lines of "You f***ing n00b! Your mama!" ... Which is really scary when you consider that this game gets to users that much.

The NationStates forum tends more towards character-based roleplaying and sports roleplaying, though wars and battles are also fought there. Each topic there is its own separate roleplaying event: some standalone, others tying to one or more other threads, some as spin-offs or continuations of previous roleplays, etc. Such is the nature of free-form role play - even time itself is a variable. Entry into these roleplays is often more formalized: check the topic title and/or first post to see if it is an Invite RP or open to anyone. There may be both IC and OOC topics for a given roleplay. Make sure you're posting in the correct topic for your type of response.

There is an element of roleplay in the United Nations forum, but often there will be a mixture of OOC comments mixed in with the purely diplomatic comments made IC. The UN is only semi-RP, and posts there are subject to more mod intervention for inappropriateness than in the other two RP forums. The UN Forum is limited to UN business in the context of the General Assembly: if a UN nation is discovered to be in violation of UN resolutions, challenges to that nation should move to NationStates or International Incidents.

Roleplay in the other forums is strongly discouraged, though Gameplay does permit a bit of Regionally based RP in the form of regional ads. The other seven active forums have specific purposes, and the Archives can't be added to even if you wanted to. Stick to NS, I.I., and the UN for your national and in-character roleplaying.

Offsite Roleplay

Roleplay also occurs in many of the larger offsite forums and on IRC. Sometimes they are used for planning purposes, and the conversations end up in the NS forums, other times they are complete and separate, although they use NS-related nations and characters. In short, you can roleplay your nation in multiple places with great ease

A Brief Introduction to the Terminology of NationStates

Game Terms
Military Abbreviations
Political Abbreviations

The basics: budget, economy, military:

A common question new nations ask is "What does a "good" economy mean, what is my national budget, and how big is my military?" Remember free form? All of those things could mean anything you want. Good could mean each person makes one dollar a year, your budget could be infinite, and your military could be your entire nation. That usually makes for bad RP. You want to try and keep it as realistic as possible, no, NationStates itself is not entirely designed to be realistic, but you want to try and mimic real life as much as possible for countless reasons. The main ones are:

No one will role play with someone that has a military of 500 million people or buys everything in a storefront.
It really isn't fun. If being an arse is your thing, make your own forums or spam somewhere else.
Most people don't keep track of their nation's budget, they just buy, but not too much. This is ok. Some people use the GDP Calculators (See note by Hersfold below). Raw data can be obtained from the XML feed.
Click to expand...

Apparently I just broke NS Wiki again, though... so don't expect many of those links to work. <.<

I did manage to get to that Calculators page, though, and after tinkering around with the links they have there, here's what I found:
  • Commerce Heights' Calculator, while I've heard it's the best one, will not work for any nation in any of the Pacifics or any other obscenely large region.
  • The Pipian Calculator can be described as spartan at best. Allows for some specific requests, but the general calculation only provides GDP and National Budget (undivided).
  • Sunset's Experimental Calculator is one of my favorites on this list. It provides exchange rate to US dollars, GDP, Government Budget divided into departments, and other non-NS related stats such as "Grey Sector", Worker Enthusiasm, Government Efficency (which is quite high for me :D), Consumer confidence, Unemployment, Literacy, and National Loyalty. Also tells you your nation's age (654 days!).
  • The Steady State Equilibrium Calculator requires the user to input certain details about your nation's trade habits, which may lead to some inflation of stats if this gets used in RP. Provides breakdown of Government Budget, Economic info such as GDP, imports/exports, etc., and exactly how much you owe the international community (or vice versa). I don't particularly like that last part, but then I supposedly owe 3 trillion folds to other nations, so... <.<
  • NSTracker is reportedly based on Commerce Heights' Calc, but doesn't go into the regional stuff, because it actually works. Provides breakdown of national budget with pretty graphs, GDP, unemployment, etc. Another neat feature is the ability to compare your nation to someone else's... apparently, my nation is far better off economically than Flemingovia's is. :D :p
 
Although I wouldn't be overly interested myself, I think it'd be good for attracting another side of the NS world. I don't see we couldn't incorporate it into this forum either. I get confused enough as it with the million and one TNP forums on the go as it is. :blink:

As for the calculators I've used most of them and Sunset's Experimental Calculator and NSTracker are my personal favourites. NSTracker just edges ahead because it makes pretty graphs. Word of warning though, different calculators can somtimes spit out different results.
 
I'm excited about this concept! I'm all for making a subforum in RP for it too. I think it could become very fun and very interesting :thumbsup:
 
Namyeknom:
As for the calculators I've used most of them and Sunset's Experimental Calculator and NSTracker are my personal favourites. NSTracker just edges ahead because it makes pretty graphs. Word of warning though, different calculators can somtimes spit out different results.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I got different results on all the ones I tried. When we RP, we'll probably have to state which calc has to be used.
 
I like that one. I've never really done any NS roleplay, with all the military stuff before. I gather not many people here have. So, ermm, we'll be sort of making it up as we go?
 
That's the best fun there is!

Making it up as we go, I mean.


ANYWHO, I've been mildly interested in the NS roleplay since I started, but never really knew anyone with whom I felt comfortable experimenting. BUT, since no one else knows what they're doing, why not?
 
Indeed.

We would need some guidelines or some such. Like, is this going to be set in modernish times, future/sci-fiish times, ancientish times, medievalish times, or something else? That seems sort of important.

I would suggest we plan out some open-ended story idea for one thread, draw up a few basic rules and standards (just enough to make sure everything is fair and reasonable), and run with it. Not sure how much time I, personally, will have this next week, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to contribute to the planning phase. We should try and get the planning stuff done relatively quickly, or else people are liable to simply lose interest.

Some stuff to think on:
What time period are we in?
How much do in-game NS stats affect? How is roleplay population decided? (remember, we would want for newer nations to be able to jump in without fear of immediately getting crushed by nations 200 times their size, that would sort of discourage participation from newer nations, which would kind of defeat the purpose. Also, not many RL nations have 3 billion, much less 5 billion, people....now, if we went the sci-fi route and each controlled a planet-state, then maybe)
Will the emphasis be on character roleplay, political/diplomatic negotiation type stuff roleplay, military/war roleplay, or economic/trade roleplay? How important is each thing?
How does war work? Are Nukes or other WMD's allowed? If so, how difficult is it to get them, and are there any restrictions on use?

Umm, there's probably more stuff to worry about, but I'm tired. So there's a starting point.
 
My personal favorite is Mafia RP. There is a full character to get into. The jargon, the attitude, arrogance and a classical air of wisdom. I don't really RP much but I would be glad to do a mafia RP with someone.
 
Heft:
Indeed.

We would need some guidelines or some such. Like, is this going to be set in modernish times, future/sci-fiish times, ancientish times, medievalish times, or something else? That seems sort of important.

I would suggest we plan out some open-ended story idea for one thread, draw up a few basic rules and standards (just enough to make sure everything is fair and reasonable), and run with it. Not sure how much time I, personally, will have this next week, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to contribute to the planning phase. We should try and get the planning stuff done relatively quickly, or else people are liable to simply lose interest.

Some stuff to think on:
What time period are we in?
How much do in-game NS stats affect? How is roleplay population decided? (remember, we would want for newer nations to be able to jump in without fear of immediately getting crushed by nations 200 times their size, that would sort of discourage participation from newer nations, which would kind of defeat the purpose. Also, not many RL nations have 3 billion, much less 5 billion, people....now, if we went the sci-fi route and each controlled a planet-state, then maybe)
Will the emphasis be on character roleplay, political/diplomatic negotiation type stuff roleplay, military/war roleplay, or economic/trade roleplay? How important is each thing?
How does war work? Are Nukes or other WMD's allowed? If so, how difficult is it to get them, and are there any restrictions on use?

Umm, there's probably more stuff to worry about, but I'm tired. So there's a starting point.
Click to expand...
I like individual diplomatic roleplay, with population playing a fair-sized role, but not too much. Perhaps a whole RP on some kind of "cold war" type scenerio, with negotiations, attacks, etc. Maybe few nuclear weapons, but they could be hard to get and difficult to use (with international pressure not to use them).


I don't have much time now, maybe I'll post later.
 
Fedele:
My personal favorite is Mafia RP. There is a full character to get into. The jargon, the attitude, arrogance and a classical air of wisdom. I don't really RP much but I would be glad to do a mafia RP with someone.
Click to expand...
perhaps something like this could be done also as I'd be interested in roleplay but no longer have a NS nation.
 
Okay, what I'm going to do is first create an "Ator People" thread, describe my nation, individuals in the nation that will be used for role play, etc. Then threads can be started after this pertaining to incidents that include mine or other nations.



sry for the double post :ermm:
 
Ha! I love this Calculator. Great stuff. Hmm, since no one knows what they're doing does anyone know of any NS RP's we could take a peek at and get a better sense of things?
 
WishyWashyWonder:
Ha! I love this Calculator. Great stuff. Hmm, since no one knows what they're doing does anyone know of any NS RP's we could take a peek at and get a better sense of things?
Click to expand...
Yeah, that what I was going to suggest. Find somewhere that likes their RP and.. umm... borrow *cough* their ideas.

:shifty:
 
Heft:
Indeed.

We would need some guidelines or some such. Like, is this going to be set in modernish times, future/sci-fiish times, ancientish times, medievalish times, or something else? That seems sort of important.

I would suggest we plan out some open-ended story idea for one thread, draw up a few basic rules and standards (just enough to make sure everything is fair and reasonable), and run with it. Not sure how much time I, personally, will have this next week, so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to contribute to the planning phase. We should try and get the planning stuff done relatively quickly, or else people are liable to simply lose interest.

Some stuff to think on:
What time period are we in?
How much do in-game NS stats affect? How is roleplay population decided? (remember, we would want for newer nations to be able to jump in without fear of immediately getting crushed by nations 200 times their size, that would sort of discourage participation from newer nations, which would kind of defeat the purpose. Also, not many RL nations have 3 billion, much less 5 billion, people....now, if we went the sci-fi route and each controlled a planet-state, then maybe)
Will the emphasis be on character roleplay, political/diplomatic negotiation type stuff roleplay, military/war roleplay, or economic/trade roleplay? How important is each thing?
How does war work? Are Nukes or other WMD's allowed? If so, how difficult is it to get them, and are there any restrictions on use?

Umm, there's probably more stuff to worry about, but I'm tired. So there's a starting point.
Click to expand...
This is thread necromancy of the vilest sort, but I think a response is due to this.

One of the fundamental truths of NS RP - and one that not many RPers realize - is that if you don't place your forum's entire emphasis on war, almost all of the questions you asked have no wrong answers.

Many RPers orient their entire RP nation around war, writing up elaborate militaries, extensively studying real-life strategy and tactics, compiling vast lists of equipment and vehicles, and generally trying to create the most convincing war machine imaginable. It's these folks who have to care how big the countries are, how their economic stats line up, whether populations match the numbers that are plausible in the real world, whether it's a realistic time period, and so forth. Everyone else has no reason to be hampered by any of these things. Unfortunately, RP regions have a tendency of giving control over RP to the hawks - who promptly lock down the forum with rules that effectively stop anyone who doesn't have a lifetime's obsession with real-world military history from participating in any RPs, military or no.

Over in TEP, we tried the opposite strategy. Our RP is about nations, cultures, and their interaction. All tech levels are acceptable. The only rules on war are that players must control only their own forces and two nations at war must actually agree on what is going on. Once we got out of the ridiculous mindset that RP nations exist solely to battle each other like Yu-Gi-Oh cards (and that nations have to be balanced accordingly), we wound up with a universe with actual character and depth to it. Some of the things in it are a little outlandish at first, but once we got to thinking about how the universe could work, we got one that actually does, in which all kinds of things can happen. It's a place where nations are settings, not characters in and of themselves. And it works.

Good RP doesn't require a degree in math or literature. All it takes is a little imagination and a willingness to cooperate with others. It's a little tricky at first to come up with a national culture you like, but if you do, you'll be glad you did.
 
I agree. I've never really gotten into war RPs. One of the best RPs I was in was a pure character RP. Action, intrigue, and a bit of humor. Although my nation was roughly the same size as the other one, it didn't really matter. It could have been a 10 billion nation vs a 10 million one, and it still would have worked.
 
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