RPing Questions? Ask Here!

[The Plutonian Empire]

Whats the word on coming up with and/or using "NPC" nations in Nation Maintenance stories, like for plot purposes/worldbuilding?

Or could real world nations be used as "NPC" in Nation Maintenance as well?

[Kylarnatia]

Whats the word on coming up with and/or using "NPC" nations in Nation Maintenance stories, like for plot purposes/worldbuilding?

Or could real world nations be used as "NPC" in Nation Maintenance as well?

Both are things you can do if you want to, especially if it's just you solo writing for worldbuilding purposes. My region for example has a couple of NPCs we all share.

Obviously whether others recognise it as canon when interacting with you is another thing, and will probably depend on what goes down between you and the NPCs.

[A m e n r i a]

So, I've been thinking, my nation uses traditional Chinese so our ethnic Koreans and Japanese don't feel marginalized (since Hanja and Kanji are almost exactly the same as Hanzi). However, I experience first-hand how easy, and thus popular, simplified Chinese is compared to traditional Chinese (it's still rather difficult though lol), and that even Koreans prefer simplified Chinese. What do you guys think?

[Sunset]

Whats the word on coming up with and/or using "NPC" nations in Nation Maintenance stories, like for plot purposes/worldbuilding?

Or could real world nations be used as "NPC" in Nation Maintenance as well?

'Do It.'

I use NPC nations all the time and I encourage others to do the same as well as share them around. In my experience, writing 'against' an NPC nation and/or characters takes some of the competition out of roleplaying and puts in a healthy dose of cooperation. I do stick to the following rules though, and highly suggest others do as well.

First; NPC nations are not allies, no matter how 'developed' or 'not developed' they are. Creating dozens of 'friendly' NPC nations and then 'turning' them on an unfriendly player-nation is just as much puppet-wanking as is creating a dozen nations and then piling those into an RP war thread - or a trade thread, or a... If you are going to introduce an NPC nation and then have it 'won' in a contest of some kind it should then be integrated fully into 'your' nation with all the positives and negatives that brings. If you conquer a bunch of violent, warlike savages who would love nothing better than to gut your civilization like a trout as soon as they are on the inside... Well, either roleplay that or bomb them back to the stone age. Having them sitting there as something to throw at a potential enemy while they do nothing is kinda-very lame.

Second; Share. As I said above, it can often be far more fun for everyone involved to fight against or even fight for an NPC nation rather than against each other. People - players - tend to get invested in their nation and also tend to have a 'head canon' that marks their place in the universe as distinctly different from where you put them. Since their head canon is - by the rules - the 'right one for them', it can often be better to set that particular problem to the side by eliminating player-vs-player competition in favor of player-vs-NPC. There's a reason why most tabletop RPGs preach against player-vs-player conflict - it tends to lead to divisiveness and poor OOC behavior.

Third; Share. Share your work with others so that they can benefit from it and then hopefully they too will create and you can benefit as well. When we all build and write and create together, we all reap the benefits.

Fourth; Take the Opportunity to Try Something Different. NPC nations and threats can give us - again, share - the opportunity to try something different without making that full commitment of launching a new nation with a new factbook, artwork, maintenance thread, roleplaying threads, discord account, etc, etc, etc. This is especially true in the case of the Big Baddie. Have you ever wanted to play Tyranids? The Flood? Zerg? In my experience these kinds of 'nations' make far better NPCs than they do nations, since they are typically low-to-one dimensional and don't offer a lot of opportunities for character-on-character interaction. Which doesn't mean I don't occasionally have this tickling desire to put on the Bad Guy suit and stomp around. So create that threat as a threat to your nation - you might be surprised how many player-nations are beating down your door with offers of help and assistance.

[The Plutonian Empire]

Ja good to know, thank y'all! I'll definitely be writing this down. Pun intended. ;*

[Neureich am Fischbach]

So, I've been thinking, my nation uses traditional Chinese so our ethnic Koreans and Japanese don't feel marginalized (since Hanja and Kanji are almost exactly the same as Hanzi). However, I experience first-hand how easy, and thus popular, simplified Chinese is compared to traditional Chinese (it's still rather difficult though lol), and that even Koreans prefer simplified Chinese. What do you guys think?

I understand that you don't want to marginalize the minorities, so you probably don't want to forcefully suppress their language either. Still there are a lot of policy options. For example; your nation could support minority languages and encourage lingual pluralism. In this case, there would be laws mandating or encouraging the use of multiple languages where it is practical. Although, if you want to support the slow merging of cultures you would want one universal script, even if it other scripts are still used. If there are Korean and Japanese irredentists, you might want to encourage the Korean and Japanese citizens to learn their languages in your national script, in order to put a divide between them and Japanese and Koreans of other nations.

[A m e n r i a]

So, I've been thinking, my nation uses traditional Chinese so our ethnic Koreans and Japanese don't feel marginalized (since Hanja and Kanji are almost exactly the same as Hanzi). However, I experience first-hand how easy, and thus popular, simplified Chinese is compared to traditional Chinese (it's still rather difficult though lol), and that even Koreans prefer simplified Chinese. What do you guys think?

I understand that you don't want to marginalize the minorities, so you probably don't want to forcefully suppress their language either. Still there are a lot of policy options. For example; your nation could support minority languages and encourage lingual pluralism. In this case, there would be laws mandating or encouraging the use of multiple languages where it is practical. Although, if you want to support the slow merging of cultures you would want one universal script, even if it other scripts are still used. If there are Korean and Japanese irredentists, you might want to encourage the Korean and Japanese citizens to learn their languages in your national script, in order to put a divide between them and Japanese and Koreans of other nations.

Well all of Korea in my universe is part of Amenria, so the last option you mentioned would be teaching Korean with Hanzi, which is pretty much like using Hanja. Problem is, nobody uses Hanja anymore and it would make little sense if a cyberpunk nation suddenly does so.

[Gigaverse]

-snip-

-snip-

Yeeeeeaaah there are multiple reasons why what you both are discussing isn't simply going to work according to suggestions you've put out.

First, just a heads-up, and this is more of an aesthetic reason than anything, but you'll notice that in default fonts of certain sites, simplified Chinese will be displayed in a rather "foggy" fashion compared to more universal traditional characters; i.e. rule of thumb, if they're characters shared at least between Chinese and Japanese, high chances are they'd display nice(r) on computers.

(I have no clue what the people working on Unicode have been doing with simplified Chinese.)

So, I've been thinking, my nation uses traditional Chinese so our ethnic Koreans and Japanese don't feel marginalized (since Hanja and Kanji are almost exactly the same as Hanzi).

Reapplying traditional Chinese isn't a method to address the marginalization of those ethnic groups, which requires other conciliatory solutions corresponding to socio-economic problems, and concerns regarding political equality and participation.

even Koreans prefer simplified Chinese

This is likely a misconception that the Wikipedia article on simplified Chinese has not clarified: simplified Chinese, in reality, is a change specifically associated with modern Chinese/Sinitic languages - Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, the likes. These languages all belong to the same language family, with the same grammatical traits, and all evolved directly from Classical Chinese, thus using the writing system of that language. However, in our increasingly complicated modern world, life was simplified (and thus, literacy was improved) for the average citizen of mainland China through the formalization of simplifications first promulgated, and then heavily associated with, the regime of the PRC, with said simplifications at least partially based on the greatly simplified phonetics of modern dialects. Formal adoptions of this simplification afterwards have been by Sinitic-speaking communities, to increase the ease of learning and writing their respective languages/dialects.

Meanwhile, Hanja has almost disappeared from your everyday Hong Gil-dong's consciousness, retaining only a decorative and prestige-academic role. When they do appear, they overwhelmingly remain the traditional character variants specifically employed in Korea - that is to say, there are certain, very subtle nuances that differentiated even traditional Hanja from the standards of traditional Chinese, Kyūjitai (traditional Kanji) or Hán tự (obsolete Vietbongistani equivalent of these) (still did quite little to convince the Kim Il-sung regime to not delete more uncommon Hanja-derived homophones from North Korean vocabulary).

They're the variants still used in Korean notation to this day. Presumably, usage of simplified Chinese would be common in university environments, where programs in the humanities might offer Mandarin as an option.

Assuming that your Koreans still retain nationalist/"independentist" sentiments to a certain extent, formal adoption of simplified Chinese for use in Hanja education runs a (possibly understated) risk of alienating them, as this would be a change imported from elsewhere, and not native to Korea itself.

Any added gravity will be due to the fact that Hanja is not part of practical everyday use in the modern language, thus dividing Korean public opinion into two main camps: a "Foreign Gibberish" one, disregarding Hanja altogether as a useless foreign script, or a "Cultural Heritage" one, which contrarily appreciates it as part of national heritage. Both of which are bound to have negative reactions to importing simplifications from China, the latter much more aggressive about it. (Simplified Chinese would have marginally better luck in Japan, where the less thoroughly simplified Shinjitai Kanji system continues to coexist alongside Kanas - thus at least partially legitimizing calls for orthographic simplification).

I'm just gonna stress that language change would please no one without practical incentive provided by users of the language. Other, healthy initiatives to demonstrate appreciation for the cultures of each other would go much further in promoting social harmony among these groups.

If there are Korean and Japanese irredentists, you might want to encourage the Korean and Japanese citizens to learn their languages in your national script, in order to put a divide between them and Japanese and Koreans of other nations.

yeah well last time somebody tried writing those two languages exclusively in chinese characters it was so out of sync they just had to resort to natively-created systems for the sake of comprehension

Not saying your suggestion is bad, and I'd only dare to assume that you don't have sufficient context behind language usage in East Asia, but that approach wouldn't work too well for that specific cultural bloc.

[A m e n r i a]

Alright, so what you're saying is that the form of Chinese Amenria uses is irrelevant, and that having Koreans in the parliament and the rest of the government is enough to not make them feel bad?

[Gigaverse]

Alright, so what you're saying is that the form of Chinese Amenria uses is irrelevant, and that having Koreans in the parliament and the rest of the government is enough to not make them feel bad?

uuuuuuuuuuhhhhh

i still recommend simplified for Chinese since that's what RL mainland China has been using for the last nearly-70 years or so

about that second bit, merely "having Koreans in [...] the government" isn't going to do anything if they otherwise, from a social/cultural/economic/hell-just-anything-at-all point of view, they believe themselves to be given disadvantageous treatment; but... that's kind of the gist? i guess...?

[A m e n r i a]

Well, it seems like I've already done them justice. Thanks. Now, to change all the traditional Chinese in my factbooks...

[North Dalibencot]

My region does a lot of RP. How is this one?

The Chieftain King looks out from the top of his house on the coast. He sees a ship approach over the horizon - something his people do not have. "They are arriving Sava." he says to his young wife. "And will you go with them?" she asks. "Perhaps. My grandfather was the last of my line who set foot within the great halls of the walled city. I shall be the next." he whispers solemnly. The moon is setting over the coast and dipping into the ocean, painting the waves a silver and blue, and lighting the ship on the horizon with its white soft glow. "Let us sleep. Tomorrow - then we will talk about this change." she says. Then they return into the hut. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

I want to RP a peaceful country of lots of harmony, but everyone wants me to be in wars and whatnot. What do I do?

[Neureich am Fischbach]

My region does a lot of RP. How is this one?

The Chieftain King looks out from the top of his house on the coast. He sees a ship approach over the horizon - something his people do not have. "They are arriving Sava." he says to his young wife. "And will you go with them?" she asks. "Perhaps. My grandfather was the last of my line who set foot within the great halls of the walled city. I shall be the next." he whispers solemnly. The moon is setting over the coast and dipping into the ocean, painting the waves a silver and blue, and lighting the ship on the horizon with its white soft glow. "Let us sleep. Tomorrow - then we will talk about this change." she says. Then they return into the hut. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

I want to RP a peaceful country of lots of harmony, but everyone wants me to be in wars and whatnot. What do I do?

It is hard to do peace and lot of harmony. Plot comes from conflict, still that can be done.

Part of it is finding the right people to play with. Also, instead of wars, your nation could host festivals or social events like balls.

[North Dalibencot]

My region does a lot of RP. How is this one?

The Chieftain King looks out from the top of his house on the coast. He sees a ship approach over the horizon - something his people do not have. "They are arriving Sava." he says to his young wife. "And will you go with them?" she asks. "Perhaps. My grandfather was the last of my line who set foot within the great halls of the walled city. I shall be the next." he whispers solemnly. The moon is setting over the coast and dipping into the ocean, painting the waves a silver and blue, and lighting the ship on the horizon with its white soft glow. "Let us sleep. Tomorrow - then we will talk about this change." she says. Then they return into the hut. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

I want to RP a peaceful country of lots of harmony, but everyone wants me to be in wars and whatnot. What do I do?

It is hard to do peace and lot of harmony. Plot comes from conflict, still that can be done.

Part of it is finding the right people to play with. Also, instead of wars, your nation could host festivals or social events like balls.

Good idea. let me ask my region. I hope it works. Maybe I can host a festival and invite other nations to it.

[Valentine Z]

My region does a lot of RP. How is this one?

The Chieftain King looks out from the top of his house on the coast. He sees a ship approach over the horizon - something his people do not have. "They are arriving Sava." he says to his young wife. "And will you go with them?" she asks. "Perhaps. My grandfather was the last of my line who set foot within the great halls of the walled city. I shall be the next." he whispers solemnly. The moon is setting over the coast and dipping into the ocean, painting the waves a silver and blue, and lighting the ship on the horizon with its white soft glow. "Let us sleep. Tomorrow - then we will talk about this change." she says. Then they return into the hut. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

I want to RP a peaceful country of lots of harmony, but everyone wants me to be in wars and whatnot. What do I do?

It is hard to do peace and lot of harmony. Plot comes from conflict, still that can be done.

Part of it is finding the right people to play with. Also, instead of wars, your nation could host festivals or social events like balls.

I second that. Plot usually comes from conflicts and fights, but if you want to, you can always open up social events. Just be mindful that you need to set the rule on stone on who can come, and what kind of things they can bring; I managed to organise one but without the rules of who can be inside... it got a little messy.

[Sunset]

My region does a lot of RP. How is this one?

The Chieftain King looks out from the top of his house on the coast. He sees a ship approach over the horizon - something his people do not have. "They are arriving Sava." he says to his young wife. "And will you go with them?" she asks. "Perhaps. My grandfather was the last of my line who set foot within the great halls of the walled city. I shall be the next." he whispers solemnly. The moon is setting over the coast and dipping into the ocean, painting the waves a silver and blue, and lighting the ship on the horizon with its white soft glow. "Let us sleep. Tomorrow - then we will talk about this change." she says. Then they return into the hut. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

I want to RP a peaceful country of lots of harmony, but everyone wants me to be in wars and whatnot. What do I do?

There's also exploration - and there's a lot of variants on exploration. Disaster RP can be fun as well - peace akd harmony can be good at helping people or a good place to tell stories of people who need help. If you have a mind for it there's also research and development. New technologies, ideas... and yes, I love a good party.

You can also play outliers. Smaller cultures tend towards a strong monoculture but there are still those who find themselves outside the norm. But even these could be an opportunity to put your culture on display - the mercenaries who carry candy in their pockets and make dead sure that they are only killing the bad guys at the possible expense of their own lives.

[North Dalibencot]

My region does a lot of RP. How is this one?

The Chieftain King looks out from the top of his house on the coast. He sees a ship approach over the horizon - something his people do not have. "They are arriving Sava." he says to his young wife. "And will you go with them?" she asks. "Perhaps. My grandfather was the last of my line who set foot within the great halls of the walled city. I shall be the next." he whispers solemnly. The moon is setting over the coast and dipping into the ocean, painting the waves a silver and blue, and lighting the ship on the horizon with its white soft glow. "Let us sleep. Tomorrow - then we will talk about this change." she says. Then they return into the hut. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

I want to RP a peaceful country of lots of harmony, but everyone wants me to be in wars and whatnot. What do I do?

There's also exploration - and there's a lot of variants on exploration. Disaster RP can be fun as well - peace akd harmony can be good at helping people or a good place to tell stories of people who need help. If you have a mind for it there's also research and development. New technologies, ideas... and yes, I love a good party.

You can also play outliers. Smaller cultures tend towards a strong monoculture but there are still those who find themselves outside the norm. But even these could be an opportunity to put your culture on display - the mercenaries who carry candy in their pockets and make dead sure that they are only killing the bad guys at the possible expense of their own lives.

I like the exploration idea. North Dalibencot is a big country with only six thousand people canonically living in it. Do you think a set of RP posts set up as a dairy would work well as an RP set up?

[Sunset]

I like the exploration idea. North Dalibencot is a big country with only six thousand people canonically living in it. Do you think a set of RP posts set up as a dairy would work well as an RP set up?

You know, there's only one way to know! I would suggest looking for potential points of 'conflict' to build a story around; two hands are in love (or at least in lust) with the farmer's daughter. Or are they? Is one in love and the other out to try for an inheritance? Cows - or whatever - keep disappearing. Is this the work of wolves? And why hasn't the ranch hand who was supposed to fix the fence been seen in days? Or you could get more... Exotic. One day Farmer Steve is out in the South Forty and puts his leg down a gopher hole, breaking it in three places and barely crawling back to the house. His sons, bent on revenge, return to the fields with weapons in hand but instead of a gopher hole they find the caved-in ceiling of an ancient burial mound.

But the only way to know? Start writing. If you love it and even if no one else joins it is still worth your time. Always love what you're doing.

[A m e n r i a]

Rn I'm writing a draft for a narrative rp about a robbery 17 years ago. Should I start telling the story from the planning phase or would that be too boring?

[Sunset]

Rn I'm writing a draft for a narrative rp about a robbery 17 years ago. Should I start telling the story from the planning phase or would that be too boring?

Depends. I've repeatedly enjoyed the method employed by the 'Ocean's' series of films where we see everything laid out until we get to the crime itself and then arrive at the twist - where the real objective of all that planning ajd execution is revealed. To do something like that right - to make it a caper - you'd need to make sure everything was planned in detail and then 'write in' the twist by leaving out the detail that all the planning was done as a dummy event, for instance. Or you could mix things up by not having a twist at all, but that could dip too much into arrogance.

There's always the flashback - tell the beginning of the story from nearly the end. Are you planning this to be a RP or a stand-alone story?

[A m e n r i a]

Rn I'm writing a draft for a narrative rp about a robbery 17 years ago. Should I start telling the story from the planning phase or would that be too boring?

Depends. I've repeatedly enjoyed the method employed by the 'Ocean's' series of films where we see everything laid out until we get to the crime itself and then arrive at the twist - where the real objective of all that planning ajd execution is revealed. To do something like that right - to make it a caper - you'd need to make sure everything was planned in detail and then 'write in' the twist by leaving out the detail that all the planning was done as a dummy event, for instance. Or you could mix things up by not having a twist at all, but that could dip too much into arrogance.

There's always the flashback - tell the beginning of the story from nearly the end. Are you planning this to be a RP or a stand-alone story?

What's the difference between the two?

[Shwe Tu Colony]

What's the difference between the two?

I'm guessing roleplay implies it'd be open to others whereas stand-alone will be more of a solo-written story.

[Neureich am Fischbach]

Rn I'm writing a draft for a narrative rp about a robbery 17 years ago. Should I start telling the story from the planning phase or would that be too boring?

Depends. I've repeatedly enjoyed the method employed by the 'Ocean's' series of films where we see everything laid out until we get to the crime itself and then arrive at the twist - where the real objective of all that planning ajd execution is revealed. To do something like that right - to make it a caper - you'd need to make sure everything was planned in detail and then 'write in' the twist by leaving out the detail that all the planning was done as a dummy event, for instance. Or you could mix things up by not having a twist at all, but that could dip too much into arrogance.

I think a big problem with that approach, is that you are taking inspiration from a movie and applying it to a written format. The planning stages in heist movies use a lot of visual and audio techniques.

Rn I'm writing a draft for a narrative rp about a robbery 17 years ago. Should I start telling the story from the planning phase or would that be too boring?

It depends on how well you write it. The important thing is, if you reveal a plan to the reader, it can't go as planned.

"When there is a plan, things cannot go according to it. If they do, the plan becomes a spoiler."
— How Not To Write A Novel

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnspokenPlanGuarantee

I believe it is possible that someone could write a very interesting book about the planning of a heist, but that would require a Tom Clancy like ability to describe technical things, without slowing the pace of the action. It is also hard, IMHO, to do in NS's format.

For NS, you want to keep it shorter, but at the same time add depth. That is hard.

[A m e n r i a]

Well, it's gonna be closed. There'll be a twist in the robbery itself, and the motive behind it. Aight then, going with the plan.

[Yohannes]

Are you planning this to be a RP or a stand-alone story?

I have the same question as Shwe Tu Colony - what is "RP", and what is "stand-alone story"?