RPing Questions? Ask Here!

[Andromeris]

I would like to request other active members here to kindly check that war thread and give their judgments regarding the whole thread as well as that particular posts I have marked in my previous post.

[The Way Sun Cooperation]

On the first point I ain't a moderator but I don't think that falls under moderations purview unless they start flaming or breaching an NS rule. But that's not my call and if you are going to bring it to moderations attention I'd recommend using the correct channels by creating a thread in Moderation Forum Area (linked here https://forum.nationstates.net/viewforum.php?f=16).

As for what actually is going on in terms of the RP it certainly isn't good practice for an RP to just disregard an enemy's attack but these sorts of disagreements happen and I'd highly recommend a dedicated OOC thread for your conflicts because this is the third one I've spotted suffering from similar issues of people arguing over outcomes in the IC thread. I think though your not entirely in right and neither is the other guys in the RP seems like a series of accusations of godmoding on both sides which is no good way RP. You guys all seem very committed and active which is great to see but maybe pumping the break a bit and chatting OOC about the actions in a dedicated space would help (perhaps with the OP acting as a mediator) alongside an ORBAT for your forces.

[Slavstonia]

We have a judge, lankeshmati, who as shieldistan has over 4 years of combat experience, but she just refuses to listen to lanka, and instead blames her to be partial.

[Andromeris]

On the first point I ain't a moderator but I don't think that falls under moderations purview unless they start flaming or breaching an NS rule. But that's not my call and if you are going to bring it to moderations attention I'd recommend using the correct channels by creating a thread in Moderation Forum Area (linked here https://forum.nationstates.net/viewforum.php?f=16).

As for what actually is going on in terms of the RP it certainly isn't good practice for an RP to just disregard an enemy's attack but these sorts of disagreements happen and I'd highly recommend a dedicated OOC thread for your conflicts because this is the third one I've spotted suffering from similar issues of people arguing over outcomes in the IC thread. I think though your not entirely in right and neither is the other guys in the RP seems like a series of accusations of godmoding on both sides which is no good way RP. You guys all seem very committed and active which is great to see but maybe pumping the break a bit and chatting OOC about the actions in a dedicated space would help (perhaps with the OP acting as a mediator) alongside an ORBAT for your forces.

Thank you sir for your comment. I will try my best to improve myself according to your guidance.

[The Way Sun Cooperation]

We have a judge, lankeshmati, who as shieldistan has over 4 years of combat experience, but she just refuses to listen to lanka, and instead blames her to be partial.

That's excellent you already have someone for advice as for Andromeris not listening to them that is an issue I'd recommend the three of you perhaps talking in the OOC thread or through TGs to work out maybe why Andromeris sees Lanka as failing to be impartial and then work from there to help clear it up so its an enjoyable RP experience for everyone involved.

Thank you sir for your comment. I will try my best to improve myself according to your guidance.

I'm glad to be of some help.

[Slavstonia]

I know i'm asking for too much, but can you please go through the thread, and rank the players according to their RP, as she's calling everything and everyone (including her AI lol) as partial.

[The Way Sun Cooperation]

Just for you guys you already know a lot about god moding but this guide post can be really handy to fall back upon and provides a useful lenses to look at posts. (https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12342#p435202)

I know i'm asking for too much, but can you please go through the thread, and rank the players according to their RP, as she's calling everything and everyone (including her AI lol) as partial.

I don't think I'd be a great judge at rating peoples RPs.

[Andromeris]

Sir I have a request.
Can you please identify some of my and Slavstonia's posts which are instances of godmoding
This will help both of us to identify our faults.

[Rhodevus]

Sir I have a request.
Can you please identify some of my and Slavstonia's posts which are instances of godmoding
This will help both of us to identify our faults.

I would recommend taking this to TG or the OOC thread, as it is all a series of questions particular to the playstyle of this one roleplay. Someone who is focused fully on your RP would be best, and that would also allow you to ask further questions of them in regards to specifics. It could also be helpful to have someone -as you mentioned previously- be a 3rd party judge of some kind to help. You mentioned that there was someone with 4 years experience tasked to be an impartial judge, which is good. Like Sun Cooperation said, if you have issued with the impartiality of the judge, then it would be best for all of you players to speak with them directly about why they are making the decisions they are. More information is always helpful to have when learning to roleplay, and everyone could use some extra learning time from someone more experienced.

As for identifying posts that are godmodding, please bare in mind that I am only looking through the IC thread and I don't know what was discussed in the IC thread or by telegrams. Remember that roleplaying is meant to be collaborative, so working together to tell a story leads to a much better story. Regardless of if someone 'wins' the war.

Now, to a quick brush up of what Godmodding is:

Stolen almost entirely from the thread that Sun Cooperation posted, godmodding is 1) saying what happens to other people's stuff, 2) refusing to take losses when there should be, and/or 3) giving yourself extreme advantages that impact what others can or cannot do (to an unreasonable degree).

Here are some examples and notes on them:
Note that any bolding is mine for reference.

Severe damage has been caused to Andromerisian infrastructure like railway, water supply etc and others mentioned by Slavstonia and Druben. But they forgot about Andromerisian IT sector. After constantly trying for long hours in complete secrecy and repeated failures for a large number of times finally the highly talented software engineers of Andromeris have successfully hacked both of Slavstonian and Drubenian defense networks and inserted dangerous malwares and trojans in them. Now all of their missiles and bombers are expected to hit their own nations and defence systems instead of Andromeris as Their network is simply now under Andromerisian control. Since Andromeris uses QKD Network so it's very difficult to hack.

As can be seen in this post, and was mentioned in the following posts in the thread, a person can give an action, but posting what occurred from it, is god modding. Similarly, easily hacking other nation's gear and then immediately following up by saying that their own gear is very difficult to hack speaks to the third above godmodding principle.

Now, to correct this sort of action, it would be better to say something akin to Andromeris is an expert in tech (giving yourself an advantage), and have proceeded to try and hack Slavstonia and Druben's gear (giving your opponents your target). The hack attempt is trying to break into the countries' defense networks to insert dangerous malware and trojan horses (the cause you are hoping for). In an ideal world, the hack would go so well that they would redirect bombers and missiles to fire on their own nations (best result you want).

In this way, you state your country's advantage and what you hope to happen from your attack, giving your opponent an opening to advance the roleplay in a way they like. And losing a big attack is a fun way of creating tension! So, whether it is the full result or a partial one, that is up to the opponent.

You had this discussion in the thread, which pointed out the issues with this post very well.

The Andromerisian hacking attempt, managed to create mild blackouts, but other than that no further damage has been reported, The military is completely safe, as their network is completely separate from the civillan network. Thanks to The quantum key distribution tech, used by our armed forces.

To teach the enemy a lesson, Slavstonia launches multiple Avangard and satan missiles, to target high value targets, like power plants, command nodes, data stations and enemy servers.

(besides, your water and food has been wiped off, and you still claim to fight, LMAO)

Slavstonia followed up this brief OOC interlude with their own post, which I believe is a beautiful reply to what preceded. They gave reasonable results to an attack, and explained why it wasn't fully accomplished to the degree that the above post mentioned. Sure, quantum key distribution is very advanced and can be considered an extreme advantage, but I will let this slide in this instance, because there was an effect by the attack.

Now, if the hacking attempt gave no result, and only explained what they wanted to occur, then I'd find this post closer to the godmodding side then not, because of how light a reaction that took place. However, there was a result and an explanation and a reply that didn't answer by saying what you did to the other nation.

EXCEPT: that last line there. I don't know if it was something that happened earlier in the roleplay or on another htread, but saying that all their food and water has been wiped out is very much godmodding and telling what other people lost. Also, the shear amount of impossibility it is to destroy an entire country's full supply of food and water, is an extreme advantage and next to impossible to do. Supply lines do matter, but it appears like both are attacking nation-to-nation rather than invasion, and so getting rid of an entire country's internal food and water supply (ie all farmland and lakes and rivers) is next to impossible. Destroying a silo or poisoning a pond? possible. Disrupting food distribution? very likely. wiping out all food and water? ain't happening.

s.

The Slavstonian army has entered a long distance within our territory but they forgot that they themselves have destroyed our water and food resources in that part of our nation. Besides during this particular time of the year due to season change every year a special kind of deadly germ spreads all over Andromeris and the Andromerisians are well immuned with that as a resident of Andromeris.

only quoting a bit here to talk about all of it.

You mentioned that a previous action resulted in harm to what the attacker could do. That's good. As mentioned above, supply lines are important, and it's impossible to destroy all the food production of an entire country. You said that it was the food and water in a part of the country. That's good and feasible (to a degree. We can discuss more, but look up WW1 battlefields if needed).

Now, I want to discuss a much bigger thing. Germs.

Germs, be they bacteria, fungus, parasite, or virus, especially deadly ones that can spread over an entire country, do not stop at borders. There is always a reason why these germs are trapped in one area. That can be temperature, means of spread, or population herd immunity. If they are not locked by these things, then they easily spread as far as possible. See: the Black Death in europe, which killed entire percentages of the global population, or even the recent global pandemic in COVID-19. Those didn't stop at borders and can have disastrous effects on global populations.

If your nations are modern, and on the same planet, then the likelihood of a disease being stuck to one region of the world and not spreading is likely not going to happen (it's possible depending on the reason for the region lock above, but not likely). So, your germ that your population is immune to? Like it was said in a following post, that germ probably already spread to a different population and granted them immunity after a time.

Now, there was ways that this could work, such as yellow fever which is locked to only the hottest areas. A canadian attacking into colombia probably is not immune to the heat viruses that are there. However, medicine and vaccinations exist too.

Overall, I would count the usage of a special deadly germs to destroy an enemy to be godmodding. Of course, there are ways to roleplay this properly, but that deserves an even longer post that encapsulates more than what I said already. I'm also by no means an expert in germ theory, so take this all with a dose of salt as well.

So, all in all, there was a healthy amount of godmodding through this campaign, but it the roleplay finished with an ending! that's better than 99.9% of roleplays! Congrats to everyone! It also appears that you discussed godmodding within the thread itself for pretty much all these posts already, which is good that you can see what is godmodding to a degree. the hard part is not doing it.

Ways to improve:

1. More descriptive posts about reasons and causes always help other readers to know the what and the how and the why. Longer and more discriptive posts also have the added benefit of giving other players more things to work from to improve their own posts in the future.

2. Saying what you hope will happen, rather than what happens, is a great way to give your goals without godmodding. It allows other players to look at your post and decide if you achieved your full goals, or only a partial goal. Again more description is always better. It's a question and answer in a way. The attacker is asking if their goal is correct, and the defender is replying if they get full marks (the hopeful result happens) or partial marks (the hopeful result only kinda happens)

3. Talk, talk talk. Having an OOC chat is always the best. Talking to one another by telegram or an OOC thread is the best way to hash out actions and results. It's also a good place to discuss godmodding without cluttering up your IC thread with OOC chatting. And talking is important so nobody feels attacked or betrayed by any actions.

I hope any of this has helped!

[Slavstonia]

Wow, that's a really long post, i'm really thankful that you verified our claims, answered, and gave us suggestion. There's a point i would like to clarify, that point from me was a satirical exaggeration, as i had struck her dams and graineries, that post of mine was more like a joke. but anyways, i'm actually grateful for being our judge!!

[Andromeris]

Sir I have a request.
Can you please identify some of my and Slavstonia's posts which are instances of godmoding
This will help both of us to identify our faults.

I would recommend taking this to TG or the OOC thread, as it is all a series of questions particular to the playstyle of this one roleplay. Someone who is focused fully on your RP would be best, and that would also allow you to ask further questions of them in regards to specifics. It could also be helpful to have someone -as you mentioned previously- be a 3rd party judge of some kind to help. You mentioned that there was someone with 4 years experience tasked to be an impartial judge, which is good. Like Sun Cooperation said, if you have issued with the impartiality of the judge, then it would be best for all of you players to speak with them directly about why they are making the decisions they are. More information is always helpful to have when learning to roleplay, and everyone could use some extra learning time from someone more experienced.

As for identifying posts that are godmodding, please bare in mind that I am only looking through the IC thread and I don't know what was discussed in the IC thread or by telegrams. Remember that roleplaying is meant to be collaborative, so working together to tell a story leads to a much better story. Regardless of if someone 'wins' the war.

Now, to a quick brush up of what Godmodding is:

Stolen almost entirely from the thread that Sun Cooperation posted, godmodding is 1) saying what happens to other people's stuff, 2) refusing to take losses when there should be, and/or 3) giving yourself extreme advantages that impact what others can or cannot do (to an unreasonable degree).

Here are some examples and notes on them:
Note that any bolding is mine for reference.

Severe damage has been caused to Andromerisian infrastructure like railway, water supply etc and others mentioned by Slavstonia and Druben. But they forgot about Andromerisian IT sector. After constantly trying for long hours in complete secrecy and repeated failures for a large number of times finally the highly talented software engineers of Andromeris have successfully hacked both of Slavstonian and Drubenian defense networks and inserted dangerous malwares and trojans in them. Now all of their missiles and bombers are expected to hit their own nations and defence systems instead of Andromeris as Their network is simply now under Andromerisian control. Since Andromeris uses QKD Network so it's very difficult to hack.

As can be seen in this post, and was mentioned in the following posts in the thread, a person can give an action, but posting what occurred from it, is god modding. Similarly, easily hacking other nation's gear and then immediately following up by saying that their own gear is very difficult to hack speaks to the third above godmodding principle.

Now, to correct this sort of action, it would be better to say something akin to Andromeris is an expert in tech (giving yourself an advantage), and have proceeded to try and hack Slavstonia and Druben's gear (giving your opponents your target). The hack attempt is trying to break into the countries' defense networks to insert dangerous malware and trojan horses (the cause you are hoping for). In an ideal world, the hack would go so well that they would redirect bombers and missiles to fire on their own nations (best result you want).

In this way, you state your country's advantage and what you hope to happen from your attack, giving your opponent an opening to advance the roleplay in a way they like. And losing a big attack is a fun way of creating tension! So, whether it is the full result or a partial one, that is up to the opponent.

You had this discussion in the thread, which pointed out the issues with this post very well.

The Andromerisian hacking attempt, managed to create mild blackouts, but other than that no further damage has been reported, The military is completely safe, as their network is completely separate from the civillan network. Thanks to The quantum key distribution tech, used by our armed forces.

To teach the enemy a lesson, Slavstonia launches multiple Avangard and satan missiles, to target high value targets, like power plants, command nodes, data stations and enemy servers.

(besides, your water and food has been wiped off, and you still claim to fight, LMAO)

Slavstonia followed up this brief OOC interlude with their own post, which I believe is a beautiful reply to what preceded. They gave reasonable results to an attack, and explained why it wasn't fully accomplished to the degree that the above post mentioned. Sure, quantum key distribution is very advanced and can be considered an extreme advantage, but I will let this slide in this instance, because there was an effect by the attack.

Now, if the hacking attempt gave no result, and only explained what they wanted to occur, then I'd find this post closer to the godmodding side then not, because of how light a reaction that took place. However, there was a result and an explanation and a reply that didn't answer by saying what you did to the other nation.

EXCEPT: that last line there. I don't know if it was something that happened earlier in the roleplay or on another htread, but saying that all their food and water has been wiped out is very much godmodding and telling what other people lost. Also, the shear amount of impossibility it is to destroy an entire country's full supply of food and water, is an extreme advantage and next to impossible to do. Supply lines do matter, but it appears like both are attacking nation-to-nation rather than invasion, and so getting rid of an entire country's internal food and water supply (ie all farmland and lakes and rivers) is next to impossible. Destroying a silo or poisoning a pond? possible. Disrupting food distribution? very likely. wiping out all food and water? ain't happening.

s.

The Slavstonian army has entered a long distance within our territory but they forgot that they themselves have destroyed our water and food resources in that part of our nation. Besides during this particular time of the year due to season change every year a special kind of deadly germ spreads all over Andromeris and the Andromerisians are well immuned with that as a resident of Andromeris.

only quoting a bit here to talk about all of it.

You mentioned that a previous action resulted in harm to what the attacker could do. That's good. As mentioned above, supply lines are important, and it's impossible to destroy all the food production of an entire country. You said that it was the food and water in a part of the country. That's good and feasible (to a degree. We can discuss more, but look up WW1 battlefields if needed).

Now, I want to discuss a much bigger thing. Germs.

Germs, be they bacteria, fungus, parasite, or virus, especially deadly ones that can spread over an entire country, do not stop at borders. There is always a reason why these germs are trapped in one area. That can be temperature, means of spread, or population herd immunity. If they are not locked by these things, then they easily spread as far as possible. See: the Black Death in europe, which killed entire percentages of the global population, or even the recent global pandemic in COVID-19. Those didn't stop at borders and can have disastrous effects on global populations.

If your nations are modern, and on the same planet, then the likelihood of a disease being stuck to one region of the world and not spreading is likely not going to happen (it's possible depending on the reason for the region lock above, but not likely). So, your germ that your population is immune to? Like it was said in a following post, that germ probably already spread to a different population and granted them immunity after a time.

Now, there was ways that this could work, such as yellow fever which is locked to only the hottest areas. A canadian attacking into colombia probably is not immune to the heat viruses that are there. However, medicine and vaccinations exist too.

Overall, I would count the usage of a special deadly germs to destroy an enemy to be godmodding. Of course, there are ways to roleplay this properly, but that deserves an even longer post that encapsulates more than what I said already. I'm also by no means an expert in germ theory, so take this all with a dose of salt as well.

So, all in all, there was a healthy amount of godmodding through this campaign, but it the roleplay finished with an ending! that's better than 99.9% of roleplays! Congrats to everyone! It also appears that you discussed godmodding within the thread itself for pretty much all these posts already, which is good that you can see what is godmodding to a degree. the hard part is not doing it.

Ways to improve:

1. More descriptive posts about reasons and causes always help other readers to know the what and the how and the why. Longer and more discriptive posts also have the added benefit of giving other players more things to work from to improve their own posts in the future.

2. Saying what you hope will happen, rather than what happens, is a great way to give your goals without godmodding. It allows other players to look at your post and decide if you achieved your full goals, or only a partial goal. Again more description is always better. It's a question and answer in a way. The attacker is asking if their goal is correct, and the defender is replying if they get full marks (the hopeful result happens) or partial marks (the hopeful result only kinda happens)

3. Talk, talk talk. Having an OOC chat is always the best. Talking to one another by telegram or an OOC thread is the best way to hash out actions and results. It's also a good place to discuss godmodding without cluttering up your IC thread with OOC chatting. And talking is important so nobody feels attacked or betrayed by any actions.

I hope any of this has helped!

Thank you so much for your detailed explanation. I will definitely follow up your guidance in future RPs. Thanks again for spending your precious time for us.

[Peshqeta]

Any tips for conducting war for a player without much experience?

I don't care if I win or lose, I just want a fun war.

[Problevik]

How does war work

[Rhodevus]

Any tips for conducting war for a player without much experience?

I don't care if I win or lose, I just want a fun war.

How does war work

How does war work

Any tips for conducting war for a player without much experience?

I don't care if I win or lose, I just want a fun war.

So, you wanna fight a war, kid. Then pick up that 12-gauge and head on up over the trenches! War is complex, technical, dramatic, and analytical, filled with statistics on weapons, armour, troop numbers, machine quality, ammunition levels, and that's just the tip of the iceberg! There is also supply lines for food and weapons, alliances, fraud, espionage, weapons of mass destruction, and even more numbers and statistics to keep track of that just make me want to hide in my foxhole and cry.

So I'm not going to do any of that! If you want a more technical look at war, please look here, here, here, here, and especially here.

Instead, I'm going to talk about the broad strokes of war RPing. Let's split this mini tutorial into 3 parts:

Who’s that?! That’s the POV!
Point of View is a pretty good place to start when war RPing or creating a war RP. All roleplays, be they war or otherwise first depend on what the point of view is of the RPers. The normal POVs that people refer to are first person (me/I), second person (you), or third person (he/she/they). But, for roleplaying there are different scales of view. I give a bit of an explanation here.

In essence, are your roleplaying as individual characters within the war, a single unit? A battalion? An entire army? The entire nation?
Knowing what your point of view is can help you determine how this sort of war RP is going to go about. Sometimes, an RP can take place over a single battle or a single front of a war. Sometimes it can involve multiple years of a nation or army through a war.
It is also very helpful in knowing how much or how little to roleplay. A character POV war RP will be a lot more in depth and emotional (ie. specific) than one where you are roleplaying an entire country’s contributions to a war.

Usually the opening poster (OP) will be pretty clear what they want. Follow that, and if you aren’t sure, ask!

Location! Location! Location!
The setting of a war, is the location of the RP. As tangentially mentioned in the above mini-section, war RPs can take place on a broad scale from a single battle encounter, through to an entire campaign across multiple fronts. It’s good to keep the location of a roleplay in mind when the war RP is going on. If the RP is the invasion of a country, then the location is that country (unless otherwise specified). It’s poor sportsmanship to suddenly invade another third country in someone else’s invasion RP.

Keep the location in mind and it can tell you a lot.

For instance, I have RPed in war roleplays that focus on a single hotel building. That hotel was the sum total of the battlefront for that story, and so the actions that I could take were a lot smaller than ones I could take were the RP focusing on the entire country or even the city the war was in.

Am I Your Enemy? Or Am I Your Co-Writer?
This last mini-section is less about war roleplaying, and more about roleplaying in general. An RP is something that everyone on the forums does for fun. Nobody wins grand prizes, or loses their house over failing the RP. Roleplaying is supposed to be fun for everyone involved. Yes, it can be competitive. Yes, there can sometimes be issues between players, but the entire point is to come out of an RP having had a good time, a good experience, a desire to RP more, and maybe even a friend or two.

Regardless of if your roleplaying a competition (where the story has a winner or loser), or something more friendly (where the winner or loser is decided in advance and you are writing the idea together, like a story), please behave, follow the forum rules and guidelines, and ask questions if you aren’t sure.

Some big no-no’s on the forum are:

• Godmodding: One-upmanship. If player A says they bomb a city, player B saying, “no you didn’t. I’m actually bombing you, and destroyed your entire city” is godmodding. Don’t control the actions of other people’s things. And results should make sense. There are plenty of other posts on this thread that touch more on godmodding.
• Starting fights: disagreements happen and are normal. But, picking fights with players is not okay. This is a war roleplay. Not a fight against the roleplayer. Ask questions. Talk with one another. You are all friends, not enemies. Even if your nations in the war RP are on opposing sides.
• Diverting the Story: The OP has a story in mind. Sometimes that idea is as simple as “Player A invades Player B”. But, it is your job as a player, to work within that idea. It’s no fun for anyone if Player C decides that they want to invade Player A, and that Player B being invaded no longer matters.

I hope any of this helps as a broad overview of some important topics to roleplaying. War roleplaying and every other Roleplaying is all about telling a story that is fun for you and fun for everyone else involved. If you are more specific questions about war RPings, please let me know, or ask this thread!
My tendency is towards character RPing, even if I have RPed every level of RP and most settings as well. So, there are plenty brilliant RPers on this forum who may know the specifics that you are looking for, that I don’t have as much expertise in.

[Eratsky]

what are the rues for rp? it says i can't spam but i dont understand the limit, and please tell me other rules

[Tiami]

what are the rues for rp? it says i can't spam but i dont understand the limit, and please tell me other rules

If we're being technical, the only rules RP has to follow are what is laid out in the One Stop Rules Shop; however, there are numerous community guidelines laid out that most RPers are expected to follow.

NationStates roleplay is largely collaborative writing designed to write a story amongst several players, though you can certainly write for just yourself and with predetermined outcomes. Some basic guidelines are to ensure you are not controlling other user's actions (godmodding), are willing to compromise and accept losses (not necessarily deaths like in war, but actions that don't benefit you), and are open to ideas from other users you may or may not be writing with.

You're writing a story. Be acceptable to changes, listen to other users, but most importantly, always have fun. If you feel you are being forced to do something you may not want to do, discuss it. Find alternatives. The goal is to have fun - to create a piece of writing you can be proud of.

[Kiret-Falnai]

So I'm guessing this is a cliché question to ask, but I'd figure it's better than having more doubts and plunging straight into a potential (embarrassing) mistake. So here goes. I've been on NationStates since 2019, most of those time spent writing and doing low effort lore and posts on F7. Now though, I've gotten more and more interested in roleplaying and I've certainly given more effort in the things I do now.

With the backstory out of the way, the question is: what are some of the things I should consider as a first-timer in these lands when I look for RPs to participate in? I've never gotten into any roleplays so I don't have any credibility, nor do I (or anyone) know the extent (notwithstanding future potential learning experiences) of my capabilities. So far I've only participated in C/CLT threads (PruCH.net (is it C/CLT?) and the F7 Crispy Critter), and it's not like that's a good metric for these things. So again, what should I consider? Are there any recommendations?

[The Way Sun Cooperation]

snip

Hey there welcome to I&I, to help answer your question I'll just mention RP broadly fall into three camps when it comes to joining them.
Open RPs as the name suggests are open to all, I'd just say read what's gone on and then write up a post with your nations involvement in the developing events and that's about it. It doesn't require any past RP experince.
Semi-closed RPs are RPs which usually require an application via a OOC (out of character) thread or an invite from the OP. Its then up to the OP to give you the thumbs up to get involved.
Closed RPs are RPs which are invite only or limited to people within a region to get involved.

When picking a place to start it can be very difficult to find some footing but the community is a helpful one for the most part. I'd recommend looking for a Open RP to get involved and learn some of the tools of the craft or possibly an RP region. Then again if you want to go in-depth into some story's you have in mind you can always create a thread and just start RPing leaving it open to hop fully get some other people involved.

[Al Sahel]

What if my military is big… but that is part of my underlying lore, before I’ve begun RP? Is that godmodding if I tally losses for my military adequately?

[Rhodevus]

What if my military is big… but that is part of my underlying lore, before I’ve begun RP? Is that godmodding if I tally losses for my military adequately?

Having a large military as a part of your lore is not godmodding. Countries all have different sized militaries, and their breakdown (ie. army, navy, air force, special forces, etc) is all equally as unique across nations in real life as it is on this website. So, having big military in your lore is no issue at all.

What you do need to be aware of, is that there is trade offs with everything military RP wise. Just like in real life, a small terrorist attack won't be cause of your entire military to bare down on the single building that was attacked. At the same time, handling an invasion of your own nation will be cause for a much larger military force. So, just be aware that whatever RP you participate in, you should use what you believe to be a proper amount of force.

Also, it can be helpful to keep in mind, that when an army is in one place, it can't be in another. For example, if you send half your entire military to one fight, then that leaves only half your military defending your own country, stationed in any military bases around the world, on leave, in training, etc.

As for tallying losses in a roleplay, if you do so properly. then it's no issue at all. Remember, godmodding is about being unfair to other roleplayers in the end.