NationStates Jolt Archive

[FIRST: AAARRRRRRRRGHHH! THE FORUM AT MY POST! :mad: )

OK, I have a problem here. How the heck to you RP a big war? I have a problem here, because it seems that my Internet time might be limited to 1.5 hours in the morning, and 1 hour in the evening. That's right 1-1.5 hours, which, it seems, would be half a blink of an eye to people like GMC "I watch the whole Band of Brothers miniseries before spending a comparable amount of hours writing a SINGLE post in 'What is and Isn't Mine'" Military Arms, or those who write war posts a mile long.

Also, keep in mind that I have to split my Internet time between researching my topic (as I have no experience in the military), reading your replies, and posting my own stuff. Which considerably shortens the time I have to compile my own posts.

I dunno, it just seems that the complexities of modern warfare makes RPing well large modern warfare very hard to do. In the times of Napoleon and the Civil War and such, you could say that "10,000 troops all do this" because, well, they did. But now, units are complex and stuff. It's absurd to say "10,000 troops dismount from their APCs and..." because, realistically, you'd have only a platoon (max) dismount at once, which leads to a ton of company- and platoon-size battles. Which adds up to at least 180 battles if you're fighting with 10 divisions. I dunno.

I can RP a Normandyesque beach landing, as well as an airdrop, and I think I could ably RP a small SpecOps force. It's just these big lands wars... :confused: ?

Could anyone give me some advice?

OOC: For one thing, I'm glad you take the time to do research before you plan an RP. It seems as though people don't do that often enough in RPs. For another thing, I can understand where you're coming from, particularly when it comes to these servers timing you out after spending a certain amount of time on one given post.

As far as specific suggestions go, when it comes to the research, I wouldn't worry about finding out every little thing about how certain weapons work, but I would concentrate on finding something that gives you a quick and understandable explanation for the general principles behind the weapon. Perhaps finding out its total yield and what its destructive power is might give you the context needed to post damage.

When it comes to the posts themselves, I would suggest typing your post in Microsoft Word, perhaps when you're not on the Internet so that when you do get on the 'Net, all you'd have to do is select all, edit, copy, and paste into your next post. That will help you avoid the timeouts that can wipe out entire long posts.

In terms of management of a RP, I would recommend keeping your RPs invite only and then inviting only a certain number of people so that you can keep the events manageable. In some of my RPs that had more than a handful of people involved, the RP would have had two or three additional pages if I only went away from the computer for 10 minutes, then I'd have two or three more pages to read after I've caught up!

The major war you're involved with has one thing that I like in wars with several people involved: An OOC thread. That can help keep your war thread devoted to the war and keep the bitching or questions, etc. on the OOC thread. That's why I was a little bit surprised you created the topic since you're already involved in a war that some people would consider a good RP war.

Well, try out GMC's Method, writing the post off net/forum.
You can have a sizeable post if you write it in word and save it, or jot it down if creativity strikes you. GMCMA is an unemployed waster, so he can watch the entire miniseries before he has to make a post. :p

What I normally do it try to learn how to type quickly, The latest post to my story thread was made on the fly, and most of it was running in my head before I sat down to type it up.
So either make the post ready in our head, or on word and use a "Geek stick" [data stick] or Floppy disk to save the post and build it up as you go along.
Slow the RP down, ask for more time if necessary.

Actually, what I do in my combat RPs is to set the scene in one particular ship (or perhaps one particular ground combat unit) and play out the scene from the perspective of the individual characters. For instance, what does the enemy look like, what the strategy is (fleet-wide or ship-to-ship), and how to execute it. If it's a fleet strategy, I spend most of the time developing what the strategy itself is and then I spend a smaller portion of the time RPing the execution of the strategy (firing the guns/missiles/etc.).

I find that works well for me.

I do it the way Sarzonia does it, mostly.

Look at my very few posts in the Syskeyian war thread--I have a few characters on the ground, then a few who are commanders; so I have people who fight and people who plan, people who have microscale perspective and megascale perspective.

Though sometimes it's necessary just to describe what's happening in a sizeable group, and I can easily just use my megascale characters for that.

I know it's hard, which is why I have to make myself sit down and post :p I'm not that great at it myself, especially as some people have got so much detail down that they know what the ship's cat eats for lunch.

microscale perspective and megascale perspective. Yup. Pretty much how I go about it. Though my RP in war has a tendency to progress slooooooowly because of that. Sadly.

I generally stay out of wars, because truly the victor of the war seems the one who can bullshit the most, or has extensive knowledge of weaponry. Or some just have good skill at lawyering, so they can use extensive terminology and such. I think most likely the only good war is one with a pre-determined storyline, including who will win certain land battles or how it will work out, or have trades such as one wins, one loses, etc. Battle by battle. Though there has to be agreement between the two people in the war on how the roleplay will work out, otherwise all wars end up in OOC arguments and lawyering.

GMCMA is an unemployed waster, so he can watch the entire miniseries before he has to make a post. :p

Lies, I'm an employed waster.

Re: large land battles, the easiest way I find is to focus on smaller [and more managable] parts of the action that tell the story rather than trying to do everything at once; spotters watching the main advance, for example. As much as anything else, there's only so many times you can write 'and then another tank exploded' in a battle scene with four thousand of the buggers before everyone falls asleep.

Also, carrying a notepad and pen everywhere helps.

Lies, I'm an employed waster.
Hanging around in overalls outside of Tesco's doesn't count! :P

Hanging around in overalls outside of Tesco's doesn't count! :P

BEGONE! <misuses mod powers for evil revenge>

"The Totally Owned Yeah Baby Greater Republic of Midlonia"

You git! You bloody git! :P

Step 1: SAVE! the posts of your fellow players. Online.

Step 2: READ! the posts of your fellow players. Offline.

Step 3: WRITE! a reply. Offline.

Step 4: POST! your reply. Online.

Additional steps: 1. TRY! search machines to check upon stuff you don#t know. Online.

2. SAVE! the material you find. Online.

3. WORK! through the material you found. Offline.

Or 4. MAKE! up some shit by basing it on the basics you know. Roughly. Which can be risky, as I can confirm, after constantly downscaling my spacedyshit once I begun searching for the actual physics behind it.

Step 1: SAVE! the posts of your fellow players. Online.

Step 2: READ! the posts of your fellow players. Offline.

Step 3: WRITE! a reply. Offline.

Step 4: POST! your reply. Online.

Even better, PRINT! them and read them when you don't even have the computer on, then reply LATER!

As GMC hinted at previously, instead of focusing on the army as a whole, focus on a small group of soldiers and how the war effects and shapes their personalities. Focus on the character-level. I just got done with one, with amazing results.

Try to increase ur hours and make a topic called Modern warfare (open rp) (Short replys)

As a final [expensive] note, there's no better way to get a feel for something and to get a visual aid for describing it than to build a model of it.