Welcome to this, the forty-third edition of the prestigious Baptism of Fire, hosted by ASMV and K&P! With the opening of this thread, the NationStates Football World Cup 56 cycle has officially begun!
The Baptism of Fire is one of the most renowned tournaments in NS Sports. It accepts entry only from teams that have no KPB ranking (the equivalent of the RL FIFA World Ranking), meaning only nations without a history of entry. (Sometimes this means brand new nations; sometimes this means experienced veterans who are just trying out football RPing for the first time.) As one of the World Cup Committee-sanctioned events, participants can gain their first-ever KPB points and begin their long journey to the top of the NS Multiverse. Most importantly, the Baptism of Fire is the grand gateway into the big fun world of the NS World Cup and all of the drama and excitement that comes with it.
But as important the BoF is for beginning nations, it is still widely followed and appreciated by the experienced nations of the NS multiverse. Why? Because roleplay (or RP) is one of just two determining factors for success for participants (the other being sheer dumb luck). That makes the Baptism of Fire unique, and as such you can assume that the whole NS world will be watching your team.
RP well and RP often, and you could see your players hoisting the trophy at tournaments' end! The only other thing you'll need is luck; scorinators do use random numbers and, just like a game of cards, sometimes things just don't go your way. Margaret, God of All Things Random, is merciless in her unkindness, and the dearest wish of your hosts, Andossa Se Mitrin Vega and Kagdazka and Pazhujebu, that you never fall victim to her cruelty. Alas, however, she shall surely claim many a scalp, as she always does.
Who will be participating in this tournament, you ask? Here is the full and final list, which includes 48 nations:
Cyborg Holland
Matting
Michael VII
Southern Cynocephali
Scrap Brain Zone
Chetkosk
Darmen
Jimmer Fredette
Princess Béatrice Island
Southwest 2Fort
Old Havansk
Okunion
Burty Royals
Kalumba
VANTELIRA
Ideam
Beaverriver
Sneaky Nuts
Jedi8246
Arnett Mead
West Guiana
Nitrome Island
Nicole Riche
Kalengorod
Itailian Maifias
Armorgames
Nzyghistan
Rebel Slaves
Autobotious
Nordstaaten
San Havana
Camerania
Alexanderburn
Bleak Rock
Cbngggfv
Licienta
Ockkorlond
Nothan
Florinthus
Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuk
Rent is 3 Damn High
Lesser Cotswalds
Utmost Upright
New Palmouth
Oiseaui
Yankees123
Savski Venac
Citadel of Cittagazze
TGs will be sent to each of these nations in the hopes that as many teams as possible can participate.
These teams will be assembled into eight groups of six. (A draw will be conducted in coming days in order to randomly sort these teams into groups.) Four of those groups will play in the nation of Andossa Se Mitrin Vega and the other four will play in the nation of Kagdazka and Pazhujebu. Teams that finish in fourth place or higher in their respective groups will advance to the knockout phase. This means that 32 nations will play in the first round of the knockouts, 16 in the second, 8 in the quarterfinals, 4 in the semifinals, and of course 2 in the final, to be played in the newly refurbished 96,000-seat Graha'ajat Stidiyama in the misty, jungle-covered mountains of the Zahuj Peninsula in Pazhujebu.
ASMV Stadium Information
K&P Stadium Information
New to RPing? No problem.
First of all, you'll want to read this.
Second of all, and more specifically speaking, here's how this tournament will work. A scorinator (which is a computer program which weighs different factors in order to somewhat randomly generate scores for sports games), in this case xkoranate 0.3.2, will generate scores on a daily basis. In order to improve the odds that the scorinator will be kind to you and your team, you are encouraged to leave an in-character (IC) post, at any time, detailing the events that are surrounding your team, your team's fans, your team's coach... your team's... well... anything, really! This post, known as an RP, will be evaluated for quality by the hosts and plugged into the scorinator.
Even a single RP just once during the group stage will dramatically improve your chances of beating a team that never RPs. Quality is more important than quantity.
Need RP ideas? Think about this example. Let's say you've created a roster for your team, and you've decided that a striker named David Hernandez is the best player on the squad. You can go with the most "conventional" type of RP, and write about David's performances for the team from the perspective of a newspaper match report. That's fine. But you can also take different approaches to David's Baptism of Fire experience; you could write about his experience on the field first-person, or you could write from the perspective of a fan hurling abuse at him, or you could write about an opposing player sizing him up before the game, or you could do a statistical analysis of his performances... you could even write about his personal history, long before he ever came to ASMV or K&P for the BoF!
The sky is pretty much the limit when it comes to the Baptism of Fire. In fact, the only limit is this: don't violate any RP permissions from other teams. What are those, you ask?
My opponent, if they RP first, may do the following:
Choose my goalscorers Y/N
Godmod scoring events Y/N
RP injuries to my players Y/N
Godmod injuries to my players Y/N
Hand out yellow cards to my players Y/N
Hand out red cards to my players Y/N
Godmod other events Y/N
Copy and paste this box into your roster, when and if you post one. Bold, italicize, or otherwise indicate your responses to all these questions, so that your opponents know how far they can go when they're talking about your team.
Both rosters and RPs can go here in this thread, as will scores, when the hosts "cut off" RPs for the evening. (These cutoff times will be around 03:00 UTC or 10 PM US Central Daylight Time for ASMV's groups, and around an hour or two later for K&P's groups.)
What does not belong here in this thread, you ask? In short, anything that's not IC. Do not post questions for the hosts here. Do not post tangential comments here. Do not make observations of the scores here. All of that stuff should go here, in the Baptism of Fire 43 Discussion Thread. If you make enough out-of-character (OOC) posts in this thread to sufficiently annoy either of the hosts, you risk having your RP bonus reset, scuppering your chances of winning your next match.
'Tagging,' or posting things like 'cannot RP now, will RP here later' will be considered OOC remarks. In addition to being totally unnecessary (as in sports RPing the order in which teams make posts does not matter), they are exceptionally confusing for both hosts and fellow players to try and keep track of.
That's all I can think of at the moment. I or ASMV will add more if there's any information we've forgotten. Good luck to all!
