NationStates Jolt Archive

so....anyone know how to declare war? :fluffle:

First of all, what tech are you?

Future Tech
Modern Tech
Post-Modern Tech
Past Tech

OOC: Here's one: attempted assassination of a government official.

whats a tech?............
lol....my friend wants to know this..........he cant use the forum right now....
........OH? u mean roleplaying?

Yes, roleplaying. People RP on this forum as either past, modern, 2010, or future nations of their reflective abilities technologically.

To start wars, I would suggest to know how to RolePlay first. A good ol' beginning RolePlay would be to have a civil war, or RPing a coalition of a certain party rising in your nation.

Here area couple of good ideas right off the bat:

1- Go to the top of the first page on this board.

2- Find the threads with Sticky appearing in them.

3- Read the stickies for the answer to your question.

Not all questions can be answered by the stickies, but this one is definitely listed. Another good idea is to step over to the "Gameplay" board and look around at the topics there. Many questions you have now (or might have later) are probably already being discussed there. Many of them are already answered (to one degree or another) in the stickies.

Just about everything that happens on the boards (Nationstates and International Incidents in particular) is what we call free-form roleplaying. There are very few hard-and-fast rules, but a great many generally-agreed-upon guidelines. Most of these have been listed in the stickies (both here on II and on NS- check the top of the page in either board).

Free-form roleplaying means that you can basically do whatever you want with your country- but not anyone else's country. If you want to declare war on the Free Republic of Nowherestan (to make up a name for the purposes of example), you should have a reason for wanting to do so. Note well that declaring war IC (In-Character against someone for OOC (Out-Of-Character) actions is frowned upon. The Moderators will probably jump on you with all four feet and spit on the smoking remains.

The next big issue of free-form roleplaying is the fact that you cannot force someone else to RP with you. If you want to declare war on Nowherestan, but he chooses to ignore you, then there will be no war. This means it would be best to contact the country you wish to fight and discuss the issue with them in advance. Assuming the other country agrees to be your opponent, the two of you can discuss a reason for the war. It would also be a good idea to write up a series of posts detailing the issues between the two nations and the build-up toward war. Few wars happen spontaneously- they happen for reasons (they don't necessarily have to be good reasons to anyone but the countries involved, but there will be at least one reason).

Let's assume that Nowherestan agrees to have a war RP with you. Free-form roleplaying means that the two of you have to discuss and agree upon a lot of things before the war starts. It is a very good idea to agree on a map for the combat areas, the technology that will be used, whether or not allies will be permitted to intervene, and how many troops/equipment you each have in advance. This helps prevent your war from getting bogged down in arguments about who has what and where it is.

Next big thing about free-form roleplaying is: you cannot declare losses for anyone but yourself. Period. Full stop.

Let us say that You and Nowherestan are involved in a land battle involving roughly 1 armored division each. By the nature of the forums, the combat will be more-or-less turn-based (in other words, you post what your units are doing. Then he posts what happened to his units as a result, and posts what his units are doing. You respond with what happened to your units, etc). In our example battle, you can say that your artillery brigade has launched a barrage of armor-piercing shells at one of his units. You cannot say what happens to his units as a result without his permission. It is up to your enemy to decide what the results of your attacks are. It is also up to you to determine the results of your enemy's attack.

Many experienced gamers here make use of a separate thread for OOC comments and discussions as the war goes on. This helps keep the primary thread a series of short stories with a common background, unadulterated with arguments and commentary.

Here is another good bit of advice about roleplaying a war for newcomers:
Read some of the existing war threads and see how they are run. To pick one really good example, try reading any of the threads with Operation Hellfire in the title. All of the writing and roleplaying has been uniformly well-done throughout the series. There are few better examples of how to run a war RP properly. Make note of the players involved in the threads, and send one of them a telegram with a question or two. Most of them are experienced players who will be willing to help out.


TEO

TEO has cameo appearance...

...Yeah, like that. But I would like to add on that it may be easier to join one and get a feel for it rather than create a war thread.

My advice.

Never EVER pull a "I D3cl4re an uBEr w4r on t3h w0rld" thing. That will only lead to older nations dogpiling you and then dividing up your territory.


Trust me on this....

My advice.

Never EVER pull a "I D3cl4re an uBEr w4r on t3h w0rld" thing. That will only lead to older nations dogpiling you and then dividing up your territory.


Trust me on this....

The thread will most likely be closed.

It would lead to a thread lock, yes.