As roleplayers, we’re taught that the in-character (IC) world should never cross with our out of character (OOC) world, and thus the world we build and the stories we roleplay should be divorced from the emotions and preferences we have outside of it. Roleplay, in other words, should be value-free.
Invariably, the IC and OOC do however tend to mix. Our IC position tends to influence who we roleplay with and therefore who we develop OOC relationships with, and often this influence tends to spread over to smaller, newer nations and the players behind them. This gives especially influential nations — superpowers —, and the players behind them, an incredible opportunity to do good…or to do bad.
This essay is based on several years of introspection, a process that is still ongoing — after all, I still have much to improve on, like anybody else —, on how I have used whatever influence I have to help develop other players in the game. They aren’t always values I play by, but they are definitely values I always aspire to and, through my experience, I’ve come to believe that they are good standards of what an ethical use of IC superpower influence looks like.
Why Should a Superpower Care About Being Ethical?
Because IC superpowers tend to carry a lot of OOC influence, they can have an important impact on the development of the game’s culture and in the growth of other players. One of the most dramatic examples of the influence a set of well-known, highly influential players can have — players who also have heavy IC clout, and therefore whose OOC behavior conditions the behavior of others (who have to “compete” ICly by, for example, shedding OOC standards [if the player has to use technology they don’t personally enjoy using just for the sake of IC survival]) — was the situation in International Incidents in-and-around 2011 and 2012. The misuse of game-side populations and the disrespect shown to the necessary institutions of roleplay played a tremendous role in fracturing the forum-side roleplay community on International Incidents, promoting inward-looking behaviors and strict-rule communities (such as ‘realistic populations’ and ‘strictly modern tech’).
Because an IC superpower externalizes costs and benefits, that player must be cognizant of their role in the community — it’s a role they play whether they like it or not. And with that role comes a great responsibility, which is to help foster a smoothly operating inclusive roleplaying community. The opposite is to be destructive of said community, ruining the experience for others and working to undermine the functionality of this aspect of the game, which is unethical, not least because of the great cost that is not borne by the unethical player, but by the community as a whole.
Furthermore, IC superpowers can have a tremendous influence on individual players and their trajectories. Oftentimes, IC superpowers take on the role of mentor — if not in the official capacity, then in the practical one — and other players will take on the same behavior, ideas, and attitudes. How one influences others can determine outcomes well into the future, as these players teach others. Again, it may not be something an IC superpower signs up for (although they did sign up to be the center of attention, which carries with it responsibilities), but it’s a power they have whether they acknowledge it or not. And it’s a power that must be used wisely, for the good of other players and the good of the game.
The Five Tenets of the OOC Ethics of Being an IC Superpower
I. Respect for the Necessary Institutions of Roleplay: There are informal institutions, rules of the game, that make cooperative roleplaying much more enjoyable for all parties. For example, it is generally accepted that each player has complete ownership of the immediate canon related to their nation. It is also widely accepted that only the owner of a canon can determine losses and consequences of conflict, politics, or otherwise within the context of their canon. These rules exist to protect players from bad experiences so that we can foster a healthy, growing roleplaying community. As experienced players, IC superpowers should recognize the need for these institutions and should respect them — not necessarily evangelize them, but communicate their importance through rightful action in their own RPs and interactions with others.
II. Transparency: When you are dealing with an inexperienced player who is susceptible to the imbalance of influence and power between you, transparency is paramount. Because of the inequality, the inexperienced player has a big incentive to trust you, or otherwise put weight on your words and opinions, the right thing to do is to avoid the temptation of manipulating the inexperienced player, and instead guide that player through what it means to worldbuild and how the decisions we make throughout the game impact that world. Transparency stems from the respect for the necessary institutions, because if the inexperienced player is in full ownership of their canon, then an experienced player should know enough to understand the need to explain the implications of the other player’s decisions. By explaining the role of consequences in shaping a story and a world, you are teaching the inexperienced player how to be a better roleplayer.
Most experienced roleplayers tend to be okay with situations where they are surprised and the consequences are unclear. This is an acceptable form of roleplay, but in situations where it is successful it is because there is an informal understanding — institutions — about the constraints to how liberal each player can be in determining outcomes, meaning experienced players tend to know the boundaries of competitive roleplaying better. An ethical superpower must know when an inexperienced player is not operating with this understanding or is not comfortable enough with the game to know the difference.
III. Flexibility: Experienced players, even superpowers, make mistakes. Imagine how many mistakes an inexperienced player makes. It is wrong, in a game where the stakes are low enough to be lenient, to hold people against decisions they regret and absolutely refuse to accept. If the player faces a consequence that they did not foresee, then you failed to be transparent during the cooperative process of the roleplay. This isn’t something to be ashamed of, it’s an experience that helps to develop us as NationStates RP influencers. It is right to allow players to make mistakes and let them backtrack because ultimately that experience and that practice in thinking about the consequences will help to develop them into better RPers.
IV. Selflessness: This is perhaps the most idealistic tenet of the OOC ethics of being an IC superpower. There’s a very fine balance between mutual gain and taking advantage, one that is hard to see even for the most well-intentioned. If an IC superpower is to use their influence for good, then surely the best way to discipline one self is to always think of what’s bthe est for the inexperienced player. Of course, what’s best for the inexperienced player is not always what’s the most favorable IC outcome relative to the IC goals of the characters and institutions of the world, but rather what’s best relative to OOC goals (developing and writing a good story, having a good time, et cetera).
V. Sportsmanship & Humility
— Arsène Wenger
“Uneducated people delight in argumentation and fault-finding because it is easy enough to find fault, though hard to see the good and its inner necessity. The learner always begins by finding fault, but the educated person sees the positive in everything.”
— Georg Hegel
In building a world and writing a story cooperatively, humility is a key ingredient of success. The ability to judge different paths, to consider different options, and explore new ideas all rests on intellectual humility. Diversity in a world makes it full of tension, making it interesting and ripe for storytelling, but diversity is only possible in a community where people are open to it. Promoting variety and differences in IC philosophies, religions, ethnicities, and other elements of our canon, is ultimately good for the game, and therefore a value an ethical IC superpower — someone with influence — ought to communicate.
Diversity in NS roleplay extends beyond the canon and applies just as much to how the story you are writing (with the players who you are influencing) evolves. A good roleplayer, a good story writer, should be able to include outcomes that are both good and bad relative to the characters and institutions of their canon. It’s not about being willing to lose, it’s about making loss part of the story — not a loss, but a twist, a challenge, and an opportunity to explore a new facet of your world.
To better integrate chance, mistakes, and miraculous successes, I’ve been experimenting with making certain outcomes in the story based on dice rolls. I have been keeping it very simple. I use only a ten-sided die and I ascribe outcomes to different ranges of numbers. For example, I am in a roleplay where I am RPing a military advisory group in Baarjistan, and my convoy escorting the ambassador to Baarjistan has been stopped at a surprise checkpoint after being diverted. First, I ask my RP partner if there are one or more IEDs — notice that I did not force him to disclose that information before we got to that point, I asked him when it was relevant because I knew that an IED would make the story more interesting —, and he says yes. He says there's a 30% chance of hitting one of my first vehicle hitting an IED (only the first vehicle because the other ones might be able to react). If you give 3 numbers on your 10-sided die to the chance of hitting an IED, that's 30% probability. I ask my partner 'high' or 'low.' Low means success is rated between 1-3 (all numbers above are misses) and high means success is rated between 7-10 (all numbers below are misses). He calls high, I roll, it lands on 8. Boom. We roll again on a lower probability for the second vehicle, since it has warning. Miss. I roll again for the third, hit.
Dice rolling introduces an element of randomness that is hard to reproduce without an actual instrument of chance. Humans are built on patterns and they're hard to break, so I used a tool at my disposal (a dice rolling chatbot) to introduce randomness. It's not for everyone, and there are definitely many roads to the same end.
You don't need dice, in any case, to show sportsmanship or humility.
On Being the Solution
...is the statement that I heard in 2004–05, 2008–09, and 2015–17. Every generation says the same thing. My experience in the game, from 2003 to the present day, has been completely the opposite.
I've reflected on the growth of my RP community, especially over the past three or four years, that all it takes is a leader (someone with awareness and a willingness to take action) to light the fire beneath players who all have talent when you frame the game for them in the right way, the way that appeals to them. Through both success and failure, I've found that the most efficient and more predictable method of doing that is by following, or aspiring to, the five above tenets. My approach has always been around promoting these five tenets by applying them in my RPs. I am an evangelist as well, but that is not where any success I've had has come from.
As a result, the circle of players I RP with and the number of RPs available to me for participation are much greater today than they have ever been.
The reason I bring it up is that the health of the network around us is determined by the effort we're putting into it. If we are active roleplayers who show humility, sportsmanship, selflessness, flexibility, transparency, and respect, then we are roleplayers that are communicating the right values through the most powerful means available to us: action. And if we are actively trying to improve our communities through ethical action, then we are promoting an environment of diversity and tension that gives other players the incentive and rationale to roleplay with each other. As long as we're doing that, then we have a good chance of maintaining strong communities that last.