Questers
23-08-2008, 19:51
I would very much appreciate it if anyone who reads this would comment on it.
Obviously this is just my opinion.
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
Obviously this is just my opinion.
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