NationStates Jolt Archive

The following is a joint essay by Sarzonia and Pacitalia.

Over the past few years, NationStates roleplaying has changed significantly from the first few days that Max Barry decided to establish an avenue for players to create “worlds” for their nations. More than just a slice of bandwidth on the Internet, these countries now had opportunities not given to the main gameplay: They could now declare war, delve into ancient histories that never existed before, and they could have names of presidents, kings, and dictators both benevolent and otherwise.

Some changes were arguably for the better. Designs for weapons, ships, and other technology went from being simply measurements of lengths, widths, weights, and rates of speed to having elaborate descriptions and statistic lists that might have been borrowed from Jane’s. As more players got into the worlds they were creating and the characters they were developing, more and more details about these “countries” that only took a few minutes to establish by clicking some answers to a poll resulted.

Eventually, those details would take the form of a national identity that players around the world could begin to feel. The stories that resulted from wars went from short posts where one country sends a larger army and wins because the enemy is a much smaller country to elaborate details where a reader can almost hear a drop of sweat drop from a soldier’s brow as he waits impatiently for the enemy to give him enough of an opening to fire his custom-designed rifle.

However, with every bit of good also came some negatives. The increased detail often brought about better storytelling, but it also seemed to bring about a sense that technology was the be all and end all to winning battles or to being “realistic.” In some minds, an obsession with facts and figures and statistics rendered storytelling completely out of the picture in roleplay. If you didn’t know how many calibres your standard issue assault rifle had and how much recoil was involved, you were ridiculed. If your technology were even remotely considered “out there” by a player who proclaimed his or her “knowledge” of military equipment as “expertise,” you were at best considered uninformed and at worst considered a Godmoder.

Which side is right? We’d like to offer an answer that will likely anger people on “both sides” of this debate: Neither. Different roleplayers bring different strengths to their craft. Players like The Evil Overlord are renowned among the NationStates roleplaying community as experts in logistics; a Praetonia or an Isselmere may be considered a god of naval design; a Doomingsland may be rightly complimented for his expertise with gun design; Space Union may be hailed as a leading aviation designer. But does that mean that players who may not have the same level of expertise in designing equipment are worse roleplayers?

For all we know, a player may not know how to design a single piece of equipment, but he might be able to depict a battle with the kind of detail that would make you believe you were there. A player may have the best player-designed warship but does that mean he knows what to do with it? What about the Pacitalias or the Oceanias of the world who excel at character development? What about the Panteras or the Automagfreeks who can portray a battle as well as anyone? And aren’t there players who can handle multiple aspects well?

Of course stats aren't king. They merely serve as guidelines that can be bent to accomodate the story. They are helpful to try to establish some semblance of "reality" or "believability" in the game in that it is difficult to swallow when nations that have tiny defense budgets have a fleet of superdreadnoughts. It's also crazy to have single nations over 8 billion as well. Ultimately, I think these threads come down to who you want to run with and I don't know really why they keep popping up.

I have no idea who any of the people in the first post are.

But I love you all. :fluffle:

[OOC: Well said Sarzonia and Pacitalia.

But I do believe that The Freethinkers once, in a shipbuilding guide, mentioned something like this as the last part in a bullet-point format: "technology should be used as a tool to enhance role-play, not as a tool for victory."

Once more, well said, Sarzonia and Pacitalia (and The Freethinkers, for his own guide!).]

Nicely said.

I'd even be willing to take things a step further, in all tech levels, despite lurking for far too long. (Alas, Future Tech has been woefully deprived of my brand of evil.)

"I send my fifteen hundred marines, equipped with fourty-seven calibur assault rifles, two inch thick kevlar body armor, and IR goggles against you. They're using anti-armor ammunition, with small explosive points." This is no better then "i send my 13444 soldurs at u!!1"

So you've plotted out every milimeter of that assault rifle. Good for you. You say you've decided on the placement of every toilet on that battleship? Nice job. The speed of that spaceship calculated down to the fifth decimal place? Wonderful.

Does any of this mean jack in a roleplay if you don't have the writing to back it up? Hell no. Does this prove any superiority over the guy who describes his stuff losely? Ha, keep dreaming.

Relying on a factbook full of meaningless statistics can be a crutch, and thus a sign of a crippled roleplayer. You start pointing at the factbook instead of describing things where the description matters: in the roleplay.

Solid stats also encourage overt wank. "My ship is fifteen meters long." "Mine is twenty-three!" "Fourty." "A hundred-fifty." "Two kilometers." By giving solid stats, you give those who want to one-up you a solid goal to beat. When they do the same thing, the cycle is set up for another revolution. Wank-Power Theorem, anyone?

Those who define things vaguely, or rather, variably, have more flexibility, and more need to describe and detail in-RP. Stat-o-philes? Pretty factbooks. Granted, there's overlap, but just speaking in absolutes.

Nicely said.
Granted, there's overlap, but just speaking in absolutes.

I'm glad you mentioned the overlap, as I think that good RPing isn't just being able to tell a good story (characterization, plot, and description) but being able to collaborate with another on that story. I have not participated in any of the battles but I've read numerous threads and stats are part of the 'culture' in the battle threads.

This makes sense as writing about military action without understanding logistics, numbers, supply, and administration, is like writing about horse training when you've never been around horses or even seen a horse-riding tournament.

To me, a *great* role-player is going to be good at substance, structure, and style. For a battle RP, substance would be the stats and tech, structure would be the logistics and realistic scenarios, while style would be the emotion, tone, and theme.

Great RPing is a tripod, and when you overemphasize one aspect, you weaken the entire effort.

In my honest opinion, tech and stats are the backdrop to any good RP. Any really good Rp should have a basis, sure, but it shouldn't let trying to prove that that basis is dominant interfere with the telling of a story. RP, story telling, isn't about numbers and technobabble, its about how well one writes, how well they bring a story to life with characters and emotion.

A good writer will make you care more about what they create than someone with a billion stats and factbooks pages, babbling about his latest gun and asserting his alleged superiority over all, while displaying nothing but a smidge of any real talent.

ooc:
*applauds*
Very well put, mate.
The way I see it, what matters most in a rp is that both sides have fun. As long as that is achieved (and it so often is not), then it really does not matter who wins, or loses.

Just my personal ,2c.

I'd like to add another cent or two as well, see if we can round it out to a dollar :D

Having been around these forums myself under numerous guises over the years, I have seen my fair share of both sides of RP. And being a story-writer style who also has a solid ground in stats being military myself, I prefer the story side of things, as it gives those who don't know as much in the way of real stats a chance to go toe-to-toe with those who do. The only thing that annoys me is when you're getting into a good RP, and then all of a sudden they just stop... or even worse, you show an interest just when someone sets up a thread, and they never reply.

That's a tad annoying just quietly, but meh, such is life eh?

All in all, key point is to have fun and just enjoy it all!

Well said Sarz and Paci,
I offer my compliments

Technology, wether it represents a short spear or a 2km long battleship, is for flavor, not to automatically hand victory to his wielder for just gracing the RP with it's presense.

...and?

Haven't we already had one or two like this?

I agree that it needs to be reiterated now as much as anytime. But still.

Has some good points, though doesn't say much. I'll post some thoughts on the question the essay mentions.


I think it's fine to use custom designs, even substandard, as a tool to enhance roleplay, or just for one's own enjoyment, as long as one doesn't try to use them specifically as his power source. I may like to have some vehicle with quite specific armament, or something else unusual - fine, I just make it. I might want to roleplay with non-stealth fighters, so I might make something non-stealth, but modernized to compensate somewhat (though the most often roleplayed obsolete technology is big naval guns). Finally, someone might like to roleplay issues of some specific weapons, or just a distinctive style. That's fine, and we shouldn't pick the design holes in such cases. If we have good and fair roleplayers, let's just focus on the game.

However, if a player attempts to use his designs as a tool to gain victory, he'd better have these designs well detailed and be ready to prove it is feasible, and the more advantage he aims for, the better should he understand what his design is. Otherwise, if that's just a pack of stats or some nonsense*, he will deserve every sarcastic comment he will receive.
Could he turn out to be a good roleplayer? Maybe yes, and most likely no; either way, we would never learn that, because if he was allowed to blow everyone away with a pack of specs, there wouldn't be anything to play; note, though, that any detailed design has flaws that may be exploited, in a technical, but entertaining in its own way roleplay. One is a good roleplayer only if he lets other play equally and can do it instinctively, restraining himself; otherwise he may be a good fanfiction (self-fanfiction) writer, but this doesn't equal good roleplayer.

Having said that, I'll use a different bottom line: just keep consistent. That's the idea. If people want to roleplay in non-technical aspects, it's better to put your designs' specs away and keep playing fair, aiming for interest. If you want to play around tactical aspects and techicalities of new designs, make these designs detailed enough that they are interesting on their own; a good example is Nakil, a counterexample is almost anything consisting of a page of text and a page of specs. And, for the sake of whoever you believe in, never ever assume your designs are flawless or near-invulnerable, because they aren't; just be ready to accept the flaw as it is found.
These kinds of game may be mixed, to a certain extent, but in this case both must be done well, or both will be wasted.



*Feel free to TG me if you feel some design is wank/too good, but can't prove it, particularly for naval designs - everyone has his weird pastimes, and I among other things enjoy discovering design flaws. Better for naval because I'm a naval architect, but I know something about most other areas of MT, so often can find the catch there. And when something looks too good, there always is some catch, unless it's just a plain bunch of numbers, of course.

...and?

And what?

Yeah, I pretty much 100% agree with V10.

Statistics and technology does mean diddly when compared to good roleplay, but the two can coexist, which hasn't been denied (yet). One can say: "Hefted his AKS-74 rifle and leapt out the open door of the helicopter" as easily as one can say: "Hefted his assault rifle and leapt out the open door of the helicopter." That combines technology with functional writing, and with practice the two work together rather well. It's about knowing where to insert details. OOC comments on custom designs, be they a link to a weapon's writeup or specifications, work as well, giving the other player information to incorporate into their post, or keep in mind. Et cetera.

Vault 10 added a few gold coins but I'll toss my silver in as well. There's no benefit to having high technology if your men are idiots. The thing I see most often in NS RP is this: A shitload of high tech gear, really poor strategies, and horrific tactics. "10,000 men make an offensive" is shit. You can't defend against that with any level of in-depth RP, because there's nothing to work on. Let me lay out a basic example.

Everything looks like they get up and charge mindlessly. There is no bounding overwatch - when the element breaks into two subunits and manuevers in a mutually supporting fashion towards their objective, be it the enemy's positions, a waypoint, or the like, with subunit A covering B as B advances, and vice-versa, unless B happens to have a machinegun, in which case they should manuever less than A because they can maintain a *base of fire* better if they're not getting up and moving every two minutes. - and the concept of flanking is odd here. I've seen "Five thousand men flank the enemy force." Okay, thanks for detail. How are they doing that? With all of the description it sounds like you've got guys out there on a Napoleonic-era-perfect flat field, marching around to the side of an enemy's line. How to flank: Suppress or otherwise fix the enemy in position so they cannot change position or formation to negate the advantage of your flanking manuever. Manuever elements through terrain cover (dead ground, through a tractable forest, marsh, or even high grasses work fine) and then assault the end of their line. You don't even have to shove men into their trenches and start bayonetting either, you can simply take up position there and put enfilade fire on them. If you don't know what enfilade fire is, it's where you fire in such a manner that the rounds you are sending downrange will not rise higher than the height of a standing man's head. Thus creating a six foot high wall of death. Used a lot with machineguns. Defilade is taking up positions in cover and/or concealment.

There's no reason why someone who likes to explain what technology he's using can't RP with someone who doesn't give a toss, because for example, the Diemaco C-7 or H&K G-36 is as functionally good as the Hali 42. It sends bullets downrange and kills the enemy.
The only time that anyone has clear cut technological advantage is when an FT nation pounds on an MT nation, or an MT nation kicks the God out of some primitives somewheres.

RP is often damaged by the attitude that little things make all the difference. They can, but often the little things are negated by tactics or just common sense, so for the love of all that is holy in whichever religion you follow, or for the sake of not being a smacktard if you're an Atheist, learn how to write. RP is about writing, it requires writing, if you don't enjoy writing you're doing the wrong thing.

I don't see how anyone could disagree with the sentiment, but I don't recall any instances of someone claiming that lack of technical knowledge alone makes another a bad RPer, unless this lack of technical knowledge manifests itself as godmoding. Not meaning any offence to those who wrote it, but in my view this is merely an uncontroversial answer to a question no one was asking.

The biggest problem that I see is the prevailing attitude among a lot of the "expert designers" in NS that if your design is either not perfectly feasible or thoroughly explained, you have no business trying to design. A new person trying a design gets ripped apart, many times unfairly, whereas a veteran player does not.

There's a superiority complex among some of those folk that just pisses me off. And you're one of the worst offenders.

The biggest problem that I see is the prevailing attitude among a lot of the "expert designers" in NS that if your design is either not perfectly feasible or thoroughly explained, you have no business trying to design. A new person trying a design gets ripped apart, many times unfairly, whereas a veteran player does not.

There's a superiority complex among some of those folk that just pisses me off. And you're one of the worst offenders.

There is, of course, a superioritiy complex that exists in NS. But I would argue that it is not just found within the group of folks that whip out their rulers and calculators.

Does this prove any superiority over the guy who describes his stuff losely? Ha, keep dreaming.
Superiority? NO.
Courtesy of building in and admitting openly your vulnerabilities....absolutely.



Solid stats also encourage overt wank. "My ship is fifteen meters long." "Mine is twenty-three!" "Fourty." "A hundred-fifty." "Two kilometers." By giving solid stats, you give those who want to one-up you a solid goal to beat. When they do the same thing, the cycle is set up for another revolution. Wank-Power Theorem, anyone?
Clearly defining what you have to the best of your ability does not make, impose, suggest, or coerce someone else to wank up what they have...they choose to do this instead of RP.


Those who define things vaguely, or rather, variably, have more flexibility, and more need to describe and detail in-RP.
Those who define things losely leave themselves room to back peddle and claim superiority that went unmentioned. Being vague is no better then being specific...one certainly leaves far more room for abuse then the other.


Stat-o-philes? Pretty factbooks. Granted, there's overlap, but just speaking in absolutes.
Generalizing noted, merely adding the counter point.


The simple fact is that Stats are tools...I stat for my enjoyment and my opposition or allies reference.

If questioned I can say "I posted it right there" or " it is listed right there" ... I lock myself to my description just as in reality i am bound to the limitations of what I do have and am capable of so too are my RP people and groups bound by what I say they have and are capable of--I set my own bounds, and by posting them i am acknolwdging my intention to stand by them and not pull the winning ace from my sleave as NS can not be won or lost.

As I posted on Sarz's forum... "if you dont enjoy it you shouldnt do it."

I can RP with a poster who uses vague stats if he is reasonable or with a number fiend who will throw walls of numbers ...as I am reasonable.

And what?Well, essays usually have a point and a solid conclusion. This ends with a series of questions. Where's the rest of it?

Well, essays usually have a point and a solid conclusion. This ends with a series of questions. Where's the rest of it?

Personally, I hesitate to call it an essay - as I said on Draftroom, this is more an attempt to initiate discussion and friendly debate on the topic rather than to make a point, or to make anyone angry or feel insulted... but that's my opinion on it.

I think Pacitalia has it right, the way it was formatted and presented suggests to me as well that it was designed to provoke discussion.

It seems that the bane of NationStates for some time has been the focus on winning something, rather than telling a good story.

The biggest problem that I see is the prevailing attitude among a lot of the "expert designers" in NS that if your design is either not perfectly feasible or thoroughly explained,
Well, to be honest, I think there is a lot of sense in that. The vast majority of people who buy things from storefronts have no idea how military tech works, which is why they don't make it themselves. If they see someone advertising nonesense as having capabilities it shouldn't, the people who buy it don't know any better and claim it has those capabilities in RPs. This causes a domino effect of bad RPing to which the original designer is little attached, and thus the original designer gets little blame. This also wastes a lot of time having to explain to people why stuff doesn't work, and they get (justly) annoyed too because they've made decisions based on the assumption they can do things they simply can't. It's far far better to nip this sort of thing in the bud.

Using vague "qualitive" descriptions and precise technical "quantative" descriptions are both equally valid and good RP if done properly, but frankly if you can't do one properly (especially through the "quantative" design approach, as it is far easier to go wrong) you shouldn't try until you are sufficiently well-practised/well-educated to do so, as it will only cause problems and ruin RPs, mainly for other people.

Well, to be honest, I think there is a lot of sense in that.
I don't buy it. It's one thing to say "this design has these problems with it" to a new designer, but it's entirely different when you make it appear that they're some dumb n00b because they're a little bit off on a design. That's the perception I get from a LOT of the "expert" designers and it's one of the reasons I didn't design my own stuff for a while after I started getting active as a RPer.

Actually, i've found that the people I often seek help from are more than willing to actively help me and give me help and support when I need it. I don't at all believe that anybody new to design is scared away because we're all too nasty.

Actually, i've found that the people I often seek help from are more than willing to actively help me and give me help and support when I need it. I don't at all believe that anybody new to design is scared away because we're all too nasty.
^ Agree.

Smartest post I've seen in days. I have a few other accounts on here and have been around for a while, this nation is just a new idea. Anyway, I like the concept that technology is only there to make the story more entertaining.

Problem is -- I, a lot of the time, see people hoping to use technology has a way to win a war, and it quickly devolves the roleplay into a struggle to win, rather than a struggle to make a good story.

But anyway, thanks for posting this maybe it will enlighten a few people.

Mmm.

I don't give a rat's ass about your supercav torpedos or your tin foil hats. That kind of jive is scenery and unimportant scenery, for me. I come to NS for colorful writing, believable characters, and provocative storytelling. I've no doubt that page-long lists of troop numbers, equipment, and advanced ship designs are JUST THE THING to turn some folks on, but that's not for me. At all. Just like alot of tech-first people probably never notice the personal just-for-me character details that I put into my own writing, I never, ever notice how much extra effort you put into that three-page rundown of your new ship design's waste disposal system. Chances are you're going to have to drag a set of concrete numbers out of me, because I feel it makes for poor storytelling.

Maybe I need to adopt a tech-savvy newbie so we can combine our skills and form like muffuckin' Voltron.

Although it may have been true in 2004, the idea that it is impossible to be anything other than a stats lists and "POST LOSSES!!!" RPer or a descriptive writer is most certainly false today. Numerous RPers do both well, such as Sarzonia, Questers, Macabees, Hamptonshire, Doomingsland and ZMI to name but a few.

Those who define things losely leave themselves room to back peddle and claim superiority that went unmentioned. Being vague is no better then being specific...one certainly leaves far more room for abuse then the other.

The simple fact is that Stats are tools...I stat for my enjoyment and my opposition or allies reference.

If questioned I can say "I posted it right there" or " it is listed right there" ... I lock myself to my description just as in reality i am bound to the limitations of what I do have and am capable of so too are my RP people and groups bound by what I say they have and are capable of--I set my own bounds, and by posting them i am acknolwdging my intention to stand by them and not pull the winning ace from my sleave as NS can not be won or lost.

As I posted on Sarz's forum... "if you dont enjoy it you shouldnt do it."

I can RP with a poster who uses vague stats if he is reasonable or with a number fiend who will throw walls of numbers ...as I am reasonable.

Well said, I generally keep a factbook and such as refferance mostly so that I don't forget what my troops have, and a secondary feature of allowing others to get a somewhat vague idea of what my forces could do, when cross refferanced with past threads.

Sadly, all my refferance threads are sadly outdated, and in need of updating/organizing. As such is the nature of NS technology and RPed arms races against Leafanistan.

So I use stats as a grounding, but for me, that ground is currently moldy/rotten/untilled...

I use the RPs as the main event, and generally go into considerable detail with some key components, especially if they are unique or are used to facilitate a unique action within the RP.