A Basic Guide to Roleplay Alliances

[-St George]

Part of problem with multilateral treaty organizations is that they will always have a few members that sign up and then go inactive, leaving the organization with considerable dead weight. I hate (truly hate) it when somebody joins an aliance and then doies not participate. Nobody wants to work with a "wet noodle" player who does not comprehend the meaning of commitment or signs up just to have a list of people to call on when they get into an unfavorable position. I for one would not vote somebody into any alliance I am a member of if the person's reason for joining is to use the alliance as muscle with which to fight off somebody who he or she is about to upset.

Indeed, but you bring up two points here, the first being what some call alliance whores, that is, people who join alliances and are then inactive. Several alliances I was in (and one which I started) unfortunately attracted such people. Some of the better alliances I've seen use a 'active, inactive, absent with reason' type thing, whereby if you couldn't be active, then you told them so. If you didn't tell them they after x period of time you'd be ejected or whatever.

The second point you raise is that of players who join alliances for the sole intention of gaining that alliance's protection from x nation. I'm sure there's a name for that somewhere or other.

Another issue is having charter provisions and bylaws which do not get used. If a charter requires that members hold a vote on a proposal, and said vote requires a valid quorum consisting of a majority of its members, then at least a bare majority of it members better be active in order to participate.

This is a big problem in some alliances. Indeed, in an alliance in which I wrote the Charter of, people, especially those in power, not following the Charter contributed to my eventual leaving of said alliance, and the alliance disbanding

-snip CASTLE-

CASTLE has some other problems as well tbqh, such as confusion between some members over what exactly CASTLE is doing/supposed to be doing.

1. Bookkeeping
Keep track of your members and purge the membership roster of nations that cease to exist at regular intervals. Appoint a member who isconsistently active over time to do this.

This, although you need, in my opinion, a very specific set of circumstances to eject still existing nations also.

2. Organizational simplicity
Do not make the alliance's administration too complicated to function. If the alliance has only a few members, keep administrative institutions to a minimum.

Very, Very Important. You shouldn't be looking to give every nation and his dog an office.

3. Activity
Institutions governing an alliance should be active. If they are not, find out why and make changes when needed.

Also very important. Without active and effective leadership stuff won't happen for your alliance.

4. IC activity
Try to RP alliance summits and meetings or at least have some formal alliance meetings of some sort and IC coordination. Even if members have an OOC meeting and simply cobble together a storyline and then have one member write it out and post it, there should be some semblance of the alliance's in character relevance.

Indeed. Some alliance's become little more than social clubs and don't really rp together.

5. Membership qualifications
Simply filling out a form is not enough, and the same can be said for cursory vetting. It is generally unwise to admit members who have not played NS for at least three months because there are many people who probably create a nation, play NS for a week, and see an alliance thread and think, I see a big bad treaty organization I can join to become more powerul and take over more of the world... A large fraction of noobs who make their membership more troublesome than it is worth cease to exist after some time and quit NS to move on to something that has fewer rules.

This goes further than that. Large alliances that try to be an NSUN, and accept anyone, whilst also proclaiming to be liberal/freedom loving/whatever, and then have to intervene when alliance member no. 34 gets invaded for committing genocide or whatever. These alliance really don't have a point at all.

I can come up with additional rules but these should serve as a start.

A very good start.

[Ilum-East Jolthig]

This is big help on how to orginize my newly established FT alliance.

[Yohannes]

Bump guide.

[Syrakhstan]

Thank you so much for this Milo

[Radiatia]

Wow, this is really good. I wish I'd seen this a long time ago. I have made almost every one of those mistakes at some point during the time I've been on NS....

[Nordengrund]

To: Milograd
From: Nordengrund

I have read your post in this thread and I have a question. In your post you said you cannot believe it when noobs get recruited for alliance. Would it be okay if an alliance was formed by an experienced player and the alliance's goal was to help noobs become better NS players?

[Milograd]

To: Milograd
From: Nordengrund

I have read your post in this thread and I have a question. In your post you said you cannot believe it when noobs get recruited for alliance. Would it be okay if an alliance was formed by an experienced player and the alliance's goal was to help noobs become better NS players?

It should be noted that a large portion of the OP needs to be rewritten, tbh, because I know a lot more now than I did when I wrote it. As for your question: alliances are in-character roleplaying elements, so you really shouldn't be mixing IC and OOC to such an extent. Having "improving noobs" as an IC goal would be nonsensical. That's not to say that you shouldn't or can't make an organization which is open to assisting newbies, but that should be a OOC aspect of the alliance instead of an IC one.