by New Azura » Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:23 pm
by The Master M » Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:25 pm
by Of The Arch ilands » Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:27 pm
Xiscapia wrote:In Soviet Archland, OH SHIT FRANK IS BEHIND YOU!
18:47 Urarailgun In heaven the cooks are Archian, the engineers are Urarailian, the lovers are Delemontian, and the police are Britannian. In hell the cooks are Britannian, the engineers are Delemontian, the lovers are Archian, and the police are Urarailian
by Ceannairceach » Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:29 pm
by Greywatch » Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:57 pm
by New Azura » Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:59 pm
by New Azura » Tue Jun 29, 2010 3:05 pm
Jenrak wrote:Mature Thread. OOC is here.Aaron was a strong man, but he wasn’t strong enough to fight off two well-armed guards, and when they brandished batons to keep him locked down, he didn’t have a chance in hell to fight them off. “No!” He would scream and yelp and spit, his arms flailing and his legs kicking as they hauled him into the ambulance. The sirens were wailing always, and at the same times and places he’d always try and get to the same location.
The central city hall. He would always want to talk to our ‘leader’, but his records were never amicable. Never good. A wispy-haired man without a smile on his face, Aaron was a man who moved in only next door to me. A quiet, demure and generally cautious man, he preferred the companies of the hyssops that hung at his windowsill than the words of my wife and I. We tried to talk to him three times, but he had given us hints that he didn’t want our company: sudden shutting of his curtains, the blocking of our phone numbers and an unwillingness to answer the phone when we knocked.
The rapping soon became irrelevant, and over time he began to become increasingly erratic. At times, we would hear odd noises come from his open basement window, and other times, the sounds of soft plays on the violin would sprinkle the forests behind our homes with haunting echoes.
He was a strange man, and over the days since we met him, he grew increasingly gaunt and pale, withering to a former of his own shapely and intimidating self. He wasn’t a lonesome and fearsome man now, but rather a gangly creature of a human being. He was silent and cold and vicious, and there were no noises from his basements. No sounds of the violin stringing from his rooms. No melodies to haunt our homes.
It was a weird absence.
Then, on Christmas Eve, he went missing. Nobody really knew where he went, and I never saw him out of the house, but police officers stopped at our door and checked on us. Nothing big, no real large questions. Just curiosities.
And well, now, they say he was found maddened and crazed in a forest, clawing at his skull. We couldn’t but feel, my wife and I, that Aaron was some sort of genius.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
They say he was taken to Gabriel Correctional. That place is not a good place for anyone. For the patient, for the doctor, for the faculty – no one. That place is wrong, and when I saw Aaron go into that ambulance, I could have sworn his influence rubbing off on me. His craziness like spores, prickling my eyes.
I could see it. His eyes. They were, weird. I don’t know. That was the last time I saw Aaron.
But the melody was not ending there. I heard it again, because they came. It was innocuous at first – it looked like a massive cumulonimbus cloud, roaring and towering over everything else as its fluffs and puffs were bubbling up into a massive shape to cast a deep shadow over the entire area.
When they came, the rush of oceans and the trickle of seawater on the rocks turned from pretty whitecaps to raging tsunamis.
When they came, the sky boiled and the heavens bubbled in an unbelievable heat.
When they came, sicknesses were rampant more than ever before, and new strains seem to spring up to welcome their new masters.
When they came, not a single person could figure out the majesty of this great thundercloud. Certainly, it roared. Certainly, lightning danced as sheets from its tips, from ends to ends, illuminating the area in a thick crackle. A never-ending storm.
When they came, Aaron was being taken away.
And I could have sworn he finally smiled at their sight.
Charzak wrote:Today 600,000 soldiers and 1,000,000 civilians rose to the call of a rebel leader only known as The Savior. Already under his command are 200,000 rebels. The rebellion has arisen due to the fact that "....[Withheld] should span the globe as all others are inferior...". The rebels, known as the Imperialist Core, seek to take control of the U.S.C. and create a global Empire exterminating the "inferiors". The rebels have claimed most of southern [Withheld] and are pushing towards the capital of Krayt. Our security forces were caught unprepared and the military is slowly responding. The Supreme Leader today asks the international community to help put down this rebellion.
Red= Imperialist Core
Blue= Loyal Government
by Third Spanish States » Tue Jun 29, 2010 3:23 pm
planned out beforehand
Izistan wrote:Third Spanish States is a well known far-right activist so his attempts at humor can only be expected.
Umbagar wrote:%*$#! I put a crack in my screen thanks to the awesome "place fist here" sign. >:(
Lhazastan wrote:if all you want to do is run around being the big badass of a community, not only are you pathetic, but you are a bad RPer
Saxon Germany wrote:[...]you're practically a professional troll, TSS.[...]
by The Grand World Order » Tue Jun 29, 2010 3:37 pm
16,000 Alphanian soldiers head towards the Betanerkian capitol. They are equipped with AK-47 assault rifles and have 250 T-90 tanks following them.
The Betanerkians had 50,000 soldiers in the capitol, and 2,000 specops soldiers, with 600 M2 Bradleys, 100 M1A2 tanks and 30 F-35s.
The Alphanians made a charge at the city, losing 1,000 men in the first few minutes.
PFC Adam Michaels was nervous. After all, who wouldn't be? He was a mere infantryman in a force of 16,000 Alphanians who were basically being flung at the Betanerkian capitol. Like most of his comrades, he carried an AK-47; trash, compared to whatever the Betanerkians had. This war had cost far more Alphanians than Betanerkians, even if it was being fought on their land, and Michaels firmly had doubts as to whether his own military truly valued his life. The propaganda in his head seemed to be riddled with bulletholes from the Betanerkians, who in contrast seemed like a happy, peaceful people before this all happened. Hell, he didn't even know why he was here, other than he was fighting for "the glorious proletariat." Hopefully, the 250 T-90s with him would make a difference, but only time would tell.
The sound of tank treads and truck engines radiated out into the air, and the overall mood was silent and grim, aside from the uppity Commissars.
In the Betanerkian capitol of Beta, a sense of hatred was felt. It was a hate so strong it was almost visible as it spread over the now-empty streets of the once-grand capitol city. The Alphanian bombing runs from weeks ago had maimed many of the famous landmarks, leaving their skeletons open to the elements. Rubble filled some parts of the street. The soldiers here knew that this was all they had left to fight for; their families were probably dead, most of their homes destroyed. And now, they made their final stand, all 52,000 of them. They knew the Alphanians were coming, and the warriors of Betanerk had nothing but bodies full of wrath waiting for them.
Betanerk had been a peaceful nation. No one knew why the Alphanians were invading, why so many Alphanians had died before the smaller Betanerkian military. The Betanerkians, while peaceful, had been building their military solely for protecting themselves, using the best equipment they could muster. Most of the men had an M-16A4; their tanks were the feared M1A2 Abrams, 100 in all within the city. Overhead, 30 F-35s -the remnant of the Betanerkian Air Force- screeched, their pilots just as furious as the infantry. 600 M2 Bradleys, known for their fierce firepower, served as battle taxis and mobile bases for the troops.
Staff Sergeant Jacob Harris was in one of these Bradleys. He could only wait for the Alphanians; he had sworn to kill at least 30 of them for every relative he lost in the brutal invasion.
PFC Michaels heard the whistle. It meant that the enemy was in sight, and it was time to fight. The tanks rushed ahead, many of them getting blown apart by the Betanerkian firepower. He saw a mass of men charging ahead, only to get cut down in seconds by an Alphanian M249. He witnessed as his comrades were torn apart, some of their ribs twisting out of their chest, their blood pumping out into the soil. He witnessed just how effective 20mm rounds were against infantry such as himself- "soft targets" according to the Betanerkians. Then he felt something hit his chest, flooring him instantly. He didn't feel any pain from it, not yet at least. He began hearing a sucking noise before looking down and seeing that he had been shot in the chest by a Betanerkian soldier. He could only presume the sucking sound was this bullethole pulling air into his chest. He looked to his side to see an oncoming T-90; what a shame. He would die by getting run over by his own countrymen. His mind went back to home, memories of the Revolution, his mother, his father, his dog. He was an only child, conscripted into service. Now that his parents were too old, there would be nobody to carry on their legacy. He prayed, contradicting his formerly forced Atheist lifestyle, that whatever God was above would understand his situation. He stared at the incoming treads before closing his eyes, helpless as the 46.5 tonne war machine rolled over him, flattening his head and shooting the contents of his skull around the ground.
In the first few minutes of the attack, nearly 1,000 Alphanian conscripts fell.
by Toopoxia » Tue Jun 29, 2010 5:41 pm
Third Spanish States wrote:planned out beforehand
Surefire way to make a RP boring, specially when the ending is preset. At least for me. I prefer the lack of predictability, because I don't start RPs for the sake of having the outcome I'd ideally want for them ensured, but to have fun along the way. It's like the difference between playing a game after someone already told you how it ends(or how every of its branching ends are in some case) and not knowing how it ends.
by The Weegies » Wed Jun 30, 2010 5:31 am
Jenrak wrote:I'm stickying this for now, because it's quite handy.
Though II seems to be quite sticky-rampant >__> .
by Almajoya » Wed Jun 30, 2010 2:41 pm
Jenrak wrote:Though II seems to be quite sticky-rampant >__> .
by New Azura » Wed Jun 30, 2010 3:07 pm
Almajoya wrote:Jenrak wrote:Though II seems to be quite sticky-rampant >__> .
That's because everyone has an opinion and everyone wants to share it.
The OP is very good, imo, but I would leave out the point about length vs brevity. You should always write what you've got; no more, no less. That is, when you sit down and write, if you only wind up with three paragraphs of material, don't lengthen it to ten just to impress the writing gods; similarly, if you have ten paragraphs of relevant material, don't reduce it to three for fear of scaring off other players. Our muses give us what they give us; to silence or force words from them would be unnatural.
Except for one-liners. One-liners make me die a little inside.
by Freidlichen » Wed Jun 30, 2010 9:41 pm
by Questers » Thu Jul 01, 2010 2:04 am
IMO people should start out on pre-planned RPs until they're mature enough to handle competition. I'll remind people that we rped a novel sized roleplay -- probably, including the aftermath, the size of a Tom Clancy book within the space of several months back on jolt (the four day war) with no OOC disagreements. We entered the Four Day War as OOC friends and came out as friends, despite it being an absolutely competitive RP. In my view it is still one of the greatest roleplays ever to grace II. I might be exaggerating it, I'm rather nostalgic... it was pretty much the end of my NS career, in my view.Freidlichen wrote:I've got to agree with TSS -- preplanned RPs tend to be some of the most boring. On that note, I think it's a little iffy to say "NationStates is really best suited as a medium for storytelling" as an objective fact; I know Questers wrote an excellent primer on how to make a competitive RP work, though for the life of me I can't find it...
I certainly see where you're coming from, but if at all possible I think mentioning how a competitive RP can work would be worth it. After all, we don't all always RP cooperatively.
by Unibot » Thu Jul 01, 2010 7:39 pm
Questers wrote:This is a good thread. I largely approve.IMO people should start out on pre-planned RPs until they're mature enough to handle competition. I'll remind people that we rped a novel sized roleplay -- probably, including the aftermath, the size of a Tom Clancy book within the space of several months back on jolt (the four day war) with no OOC disagreements. We entered the Four Day War as OOC friends and came out as friends, despite it being an absolutely competitive RP. In my view it is still one of the greatest roleplays ever to grace II. I might be exaggerating it, I'm rather nostalgic... it was pretty much the end of my NS career, in my view.Freidlichen wrote:I've got to agree with TSS -- preplanned RPs tend to be some of the most boring. On that note, I think it's a little iffy to say "NationStates is really best suited as a medium for storytelling" as an objective fact; I know Questers wrote an excellent primer on how to make a competitive RP work, though for the life of me I can't find it...
I certainly see where you're coming from, but if at all possible I think mentioning how a competitive RP can work would be worth it. After all, we don't all always RP cooperatively.
Btw, I remember that -- I wouldn't mind reading it again. I think it was back on Jolt, so if you can find it, I'd appreciate it, as I certainly can't.
Questers wrote: Competition and Cooperation in Roleplay
....
Now, there are two ways you can go about roleplaying; either one can compete with others or one can cooperate with others but first I ought to establish what these mean and why, in my opinion, they are not necessarily linked in all circumstances, and why in some circumstances they are very much linked.
Firstly we ought to think of competition as a "my nation versus your nation in a roleplay" mindset, and cooperation as a "my nation and your nation in a roleplay" mindset. Naturally there are some roleplays where competition is impossible and therefore we are only discussing those where competition is possible; i.e., diplomacy but most importantly war. So now that we have established that we must also establish that a certain degree of cooperation is necessary.
If I were to play Risk with my friends and, upon being the first to lose (I assure you, that is fully hypothetical ), promptly wipe everyone else's pieces off the board in a fit of rage, I would not be cooperating! But Risk is a competitive game, so we can see that in any game where mutual consent is necessary there is a degree of cooperation which is mostly down to behaviour, and the fact that bad behaviour; i.e. bad cooperation, will exclude you from future games. To put it in NS context - does anyone roleplay with Hataria nowadays?
So, in NS roleplay, cooperation is intrinsically necessary. If it is totally lacking then there will be bountiful ignores. Let us then properly define cooperation as a state of roleplay where the prime concern of the individuals roleplaying is to create a cooperative work of literature, and competition the prime concern of the individuals roleplaying to gain an edge over each other. You might then think that alot of your time you devote to NS is competitive and for alot of new players this is true; I certainly viewed, and still do, NS in a competitive manner, as well as a cooperative manner. So what is the whole flesh of this post about?
Since I started RPing on NS, in the november of 2003, the mantra has always been "Roleplaying is about working together to create a good story." I would like to disprove this but simultaneously prove that a healthy mix of competition and cooperation provides equal enjoyment to simple cooperation and far more enjoyment then simple competition.
From personal experience pure competition has not failed. Yes, I am interested in my nation winning wars because I think that NS is a roleplay game and not just a roleplay, but also because I don't think that removing competition would be a good idea. Last year, I launched what is now known as the Four Day War - it in fact lasted, OOCly, three or so months and gathered about two hundred posts (and over 100,000 words in the first forty posts). It was a purely competitive RP launched because I was interested in changing the balance of power in Haven. I did not consult any of my enemies beforehand to 'plan out' this war. It turned out that I was defeated (in the short term at least), but in three months I do not remember a single OOC disagreement between anyone involved.
Despite the fact it was purely competitive, the natural instinct of the roleplayers involved led us to cooperate on matters of technology and orders of battle because we both thought that we could win and therefore would gain an advantage ICly. There are other reasons why people accept competitive RPs. If my enemies were to ignore me on the basis they thought they might lose, they would lose some large degree of credibility. I would like to think that the Four Day War was an experience in which the people who played a part in it enjoyed to some degree; but I would like to also think that it was the competition that helped that.
There is enough creativity in 'writing a story' to gear anyone's mind into action. But competitive RP requires a different kind of thinking; on the tactical, strategic and operational levels, on how to out-think your enemy, and how to out-play him. I have fought five conflicts with Doomingsland that I can count, yet, we have never had a falling out and remain good friends to this day. We never once pre-planned an RP and we never once said to each other "we must cooperate here, to write a good story." All our roleplays together have been strictly competitive, and while other people (he knows who I'm talking about) may have a problem with him, we have never had issues with our strictly competitive roleplaying.
Yet of course there can be cooperative wars. I am not going to doubt that. Currently I am RPing with a number of people in a war in Alacea. The consensus is that this is an enjoyable RP. However, I, at least, have maintained contact with him to make sure our posts flow on a competitive level and not on a cooperative level. My temporary allies concern is evacuating civilians, but when that is done, we may turn upon each other. I trust that myself and Velkya are friendly enough (at least I hope so, even if he is a blood-pissing Italian) to need no cooperation in achieving a good rping experience.
I have many friends on NS, which is the reason I'm still here; and some of them are on the opposite side of the fence, and some are on the same side. I think that we are friendly enough that we would need no planning or cooperation to establish a fun RP. We wouldn't need to cooperate any further than providing details on unclear matters to have a good time. This is not to say that cooperative war RP is unworkable. Quite the opposite. I have seen it work many times before and have seen it produce some spectacular results (I'm looking at you, Russkya). What I am saying is that competitive roleplay doesn't need to end in godmodding, OOC bitchfests, and ignores all round.
Military technology is a purely competitive matter. The people who design weapons design weapons primarily in the majority of cases with the intent to produce either something that beats the opponent's equivalent or something that doesn't need to rely on foreign technology - both IC advantages. Over the years I have invested at least, approximately, four hundred pounds (that's eight hundred dollars) worth of models (that's Tamiya, Agrandov, not bloody warhammer), books and such to understand better military strategy and technology. I haven't met anyone of my age who has come close to that (although Macabees trumps me with the amount of reading material), although it has to be said if I was given 400 pounds my immediate concern would be cigarettes, alcohol, and gratuitous amounts of pizza, in that order.
I'm not saying that cooperation shouldn't form the crux of relationships on NS. What I am saying is don't get pulled into the trap of believing that cooperation should come before your country's interests. This also isn't to say that single line posts saying "I fire my missiles. post losses." is good. Nor is it to say that you should claim unrealistic losses because it is in your IC interest to lose less materiel and manpower. There must be some degree of humility, accepting when one is defeated, and taking losses when necessary in wars, for competitive RP to work. Those things have nothing to do with cooperation. They have everything to do with how good you are as an RPer.
And at the end of the day; if you don't like Risk and I don't like Axis and Allies, there is no point in us playing either game. It will just end in tears. And nobody wants to cooperate in producing tears, and neither do they want to compete to see who can make the most tears. Furthermore, competition is about your IC nation winning. It is not about your OOC personality winning. That is called being an arsehole. We are all arseholes from time to time, some of us more so than others (myself included), but being an arsehole is not something to maximise your time doing.
If you wholeheartedly agree, if you wholeheartedly disagree, or if you think I'm a fucking dumbass, or an arrogant moron, or whatever, please, fucking post something, because I didn't just write this so noone could give a fuck.
- Matt / Hogsweat / Questers / Britfag
Vocenae wrote:Unibot, you have won NS.
by Novus Niciae » Thu Jul 01, 2010 11:46 pm
by Of the Quendi » Sat Jul 03, 2010 9:24 am
by Dyelli Beybi » Tue Jul 06, 2010 6:54 am
by Seperate Vermont » Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:55 am
by The Rich Port » Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:15 am
Advertisement
Return to International Incidents
Users browsing this forum: The Daeva
Advertisement