NationStates

I am attempting to get this appealed.

RIP RP

Hey guys! So after getting a signal flare from some of the P2TM mentors, I'd like to take a second and run some things by y'all.

First and foremost, I know you guys moved to P2TM, but considering your original RP started in International Incidents and you all seem to have taken an interest in the Modern Tech field; I highly suggest you take a look at the Welcome to International Incidents sticky. Again, I understand that y'all have moved to P2TM with this thread, but the Welcome to II thread does have a fair degree of useful information regarding Roleplaying in general and some fantastic links focused around assisting players. On top of that, in general if you any of y'all do ever RP in II again, the thread is a great way to learn the basics of how the board works and is geared towards player integration and assistance.

Secondly, I strongly suggest you guys take a look at the NationStates Frequently Asked Questions page, specifically regarding Freedom of Speech. To be clear, I'm not speaking as a Mod here, Mentors have no punitive power; but as a general rule Freedom of Speech is not protected on NS (as clearly stated in the FAQ link above.)

With all that covered, I'd like to address a few things from a Roleplay standpoint:

From what I can tell from y'alls thread you seem to be taking a more realistic/modern approach to this RP, which by all means is a perfectly fine and legitimate approach to roleplaying. But, unless I've misinterpreted the direction y'all want to go with it, there are some serious issues that collide with that line of thinking.

Without naming any specific players above; a couple of the applicants have had, to be blunt, absurd values that in a modern or 'realistic' terms would be both unsustainable and unheard of. On average, a sustainable number of military personnel in a percentage relative to your total population is between 1-1.5%. It's true that nations in the past have had higher percentages than this, but this was in times of great crisis and didn't constitute the true "standing" force. Personally, I'm not a numerical roleplayer (I.e. I don't focus on exact force composition), but if you intend to incorporate statistics into your RP I highly recommend you keep this in mind. Generally speaking a percentile higher than 1-1.5% is an extreme drain on your nation's economy, not only because it takes a large number of people out of the regular workforce, but also because it takes a lot of money to feed, equip, and pay your soldiers.

On top of that, remember that every active combat role you have as a number of logistical personnel behind them. For example, your average American Riflemen is supported by approximately ten logistical personnel. Ten isn't necessarily a magical number, there's a wide variety throughout the world's various militaries, but keep in mind that not all of your military personnel will be active in combat roles. In fact most of your guys will be ammo bearers, mechanics, logistical clerks, and etc.

I'd also like to address a couple of things that I noticed from y'alls original thread:

Communication, in any roleplay, is key. I can tell that you guys are excited to RP, and I'm not slamming you for that, it's always great to see guys who want to get out there and write. But there's nothing wrong with slowing things down and talking about what's going to happen. Doing so tends to resolve a lot of issues before they even happen, and likewise goes a long way in reducing or even eliminating tension between players.

On top of that, slowing down in general might be something to consider. From looking at y'alls old thread it looked like you guys were just firing off one-line posts. In general, I always advise players to take a step back and see if they can add substance and detail to their posts to avoid the impression of "spam" or "hollow" posts. In you first RP I saw a lot of posts that were just lines of dialogue in response to, well, more lines of dialogue. Don't get me wrong, characters need to talk to one another, that's just a given. But skipping on background detail (the location, the atmosphere of the conversation, physical description of your characters and etc.) doesn't do you any favors. I'd suggest that instead of just line of dialogue after line of dialogue, you explain their surroundings a bit more.

So to give you an example:

The soldier clicked his heels and saluted, shouting "Reporting commander!" As he did so.

Becomes:

The young man, 19 or so with boyish features and a light in his eyes that told of youthful innocence, struggled through the mud that seemed to cover everything in Poland this time of year. Slowly approaching the khaki green tent that served as his platoon headquarters, he did his best to wipe his boots before staggering in. He straightened as much as he could, drawing dirty looks from the near-pristine staff; then cocked back his hand into a salute and offered a , "Reporting Commander!" To the grizzled captain that was quickly bearing down on him

By expanding on the situation from a setting perspective, the dialogue itself has more context and more flavor which allows the reader to further immerse themselves into the story.

So to wrap this up. My biggest piece of advice is to just take a breath guys. RPing is exciting, I get that, but there's no need to rush. Take some time, figure out the direction you want your post to go, and remember that the forum isn't going anywhere.

I hope you guys find this helpful, and if I or any of the other mentors can provide you with assistance please feel free to send us a telegram.

The Uthani Imperium wrote:Hey guys! So after getting a signal flare from some of the P2TM mentors, I'd like to take a second and run some things by y'all.

First and foremost, I know you guys moved to P2TM, but considering your original RP started in International Incidents and you all seem to have taken an interest in the Modern Tech field; I highly suggest you take a look at the Welcome to International Incidents sticky. Again, I understand that y'all have moved to P2TM with this thread, but the Welcome to II thread does have a fair degree of useful information regarding Roleplaying in general and some fantastic links focused around assisting players. On top of that, in general if you any of y'all do ever RP in II again, the thread is a great way to learn the basics of how the board works and is geared towards player integration and assistance.

Secondly, I strongly suggest you guys take a look at the NationStates Frequently Asked Questions page, specifically regarding Freedom of Speech. To be clear, I'm not speaking as a Mod here, Mentors have no punitive power; but as a general rule Freedom of Speech is not protected on NS (as clearly stated in the FAQ link above.)

With all that covered, I'd like to address a few things from a Roleplay standpoint:

From what I can tell from y'alls thread you seem to be taking a more realistic/modern approach to this RP, which by all means is a perfectly fine and legitimate approach to roleplaying. But, unless I've misinterpreted the direction y'all want to go with it, there are some serious issues that collide with that line of thinking.

Without naming any specific players above; a couple of the applicants have had, to be blunt, absurd values that in a modern or 'realistic' terms would be both unsustainable and unheard of. On average, a sustainable number of military personnel in a percentage relative to your total population is between 1-1.5%. It's true that nations in the past have had higher percentages than this, but this was in times of great crisis and didn't constitute the true "standing" force. Personally, I'm not a numerical roleplayer (I.e. I don't focus on exact force composition), but if you intend to incorporate statistics into your RP I highly recommend you keep this in mind. Generally speaking a percentile higher than 1-1.5% is an extreme drain on your nation's economy, not only because it takes a large number of people out of the regular workforce, but also because it takes a lot of money to feed, equip, and pay your soldiers.

On top of that, remember that every active combat role you have as a number of logistical personnel behind them. For example, your average American Riflemen is supported by approximately ten logistical personnel. Ten isn't necessarily a magical number, there's a wide variety throughout the world's various militaries, but keep in mind that not all of your military personnel will be active in combat roles. In fact most of your guys will be ammo bearers, mechanics, logistical clerks, and etc.

I'd also like to address a couple of things that I noticed from y'alls original thread:

Communication, in any roleplay, is key. I can tell that you guys are excited to RP, and I'm not slamming you for that, it's always great to see guys who want to get out there and write. But there's nothing wrong with slowing things down and talking about what's going to happen. Doing so tends to resolve a lot of issues before they even happen, and likewise goes a long way in reducing or even eliminating tension between players.

On top of that, slowing down in general might be something to consider. From looking at y'alls old thread it looked like you guys were just firing off one-line posts. In general, I always advise players to take a step back and see if they can add substance and detail to their posts to avoid the impression of "spam" or "hollow" posts. In you first RP I saw a lot of posts that were just lines of dialogue in response to, well, more lines of dialogue. Don't get me wrong, characters need to talk to one another, that's just a given. But skipping on background detail (the location, the atmosphere of the conversation, physical description of your characters and etc.) doesn't do you any favors. I'd suggest that instead of just line of dialogue after line of dialogue, you explain their surroundings a bit more.

So to give you an example:

The soldier clicked his heels and saluted, shouting "Reporting commander!" As he did so.

Becomes:

The young man, 19 or so with boyish features and a light in his eyes that told of youthful innocence, struggled through the mud that seemed to cover everything in Poland this time of year. Slowly approaching the khaki green tent that served as his platoon headquarters, he did his best to wipe his boots before staggering in. He straightened as much as he could, drawing dirty looks from the near-pristine staff; then cocked back his hand into a salute and offered a , "Reporting Commander!" To the grizzled captain that was quickly bearing down on him

By expanding on the situation from a setting perspective, the dialogue itself has more context and more flavor which allows the reader to further immerse themselves into the story.

So to wrap this up. My biggest piece of advice is to just take a breath guys. RPing is exciting, I get that, but there's no need to rush. Take some time, figure out the direction you want your post to go, and remember that the forum isn't going anywhere.

I hope you guys find this helpful, and if I or any of the other mentors can provide you with assistance please feel free to send us a telegram.

Thank you for your feedback, I will try again but I may set a sentence minimum limit.

The Uthani Imperium wrote:Hey guys! So after getting a signal flare from some of the P2TM mentors, I'd like to take a second and run some things by y'all.

First and foremost, I know you guys moved to P2TM, but considering your original RP started in International Incidents and you all seem to have taken an interest in the Modern Tech field; I highly suggest you take a look at the Welcome to International Incidents sticky. Again, I understand that y'all have moved to P2TM with this thread, but the Welcome to II thread does have a fair degree of useful information regarding Roleplaying in general and some fantastic links focused around assisting players. On top of that, in general if you any of y'all do ever RP in II again, the thread is a great way to learn the basics of how the board works and is geared towards player integration and assistance.

Secondly, I strongly suggest you guys take a look at the NationStates Frequently Asked Questions page, specifically regarding Freedom of Speech. To be clear, I'm not speaking as a Mod here, Mentors have no punitive power; but as a general rule Freedom of Speech is not protected on NS (as clearly stated in the FAQ link above.)

With all that covered, I'd like to address a few things from a Roleplay standpoint:

From what I can tell from y'alls thread you seem to be taking a more realistic/modern approach to this RP, which by all means is a perfectly fine and legitimate approach to roleplaying. But, unless I've misinterpreted the direction y'all want to go with it, there are some serious issues that collide with that line of thinking.

Without naming any specific players above; a couple of the applicants have had, to be blunt, absurd values that in a modern or 'realistic' terms would be both unsustainable and unheard of. On average, a sustainable number of military personnel in a percentage relative to your total population is between 1-1.5%. It's true that nations in the past have had higher percentages than this, but this was in times of great crisis and didn't constitute the true "standing" force. Personally, I'm not a numerical roleplayer (I.e. I don't focus on exact force composition), but if you intend to incorporate statistics into your RP I highly recommend you keep this in mind. Generally speaking a percentile higher than 1-1.5% is an extreme drain on your nation's economy, not only because it takes a large number of people out of the regular workforce, but also because it takes a lot of money to feed, equip, and pay your soldiers.

On top of that, remember that every active combat role you have as a number of logistical personnel behind them. For example, your average American Riflemen is supported by approximately ten logistical personnel. Ten isn't necessarily a magical number, there's a wide variety throughout the world's various militaries, but keep in mind that not all of your military personnel will be active in combat roles. In fact most of your guys will be ammo bearers, mechanics, logistical clerks, and etc.

I'd also like to address a couple of things that I noticed from y'alls original thread:

Communication, in any roleplay, is key. I can tell that you guys are excited to RP, and I'm not slamming you for that, it's always great to see guys who want to get out there and write. But there's nothing wrong with slowing things down and talking about what's going to happen. Doing so tends to resolve a lot of issues before they even happen, and likewise goes a long way in reducing or even eliminating tension between players.

On top of that, slowing down in general might be something to consider. From looking at y'alls old thread it looked like you guys were just firing off one-line posts. In general, I always advise players to take a step back and see if they can add substance and detail to their posts to avoid the impression of "spam" or "hollow" posts. In you first RP I saw a lot of posts that were just lines of dialogue in response to, well, more lines of dialogue. Don't get me wrong, characters need to talk to one another, that's just a given. But skipping on background detail (the location, the atmosphere of the conversation, physical description of your characters and etc.) doesn't do you any favors. I'd suggest that instead of just line of dialogue after line of dialogue, you explain their surroundings a bit more.

So to give you an example:

The soldier clicked his heels and saluted, shouting "Reporting commander!" As he did so.

Becomes:

The young man, 19 or so with boyish features and a light in his eyes that told of youthful innocence, struggled through the mud that seemed to cover everything in Poland this time of year. Slowly approaching the khaki green tent that served as his platoon headquarters, he did his best to wipe his boots before staggering in. He straightened as much as he could, drawing dirty looks from the near-pristine staff; then cocked back his hand into a salute and offered a , "Reporting Commander!" To the grizzled captain that was quickly bearing down on him

By expanding on the situation from a setting perspective, the dialogue itself has more context and more flavor which allows the reader to further immerse themselves into the story.

So to wrap this up. My biggest piece of advice is to just take a breath guys. RPing is exciting, I get that, but there's no need to rush. Take some time, figure out the direction you want your post to go, and remember that the forum isn't going anywhere.

I hope you guys find this helpful, and if I or any of the other mentors can provide you with assistance please feel free to send us a telegram.

Thank you. If it's just Sentences we need we can do that, I just personally Don't like writing 'Stories' for the Nations people, But maybe I'll get into it, who knows.

I think I understand what we did wrong. If anyone here still wants to do it, I will set the role play in 2030. I will ask you to write in detail. I will also allow you to have a main country and one extra as a starting setup (the extra needs to be realistic).

Atrilan wrote:I think I understand what we did wrong. If anyone here still wants to do it, I will set the role play in 2030. I will ask you to write in detail. I will also allow you to have a main country and one extra as a starting setup (the extra needs to be realistic).

I am in I reserve Germany and the Netherlands.

Vote for what we should do next.

I suggest we do a powerful RP in the Samurai Times. This will help all of us communicate and draw details better, as there was no sort of "Godmod" Technology back then. And communication will take much more time and detailed posts.

Kumbhalgarh wrote:I suggest we do a powerful RP in the Samurai Times. This will help all of us communicate and draw details better, as there was no sort of "Godmod" Technology back then. And communication will take much more time and detailed posts.

I like this idea but I want it to be the whole world not just Japan. In whatever we do I call Germany. I was thinking we could do a 19th century RP that won't be strictly held to history.

The poll will be closed at 5:00 PM EST.

How did we get 13 votes?

Atrilan wrote:How did we get 12 votes?

That is almost double the seven people who should've voted, just post your option here.

Modern War

WW1

Modern War.

19th century

The United States of American Patriots wrote:WW1

I don't think you have voting rights.

Hey again guys!

So I'd just like to expand and clarify on a few things:

First and foremost, while I think there is room for improvement in the sentence structure and detail of a lot of the posts, if I was you that wouldn't be the issue I'd tackle first. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no authority on roleplays of this sort (Generally speaking I'm a more character and Future Tech oriented RPer), but based on the experience that I do have with this sort of thing I would suggest that the first thing you guys do is establish a more codified structure as to how you want this RP to go. Approaching this as an RPer, the biggest thing I can suggest is that you guys establish some sort of posting order, that way each player has an ample chance to respond to events affecting his nation in one go. Doing so also goes a long way in avoiding the "machine gun" effect of multiple short and "disconnected" posts one after another; which as a reader and RPer, turns me off to the RP as a whole. This ties back into the whole, "Take a step back and breath."

Secondly, I know several of you have expressed that you don't care for the more "Story driven" Roleplay. It's not my job nor imperative to tell you which kind of roleplays you're allowed to or should be doing, so quite frankly I won't. But what I can say, is that there are ways to incorporate story elements and still stick to the nation-centric roleplay you seem to prefer. I'm going to approach this from a personal aspect as I feel that's the most appropriate, but in my experience as a reader and yes even as an RPer, RPs that effectively constitute:

Nation A declares war on Nation B

Nation B launches a missile strike

Nation A is struck by the missiles, casualties are (X)

Aren't as fulfilling as they could be.

It's entirely possible to focus on your nation as a whole while still expanding on events that occur when they are of some significance. To use the example above, if Nation A is declaring war on Nation B, the player behind Nation A can do more than just say "We declare war." The player behind Nation A could explain, in character, the justification behind the war. Popular opinion regarding the declaration of war, and preparations that are being made to facilitate the waging of war. There are multiple ways to do this, but in my personal experience expanding and explaining on events by writing for a character in your nation is the most engaging and enjoyable way to do so. Doing so adds more depth, and serves to further "humanize" the situation, whereas simply stating that your nation is "Doing this" has a more mechanical and detached feeling.

The last thing that I'd like to clarify and make perfectly clear due to some misconceptions I see forming, is that I'm not here to tell you how to keep your RP from getting locked again. As a mentor, my job is to do my best to educate players and offer them my advice if they are willing to receive it. What that means effectively, is that you are by no means forced to adhere or even acknowledge my advice if you so choose. My intention is simply to try and assist you in having the most amount of fun in your RP, and if possible assist you in improving in areas that you may not necessarily be great in (and I do not mean this as an insult, nobody is ever perfect at roleplaying or writing, we all need help sometimes.)

But again, you're free to disregard my advice if you so choose. So long as you adhere to the NationStates Site Rules as a whole you can RP however you choose. This is a friendly suggestion, and an extended hand that you can choose to take if you wish to. But you don't have to.

As before, I hope you found this clarification useful, and if any of you require assistance please feel free to telegram me.

I say we just look at the Google vote..

Kumbhalgarh wrote:I suggest we do a powerful RP in the Samurai Times. This will help all of us communicate and draw details better, as there was no sort of "Godmod" Technology back then. And communication will take much more time and detailed posts.

Agreed

Germaustia wrote:I say we just look at the Google vote..

The poll I did had 13 voters. Only 7 were supposed to vote.

Dude use a Google Form that way it doesnt allow Multiple Votes.

samurai

Germaustia wrote:Dude use a Google Form that way it doesnt allow Multiple Votes.

You can vote on different devices, though.

How could I control God mode in Modern War if we do it?