RPing Questions? Ask Here!

[Maltropia]

I have a question how do you like talk in character like how are you supposed to write.

You write as though you were writing a story. I assume your style of writing is not identical to your style of conversation and that people will be able to tell the difference. If you're posting in a thread that is both OOC and IC (which isn't usually a great idea, as far as threads go, but more that another time), and you're worried about keeping the two distinct, state beforehand what you're writing in, like as follows:

OOC: Not sure if it's tomorrow yet in the RP or not, so I'll just move it along, if that's okay with you guys?

IC: John looked frantically around through bleary eyes, breathing quickly. Had he lost them? Or was the silence of the cold night as much his enemy as those he had fled? Suddenly, he heard a sound behind him - and so on.

Other methods are just to put the OOC in parentheses; the method I use for that looks like this:

[OOC: Yo, guys, why am I writing "OOC" in an OOC thread?]

Though really, as long as people can see the distinction, any way works.

[SquareDisc City]

Agreed. I'd write it in prose, for example:

"Why did you even do that?" Alice asked.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Bob said.

I've not often seen people writing script-style, like this:

Alice: By what twisted logic did that seem like a good idea?
Bob: Alright, keep your hair on. How was I to know it would snap off?

though I see no reason it couldn't be used.

[Telros]

To add onto what SquareDisc and Maltropia have said, it's a matter of style, as mentioned before, but I've found that go back and go over dialogue done between people across all kinds of situations, from your real life to the shows and such we watch. Get a knack for the ebb and flow, and just follow it in your writing. You do need to have certain things said during a conversation, otherwise why would you be showing it in the post, but otherwise it's all what these characters would say and act like as people.

Also, description is a biggie. It helps to have something like

"I told you, I'm fine," Amy exhaled, glaring at her friend from under her auburn bangs.'

rather than

"I told you, I'm fine," Amy said.

Just remember that conversation has a flow, not a stilted exchange of initiation, response, and then counter-response and so on.

[Pirate isle]

Hello everyone!

I was going to post a thread here when a thought crossed my mind, how does one start a incident? i had an idea of my nation attempting to get rid of "unpleasent elements" when a stray missle hit's a neighboring country and the incident spirals from there

Diplomacy-warnings-opening days-erh me gud-and so on

I have no idea how to start this and any help would be apreciated


Thank you from the goverment of pirate isle

[Stahn]

You are a pirate state, are you not? How about opening a topic in International Incidents named "Pirate isle declares piracy legal"?

Make your opening post look like a press release. State that your government sells letters of marque for 100.000 Dubloons a piece or something, in an attempt to gather more income and how many aspiring pirates all over Terra have gathered to your nation to make use of this offer.

Provided it is well written with some nice, relevant pictures added, you might get other people interested in joining your RP.

[Pirate isle]

You are a pirate state, are you not? How about opening a topic in International Incidents named "Pirate isle declares piracy legal"?

Make your opening post look like a press release. State that your government sells letters of marque for 100.000 Dubloons a piece or something, in an attempt to gather more income and how many aspiring pirates all over Terra have gathered to your nation to make use of this offer.

Provided it is well written with some nice, relevant pictures added, you might get other people interested in joining your RP.

Thanks for the quick response! prepare for the most awful rp ever made!

[Milograd]

You are a pirate state, are you not? How about opening a topic in International Incidents named "Pirate isle declares piracy legal"?

Make your opening post look like a press release. State that your government sells letters of marque for 100.000 Dubloons a piece or something, in an attempt to gather more income and how many aspiring pirates all over Terra have gathered to your nation to make use of this offer.

Provided it is well written with some nice, relevant pictures added, you might get other people interested in joining your RP.

Thanks for the quick response! prepare for the most awful rp ever made!

Don't sell yourself short, because your thread only has as much potential as you have confidence in it.

[Arana]

Kinda new, so I'm not sure if this is the place to post this.

I had some ideas for an international incident for my country, anybody who might want to do one (preferably somebody with a small and or right-wing country, but really anyone is fine) can send me a telegram to try and get one started.

[Romberg]

Why not just post the IC? If it's good enough, people would join.

Or start with an OOC thread for interest joinings.

After all, the worst you can get is ignored.

[Adderana Lythia]

...

[Jenrak]

...

Hmm? Is there a method to this madness? Please remember that spamming is a warnable offence - if you've got a question or concern, please let us know so we can do what we can to help!

[Arkolon]

Kinda new, so I'm not sure if this is the place to post this.

I had some ideas for an international incident for my country, anybody who might want to do one (preferably somebody with a small and or right-wing country, but really anyone is fine) can send me a telegram to try and get one started.

Right-wing minarchist country here with 8.8 million inhabitants. I'd gladly RP with you.

[Kylarnatia]

Kinda new, so I'm not sure if this is the place to post this.

I had some ideas for an international incident for my country, anybody who might want to do one (preferably somebody with a small and or right-wing country, but really anyone is fine) can send me a telegram to try and get one started.

Right-wing minarchist country here with 8.8 million inhabitants. I'd gladly RP with you.

Although it's great that you guys are going to go off and roleplay, Do you mind keeping that conversation to telegram? This thread is mainly for questions regarding roleplaying.

Thanks. :)

[Arkolon]

Right-wing minarchist country here with 8.8 million inhabitants. I'd gladly RP with you.

Although it's great that you guys are going to go off and roleplay, Do you mind keeping that conversation to telegram? This thread is mainly for questions regarding roleplaying.

Thanks.

Yeah, sorry, my mistake.

I do have a question, though. My alt uses a flag tailored to it from a flag maker. A different user has decided to take this flag and use it for himself. English isn't his first language, and as such communication and negotiation were hard to establish. Nevertheless, we began a war thread where the winner of the war would get to keep the flag. He did initially agree to this idea, but refuses to post out of fear of losing. What do I do? I hope this falls into the RPing question category-- it is RP-related and it is a question.

[Kylarnatia]

Although it's great that you guys are going to go off and roleplay, Do you mind keeping that conversation to telegram? This thread is mainly for questions regarding roleplaying.

Thanks. :)

Yeah, sorry, my mistake.

I do have a question, though. My alt uses a flag tailored to it from a flag maker. A different user has decided to take this flag and use it for himself. English isn't his first language, and as such communication and negotiation were hard to establish. Nevertheless, we began a war thread where the winner of the war would get to keep the flag. He did initially agree to this idea, but refuses to post out of fear of losing. What do I do? I hope this falls into the RPing question category-- it is RP-related and it is a question.

1) How are you sure the flag maker in question took the flag of this other user?

2) More importantly, this is more of an OOC matter, so IC roleplays should never have come into it. Though, what I will suggest is that the two of you find a more positive answer to the situation - perhaps you could create some IC history which explains why you both share the same flag? Or, perhaps just part ways? The NS world is massive. There are many other nations for you both to interact with, and so many that it's impossible for everyone to have an individual flag anyway. Just think about how all the players that use the US flag feel. :P

[Untaroicht]

Hey, I wanted some advice on something I was planning for my PMT nation.

One of the core principles of my nation for it's entire lifespan here on NS has been it's unique "Cloning Caste System". This was how the country operated on a caste-based system, but every member of a caste was genetically engineered to do their job better (so workers would have tougher skin to help them in industrial accidents, soldiers were taller and more muscular, merchants had literal forked tongues to help them persuade and haggle, etc.)

Over time, this idea has become incredibly hard to write Ideas for and incorporate in my RP's. So I was planning that from this point on, I would do a MASSIVE RETCON about my nation, stating that the castes were never made up of clones and they were purely legal, cultural, and political. I would still keep the special operations forces of my nation as Genetically engineered super-soldiers and every citizen of the nation be grown in a test tube rather then naturally born (making sex illegal), but the 99% of citizens would just be normal Homo Sapiens of either Mayan, North Korean, Somalian, Ukrainian, or Romanian ethnicity.

I wanted to hear some experienced RPer's thoughts about retconning large amounts of a nation's previously established backstory in favor of a new one, and if it could possibly work.

Thank you in advance.

[Telros]

Seeing how many times I have retconned, I think I can provide some insight here.

Retcon is a useful but ultimately very dangerous option to take. You are taking work you have spent all kinds of time working on, thinking up, and writing up and essentially nullifying it. This has a problem in that a lot of your work was helped by other people, through interactions and OOC discussion and to see it suddenly retconned can make them irritable, angry, or just less willing to roleplay with you. Also, from my personal experience, it tends to retard your progression on NS nation-wise and deny access to some storylines due to having a limited history due to retcons. Though, this only really becomes a problem if you retcon over and over again.

However, everyone understands if you write yourself into a corner and can't figure out a way around it except through retcon. These do happen and its not the end of the world when it does. Make sure the retcon is only on things you need to remove and that it is done in a clean, efficient way. If you have to retcon at all, that is. The better way is to simply write events that cause change and brings about the circumstances you wish to show. You have a genetically established caste system? Have some reforms go through or even a conflict by those who think it is wrong on a philosophical, moral or religious level to have such control or try to overthrow the caste system, but only manage to remove the genetic elements. Or, simply have the technology destroyed, so the system becomes unsustainable, and the powers that be shift to a new paradigm to maintain their power in the caste system.

More of a pain and requiring more patience and writing to see through? Yes. But it determines your history and can generate stories for people to get involved in.

So, to summarize, retcons can be useful, but in a limited fashion at best and only as a last resort. It is ultimately better to simply create storylines that change your nation on the lines you wish to pursue, if they change as they have for you. And there are many around willing to help you write them or at least give you advice on it, so don't feel overwhelmed. Just take it one step at a time.

[Xiscapia]

Seeing how many times I have retconned, I think I can provide some insight here.

Retcon is a useful but ultimately very dangerous option to take. You are taking work you have spent all kinds of time working on, thinking up, and writing up and essentially nullifying it. This has a problem in that a lot of your work was helped by other people, through interactions and OOC discussion and to see it suddenly retconned can make them irritable, angry, or just less willing to roleplay with you. Also, from my personal experience, it tends to retard your progression on NS nation-wise and deny access to some storylines due to having a limited history due to retcons. Though, this only really becomes a problem if you retcon over and over again.

However, everyone understands if you write yourself into a corner and can't figure out a way around it except through retcon. These do happen and its not the end of the world when it does. Make sure the retcon is only on things you need to remove and that it is done in a clean, efficient way. If you have to retcon at all, that is. The better way is to simply write events that cause change and brings about the circumstances you wish to show. You have a genetically established caste system? Have some reforms go through or even a conflict by those who think it is wrong on a philosophical, moral or religious level to have such control or try to overthrow the caste system, but only manage to remove the genetic elements. Or, simply have the technology destroyed, so the system becomes unsustainable, and the powers that be shift to a new paradigm to maintain their power in the caste system.

More of a pain and requiring more patience and writing to see through? Yes. But it determines your history and can generate stories for people to get involved in.

So, to summarize, retcons can be useful, but in a limited fashion at best and only as a last resort. It is ultimately better to simply create storylines that change your nation on the lines you wish to pursue, if they change as they have for you. And there are many around willing to help you write them or at least give you advice on it, so don't feel overwhelmed. Just take it one step at a time.

This is a beautiful post.

[Delmonte]

Seeing how many times I have retconned, I think I can provide some insight here.

Retcon is a useful but ultimately very dangerous option to take. You are taking work you have spent all kinds of time working on, thinking up, and writing up and essentially nullifying it. This has a problem in that a lot of your work was helped by other people, through interactions and OOC discussion and to see it suddenly retconned can make them irritable, angry, or just less willing to roleplay with you. Also, from my personal experience, it tends to retard your progression on NS nation-wise and deny access to some storylines due to having a limited history due to retcons. Though, this only really becomes a problem if you retcon over and over again.

However, everyone understands if you write yourself into a corner and can't figure out a way around it except through retcon. These do happen and its not the end of the world when it does. Make sure the retcon is only on things you need to remove and that it is done in a clean, efficient way. If you have to retcon at all, that is. The better way is to simply write events that cause change and brings about the circumstances you wish to show. You have a genetically established caste system? Have some reforms go through or even a conflict by those who think it is wrong on a philosophical, moral or religious level to have such control or try to overthrow the caste system, but only manage to remove the genetic elements. Or, simply have the technology destroyed, so the system becomes unsustainable, and the powers that be shift to a new paradigm to maintain their power in the caste system.

More of a pain and requiring more patience and writing to see through? Yes. But it determines your history and can generate stories for people to get involved in.

So, to summarize, retcons can be useful, but in a limited fashion at best and only as a last resort. It is ultimately better to simply create storylines that change your nation on the lines you wish to pursue, if they change as they have for you. And there are many around willing to help you write them or at least give you advice on it, so don't feel overwhelmed. Just take it one step at a time.

First of all, I'll say that I met with Untaroicht on IRC before you posted and together we arrived at a solution for him. Second, retcon shouldn't be a dirty word. It doesn't necessarily mean complete erasure and, in fact, can mean adding things in (i.e. making up a war in your nation's past). In Untaroicht's case we more or less decided that he would say "All those things that happened, did happen, except everyone was more or less just genetically human." and go on from there. Retconning isn't a bad thing, it's just a tool used to refine your writing.

[Virana]

Reading through his post, it sounds like Telros was referring to arguably the most common form of retcon that affects multiple people: the nullification of previously written RPs, in which case what he said of retcon still rings true.

[Delmonte]

Reading through his post, it sounds like Telros was referring to arguably the most common form of retcon that affects multiple people: the nullification of previously written RPs, in which case what he said of retcon still rings true.

Oh... I mean, but that's not what was being discussed, clearly. The fella with a vulture in his flag wanted to alter some details of his history while keeping the history itself. And retroactive connectivity simply doesn't mean the annihilation of everything. It means changing things. And I would argue that that is the most common type because people frequently go back and make up things that happened in their nation's past. That's retroactive connectivity. If we're talking about Cherry Pie and someone says "Apple Pie sucks." they might be right, but... we're still talking about Cherry Pie. That's probably why I was confused. No big deal, though.

Hugs and Kisses,
Delmonte

[Nereid Islands]

Hello.
I'm very new here (just signed up a day ago!) and I don't think I understand very well the notion of Nations roleplaying.
Do you roleplay by using a personification, an allegory of the nation? Or use its leader? Sorry if it's a stupid question.

[Kylarnatia]

Hello.
I'm very new here (just signed up a day ago!) and I don't think I understand very well the notion of Nations roleplaying.
Do you roleplay by using a personification, an allegory of the nation? Or use its leader? Sorry if it's a stupid question.

You can roleplay on NationStates in a variety of ways: As a government, as a single character, as an organisation...there are a multitude of options open to you. So, for instance, when I'm invited to a diplomatic summit, I roleplay as an ambassador who will have his/her own individual opinion as well as those of the state they're trying to represent. When I roleplay my nation figuring out how to respond to a certain diplomatic crisis, I have my Caesar discussing the situation with her top advisor's and generals.

Does that make sense?

[Nereid Islands]

Hello.
I'm very new here (just signed up a day ago!) and I don't think I understand very well the notion of Nations roleplaying.
Do you roleplay by using a personification, an allegory of the nation? Or use its leader? Sorry if it's a stupid question.

You can roleplay on NationStates in a variety of ways: As a government, as a single character, as an organisation...there are a multitude of options open to you. So, for instance, when I'm invited to a diplomatic summit, I roleplay as an ambassador who will have his/her own individual opinion as well as those of the state they're trying to represent. When I roleplay my nation figuring out how to respond to a certain diplomatic crisis, I have my Caesar discussing the situation with her top advisor's and generals.

Does that make sense?

Oh, yes! Thank you!
That sounds complicated, hah.

[Lamoni]

It's not all that complicated, though it does typically help to have good writing skills in the English language.

Some points that might further help you (or anyone in the same position):

* Use proper spelling/grammar

* Write in paragraph form

* Always try to have a clear idea of what is going on in the thread, and what you want to do in your response

* Don't be afraid to ask questions!

* Try to get along with people, and get to know them over time. Building up an RP network can help you integrate into the community at large.