NationStates Jolt Archive

yeah, my Bf showed me this site, and so I started playing to day. I'm totally new at this, I'm used to regualer message boards and free form RP that i've been doing for four years, so I'm not exactly used to not knowing where to begin. I want to have fun with this place, but I have absoulty no idea where I should begin. If it isn't too much trouble, I'd gladly accept it and be incredibly thankfull too. If you have any advice, please just reply here or telegram me, either one is fine.

Welcome aboard the NS wierdness!

Well if you aren't new to on line RP, then you probably have an idea of what type of RP you prefer. ( International Incidents is primarily wargaming/ Nation Interaction RP and Nation States is primarily character RP ) though you can find examples of each in each forum.

My primary nation is FT - future tech, and set about 600 million ly from earth - I don't get into many wars ( lol ) and thats not the type of RP I really get into any way so you find me mostly in NS where my characters romp freely and I GM a couple of threads.

Once you decide which style you prefer, then you haveto decide what flavor you like best.

We have threads set in the Star Wars Universe, or at least dealing with Jedi and Sith types; we have Vampire RP's; Generic fantasy/ horror/ wierdness; diplomatic RP's; a whole variety.

My suggestion is to look for threads labeled "sign up/ ooc" - often they'll give you a basic over view of the RP's flavor - find one that interests you and post asking if the game is still open, and what the GM wants in the way of characters ( if it isn't clear enough in the thread )

If you'd like to tg me with questions feel free to!

First things first: What kind of nation do you want to run? Nations can generally be classified into two categories: themed nations and opinion nations.

Opinion nations are run by what your social ideals really are. When you make a decision on an issue, choose the option that seems right in your opinion. See how a country you ran might develope(apparantly I would have an anarchy with a superpower economy:confused: )

Theme nations are made with a strange theme in mind. You do not select issue answers based on your opinion, but on what opinion the government of your imaginary nation would choose. Sci-fi's and fantasies can be good sources, or you could try to make it resemble a real-life nation in particular.

For a themed nation, first decide your tech-level. This ranges from primitive-tech(cave men) all the way to godly-tech(your people have extended past the realms of mortal human conciousness). You can have modern-tech(cars, guns), medival-tech(horses, swords), future-tech(lightsabers, starships), post-modern-tech(laser-guided electro-bombs, hovercars) and anything else you can think of. Modern-tech(MT) and future-tech(FT) are the most common. My nation is a third-world FT nation.

Now think of who rules your nation. Mine is ruled by a benevolent dictatoress name the Sand Princess.

What is the terrain of your nation? Desert(like mine?), forest, jungle, tundra, island, tropics, sarengetti, outer space, mountains, swamp, or something else? This is important if you are going to do character-based RPs taking place inside your territory.

Now get RPing!(if that's your thing, that is)

hey thanks...this is gonan be fun I know. I wanted to run my country based on a land I made up for one of my stories...which is based on one of my RP characters, lol. Looks like I goota re read wha tthe two of you said and make a few decisions. thanks again for the tips ^^

Tanara - I'm confused about what to do after the stuff you mentioned. There doesn't seem to be any system of organization in "International Incidents" or "Nation States" subforums as to what you do with your nation once you know how you want it to act.

I've done online RPs before but those were kind of interactive stories we created mutually.

Well thats what all RPing is - interactive stories guided more or less by the GM.

but as to your other comment Myso-Kamia I'm a little lost.

No there is no structure/ system of organization to either forum, there just can't be

I guess what you are trying to say is do you have to play your nation as a whole? Or in the RP's - no you don't. Your nation page/stats etc can be completely seperate from what you chose to do here in the forums.

How you chose to answer your daily issues and what your main page says about your nation can be completely different that what you play here.

The common rule however is that you can not play with a greater population than you have on your stats- you can of course always chose to play a less populace country. And if you buy things from the store fronts it is good juju to make sure your nation really has the funds to buy what ever it is you want.

You decide what tech level, you decide the general era that your nation is in. There are nations here that state very firmly that they are set in the era of WWII, or back in the stone age, or even later than Star Trek TNG, thats all up for you to choose and play out in your gameing.

Or you can choosse merely to have your nation as your screen name, just remember to make some issure choices before each 28 days are up to keep your nation alive then join in character rp's with what ever character (s) the GM says fits in.

What sort of role play do you like? Look for something along those lines and see if they are still accepting players.

Also, if you want to think a bit about your nation and develop it before throwing yourself into a forum RP, a good idea may be to use the NationStates wiki (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page). It was created by a player, and is not officially endorsed by NS, but a lot of players use it to develop information about their nation.

You can start by creating an article for your nation itself (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/NSwiki:Info_boxes), where you can write in as much as you want about its history, geography, climate, culture, leaders, etc. You can also do a specific article about its leader, about its capital city, or any thing else you feel inspired to be creative about... including, for example, its secret service agency or a well known company from your nation which makes teddy bears. Your imagination is more or less the limit. It can be a great way to get a few ideas down "on paper" to give substance to your RPs.

For example, this (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Ariddia)is the article on my main nation, and this (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Category:Ariddian_Isles) is a list of articles dealing with my nation. As you can see, there's quite a lot there, but it's maybe a bit messy. A more "standard" example would be this article (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Federated_Polynesia) about another nation of mine. (If you get an error message, just try again later. The NSwiki bugs a lot.)

As the others have said, it's all very much up to you. You can develop your nation itself in great detail, or you can choose, instead, to focus on a character from your nation in RPs, and leave the background vague. Everyone does as they please.

Hmmm...I guess I both do and don't understand how the RP here works, it sounds like a weird combination of structured and free form, whcih is why I'm so confused. I've never done sturctued RP in my life. I think I'm going to do that thing Ariddia mentioned first, and set up a nice bio for my country. And also, get situated here with my issues,a dn in my region abd such before I start the actual RP aspect of the game. That way, by then I'll hopefully understand a lot more about most of this stuff, and the RP stuff won't seem so wEIrd to me.

edit: I jsut thought of somethign too. Ariddia, when making a bio thing on that site you linked, would it be for the RP itself or for the entire NS site in general?

Welcome Corrigon,

The NS Wiki, can be for all facets of your nation. If you have a couple of articles about your nation, you can make a factbook, and link all articles together, by adding [category:your_nation_name]. For example, my nation Category:The_Palentine (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Category:The_Palentine), has articles about my nation, my Un puppet nation, a historical enery, and 2(soon to be 3) articles of RP Characters.
Excelsior,
Sen. Horatio Sulla

thank you for the help ^^ That ceared it up for me alot, and so did your link