I swear when it comes to NRPs people see the limits of the RP as unfair restrictions. Multiple times I have gotten people who complained about how having only 1-2 non-human aliens is such a ridiculous restriction in a space RP that takes place across only 4 star systems that has only one alien world and said aliens can't be space faring on contact.

I've gotten people who left the RP over it even when me and iso tried to work with the guy to make what he wanted fit in.

I just don't get it. Why is it there is people who some how not see how absurd it is to want to have five alien species that are intelligent within four star systems independently occurring on different planets? I even had people who thought such "limitation" was contrived... Somehow. Even though many intelligent races in close proximity to earth seems far more contrived to me.

If you want to piss people off in an NRP, limit the number of aircraft carriers to something passingly realistic.

They hate that.

Or when you try to tell the guy with 8 million soldiers that that's unfair. Far too many people in NRP play to win.

Chapatrap said
Or when you try to tell the guy with 8 million soldiers that that's unfair. Far too many people in NRP play to win.

' Tis why I tend to avoid NRPs. If I wanted to play a competitive strategy game, I'd buy it off Steam. The problem with roleplays is there's no system in place that forces people to accept it's part of the design, so they often like to give themselves whatever they can get away with. I don't think people realize that by trying to set themselves up to "win" a roleplay, nobody is going to want to play with them and it might kill the game deader than the Romanov family. It doesn't matter if you spent hours on your ten million alien army of bulletproof telepaths if you don't have a game to play it in.

I said it before, I'll say it again; the point of roleplaying is to tell a story. Sometimes that involves playing a character or faction that is going to be overcome.

When you have one guy who makes a 7 million strong army, the rest of the players suddenly think that their army is too small and beef it up to 8 million. It's a vicious circle if not sorted out by the GM. I generally advocate the 10% rule we have in Precipice - you can only have 10% of your population maximum in the army and that's only if you're in the middle of a national emergency. For the most part, your army should barely scrape 2% of total population. It all seems very number crunchy, I know but that's not my usual style. I tend to look at the size of most modern armies (200,000 or under seems to be the norm in most European countries), consider whatever political factors there are and then put a low number. The NRP's I'm in tend to be more about the characters within the nation than faceless politicians and tanks anyway.

A few I've joined in the Nation section are just full of people who undo their zipper in their CS and start waving their dick about, which isn't something I'd advocate.

When it comes to NRPs I generally use the whole faction/nation building aspect mainly as a tool to have players collaboratively world build within the story since I found that when you make a world you're spending a lot of time for something many people probably won't even read half of. Not to mention good luck getting anyone to play a alien race that isn't their own.

On the NRP I am rather peeved at the number of modern NRPs or these RPs trying to be niche. It's all well and good to have something in the modern or contemporary context, but when everything is that I don't have much hope in the section. I know this is ironic because I run Precipice, but I raise that as an exception.

Or any other RP set in our world.

I for one would love to see something in a fantasy world on something of a "vanilla" setting. I like to join RPs that I know I can do something with or in. If there are these crazy mechanic or genre specifications and such then I'm unlikely to join. I do look for the army ratio rule though, but beyond that I don't want to read a forty-page rule book or have to deliver orders to the GM in order to post. I just want something organic like PoW. I would like something in a fantasy or fictional environment, and outside the steam-punk, diesel-punk, modern, or fuckall-punk that people clamor over. The broader the scope the greater the possibility I have in building something that I can work with, or others.

Some mechanics are a necessity, if only to keep players from doing things that ruin the setting like deciding on a whim to make up five planets in a RP that takes place across 4 star systems [which turns out to be quite large even when you have spaceships and warp gates]. For instance in a space RP that takes place across 4 star systems a interstellar alien empire suddenly becomes rather plot wrecking if any player could on a whim make one.

Similarly PoW would have turned into a fallout-esque RP should nukes have been a thing and needless to say the subject of gunpowder based weapons in a fantasy setting can end up rather sore even though early gunpowder weapons were pretty shitty. After all, why use a arquebus when a composite bow is just as good if not better?

When I'm talking about "rules" I'm talking more about the intense sort of thing you'd find running in the background of some RTS game or Civilization. Like resource production algorithms and devoting most of the actual writing to number crunching. And then the gimmicks that begin to limit the scope of an RP to where it becomes really very narrow and not very free.

Detailed worlds and some defining of what people can and can not do (because there will always be those types that go out of their way to claim to be the biggest bad ass) is fine and all. But there needs to be a balance between keeping the RP open enough that people can come in with whatever they want (pending lore restrictions in a late-game setting), but keeps people in line. But if I have to read a forty page manual about how you're going to run the algebra that tells me what I can or can not do I'm not going to partake. I don't have the patience for that, and all I want to do is tell a story within the setting.

The rest is something of a community moderated thing, where if in relation to everyone someone feels too OP they can all voice their concerns and talk it out. Or make it an issue the GM will have to reconsider the guy's character or faction.

The fact that there's no good, old fashioned, fantasy NRPs annoys me. I just want to create a dwarven Kingdom Under the Mountain. One without any steampunk elements. Just epic beards, well forged everythings, lots of gold and jewels, and golems for good measure. Is that to much to ask?

No, because it's got to be space or modern-day or near-future our-world. It's sort of dilluded itself.

There was one that looked promising in the Interest Checks. Then it pulled itself to be set on Mars and I was done.

Can't really say anything about this since i'm part of the problem with my empty horizons with its planetary human societies.

However fantasy-wise all mt fantasy ideas involve geography that is all island filled since I want more ocean adventuring since my fantasy culture I have in mind are pretty much maori-viking hybrids because sailing the sea with low tech is always fun to do; especially if you intend to go plundering. Issue is so many NRP maps lack any area conductive to this sort of adventuring since they're usually large temperate islands. Sure there's smaller islands, but nothing tropical enough and just simply not enough land masses to go and spread to. Any setting I make will have geography conductive to more sea based cultures in mind as well.

I find the selection of fantasy RPs limiting as well; perhaps the map for the races RP could be reused for a different NRP setting with a few more tropical islands in this region:

I could draw in more but that'd be a pain in my ass to draw a million Pacific islands all over it.

Nah, just add a few more decent sized islands and it will be good. No need to require placing lots of incredibly tiny islands.

When someone you boot from your Rp comes back hours later on a different account and sincerely thinks you wouldn't be able to notice that he (or she now) behaves exactly the same and named their new account after their username change on steam.

Ie: I'm not blind. Or retarded.

Hey now Brovo, hating on the mentally challenged, not cool.

There's too much anime.

Brovo said
When someone you boot from your Rp comes back hours later on a different account and sincerely thinks you wouldn't be able to notice that he (or she now) behaves exactly the same and named their new account after their username change on steam.
Ie: I'm not blind. Or retarded.

I just found that whole situation amusing, I'm sorry

But I've had this problem before...Alongside people who claim they're done in an RP yet makes a new account acting as someone else just to stalk someone in said RP (If it sounds weird it's because it is), people who've been booted from an RP but continues to argue and try to justify the thing they did that got them kicked out, and people who stop being active in an RP then comes back months later just to drop out again and repeat the whole cycle. It's something I don't think I'll ever understand even if I try...

BingTheWing said
There's too much anime.

Agreed, anime fucking sucks

@Expollo: It's okay. I think it is pretty funny too, but it is also annoying. And confusing.

As for anime? I like anime and appreciate it like I do any visual medium for its aesthetics and ability to convey a story in any number of ways.

Though like the rest of tv and film, 90% of it is garbage. The fan service can ruin otherwise good shows. The fan base is... Exhuberent. Yes. Exhuberent.

But then I see stuff like Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop. I can't bring myself to hate the medium. It's capable. The fan base isn't.

Essentially what Brovo said. It's the fanbase that's shit.

I prefer anime to just about every cartoon. Period.

Hajime no Ippo boxing scenes alone outstrip any action American cartoons today can do.

As far as there being a lot of it, there is a quote from Dudel or Kestrel from old guild about why people play things. I can't remember it for the life of me.