Here's an interesting debate... assuming that the fact that we can't actually perform war outside of consenual debate in the forum... would it be realistic to make war consensual? Can you really just sit in your statehouse and ignore the multitude of troops invading?
-"Jennifer, can you run out and grab some lunch for me and the cabinet?"
-"Help sir! They have bayonets drawn and... AHHHH!"
-"Ooo, wait a minute, maybe pizza would be better... get use 3 large pepperoni... ASAP!"
Even in the platform of the UN, what leaders would just get together and decide... "Hey, I have nothing better to do... why don't we pit a million of each of our citizens into a big field and have 'em fight to the death?"... could easily see losing an election after that incident... unless of course, you're a despot... which the UN has outlawed anyway...
If you want to return to elegant war (i.e. only troops fight on battle plains: no civillian involvement... no killing generals...)... that might be interesting... but an I.G.N.O.R.E. cannon? What does that stand for anyway?
"Knock Knock...."
"Who's there?"
"Germany..."
"Germany who?"
"Germany's a taking over your country Poland!"
"That's not very funny Hitler..."
"Shut up and be executed already."
"Oh darn"
Mikitivity
20-02-2004, 05:51
If you want to return to elegant war (i.e. only troops fight on battle plains: no civillian involvement... no killing generals...)... that might be interesting... but an I.G.N.O.R.E. cannon? What does that stand for anyway?
"Knock Knock...."
"Who's there?"
"Germany..."
"Germany who?"
"Germany's a taking over your country Poland!"
"That's not very funny Hitler..."
"Shut up and be executed already."
"Oh darn"
It really isn't that hard of a concept, but perhaps the following will help:
Hitler: "Knock, Knock ..."
Hitler: "Knock, Knock ..."
Hitler: "I know you read this forum! Answer my question!"
Hitler: "Knock, Knock ..."
Hitler: "If you don't answer me now, I'll NUKE you!"
Hitler: "Why is it nobody answers me?"
Anyways, the point is, wars get amazingly boring when you fight somebody who god mods and has need of a bit more creativity. The best advice seasoned players can give is to just ignore the other dude.
Sophista
20-02-2004, 08:06
Since war within NationStates exist in its own little subsection of role play it earns its own special rules. The art of role playing involves a kind of social contract between two people, where the first agrees to have his or her nation affected by the results of the role playing of the other, and vice versa.
However, like all contracts, this one comes with terms and conditions. Among those conditions is the mutual agreement that both parties will role play to an acceptable standard linguistically and descriptively, and that no body will slip into god moding, or claiming incredibly unlikely circumstances or otherwise unwarranted action.
I'll grant that the definition of god moding is vague and blurry, and since I wouldn't touch the "role playing" that happens in International Incidents with a ten foot pole I won't pretend to understand what a commonly accepted definition is. The point is that when you violate the god moding clause of this social contract, you are negating the contract, and thus lose the ability to claim influence on another person's country.
Now, you might be curious as to why such a contract exists. On face, yes, the idea of "conseual war" seems a little ridiculous, but you have to realize that without this idea role play on NationStates would cease to exist. If everything that was typed became fact, wars would become nothing more than a contest of who can make the best excuse. For example:
Nation A: I launch 10,000 nukes at you. You're country is rubble.
Nation B: Your nukes can't land. Our NMD sites on the ground launch lasers at your missiles and destroy them in flight.
Nation A: Those NMD sites were taken out by our pre-launch covert ops teams using C-4 and duct tape.
Nation B: No, the covert ops teams were caught by our internal police and never had a chance to blow them up.
Nation A: We have agents in your internal police force that conspired to let them in the country.
And so on. Obviously, this kind of role playing would become both repetitive and ridiculous very shortly. The legitimate role players would stop playing because of the lack of realism and constant stream of rationalization, while the less-legitimate nations would have no one to nuke. Role play in a war sense would cease to exist except in closed, invite-only sessions between elite players, causing a categorical shift in the nature of NationStates role play. Since NationStates is an inclusive, equal-access kind of game, this kind of shift is inherently against the structure of the game.
The solution to this problem is to allow people to use the "IGNORE cannon" principle, where if a person starts god moding all you do is fire up a healthy salvo of "you're not playing by my rules so I'm taking my toys home." Granted, some people abuse this right and kick out of a conflict when they realize that they're being out-played, but thats a small price to pay when you consider the alternative. Some bad role play or no role play? Take your pick.
I hope that explains what you were asking.
M. Aaron Hammonds
Mun Extraordinaire