Same as with a lot of other people in this thread, I’m not convinced just yet that I’ll actually join, but I do feel interested enough to chime in on the discussion.
I just finished reading every post, so to begin I’ll just pick various quotes on which I had something to comment on.
One of the biggest issues I see in these sorts of roleplays is that a large number of players put in their character sheets or enter into discussion, but ultimately end up leaving because the other players aren't producing the kind of nations they were expecting, or the game environment as a whole changes.
Hey that’s pretty much exactly how it goes for me usually. I lurk a lot of NRP threads but almost never join them, for a variety of reasons but my usual concern is that I may end up disliking this or that nation for entirely subjective reasons. I think I have an idea for one factor that can lead to this phenomenon (more frequently than in normal RPs) and I feel like bringing it up briefly.
One of the bigger differences between NRPs and regular ones is that every player does a significant amount of world building. This is relevant if we’re looking at the general tone an RP is trying to go for. In a traditional RP, the gm predetermines the tone of his setting right off the bat. Maybe he’s going for heroic, light hearted fantasy. Maybe it’s a realistic, grimdark setting. Maybe it’s a pessimistic cyberpunk vision, or an optimistic “where no man has gone before” space opera. Point being, the GM picks whichever sort of vibe his story wants to transmit in general (I acknowledge that light hearted stories can have dark moments and vice versa) and sticks to that when designing the various components of his world. Or a good writer does anyway.
But when you establish little or no prevailing tone in advance other than “it’s space, yo”, then every player will do whatever they like the most, which means that you will almost certainly end up with nation concepts that hit completely different tones and feel like they don’t belong in the same universe. This is, of course, a high degree of personal freedom given to players but it is likely to lead to a game universe that will not feel internally consistent, which in turn can have an unsatisfying effect on players. If we look at warhammer 40k, for instance, we can clearly see that, even though every race is pretty diverse from one another, they all suit the general tone of doom and gloom 40k is going for, of a universe on the brink of catastrophe. It's this internal consistency that's difficult to accomplish with a multitude of writers.
That’s my interpretation anyway, take it for what it’s worth from a guy who has actively participated in like one and a half NRP. Medieval ones at that.
I think its pretty well known that excessive nation-sheet building before the RP begins is a bad way to start. […]
I’m personally mildly indifferent towards this, I think there’s merit to brief and explicit sheets respectively. As MissingAxis pointed out, revealing information piecemeal during the story is a fun and engaging way of doing things, not only for NRPs. Also, a shorter sheet means quicker boot-up times and a faster launch of the RP overall, which is great for motivation.
On the other hand, it can be plain fun to go into all sorts of details, and the more aspects of a nation (which, let’s not forget, is a very complex, very internally varied thing) the player considers and makes up in advance, the more internally consistent and believable his nation will be. I think the more towards the “hard” end of sci-fi the story verges, the more need there is to explain details, the classic example being “But what do they eat and where does it come from?”. Ultimately, the amount of detail needed is dictated by the story (and its players).
Either way, I’ll be fine no matter which format you end up choosing.
Basically prevent players from making "Mary Sue"/OP/broken factions or species with absolutely no sense of realism.
A lot of people bring up powergaming so I guess the issue must be quite rampant. Maybe the few NRPs I’ve been in were very lucky, or didn’t run long enough, or I was too oblivious, but I have to admit I don’t have particularly nasty experiences in this regard. The same rules go for standard RPs, where mary sues and broken characters aren’t welcome either. As such I don’t really have much to add on the subject, sadly, other than that it obviously needs to be kept in check. Point-buy systems or the like are okay by me if deemed necessary. This actually segues into something from the end of the thread.
I think it would be beneficial to the whole NRP sub-forum community to develop some sort of 'universal' nation stat system that could be easily adapted to different genres/eras etc. Would any of you guys be up for working on something like that? (OP: sorry about derailing your thread further my friend!)
My experience with NRPs is somewhat limited but I love game design and RP in general, so if nothing else I’d love to observe that thread somewhere and, if wanted, add my two cents here and there. I entertained the idea of working on an NRP system of my own making for funsies anyway.
One NRP is completely jam-packed with giant space nations with clashing borders and millions of ships, and almost utopian/dystopian societies. What's the point if we're already there!?
Great point, never thought about it that way. It makes a lot of sense and I can’t add too much to it other than I agree from now on and think someone should try dialing it down in their NRP.
There was a large chunk in the middle where you folks were hashing out this or that detail about a point system focused on a small-scale NRP that takes place on a handful of planets with co-existing aliens. I got that right, yeah? Anyway I don’t really know how the game system there worked, personally I think having stuff like growth meters is too over the top, at least if the goal of your NRP is to tell a story. I’m all for games, making up systems for designing the shapes and components of individual space ships and tracking locational damage, but I acknowledge that it is a game at that point and not really a collaborative storytelling effort (of course there is some overlap). I guess, just like tone, the RP’s intended function is also something that should be clarified to begin with. Is the goal to tell a story first, and play a game second, or the other way around? Either way is valid, but they both change the way you approach the design of the rules.
If story comes first, then the rules should largely limit your starting situation (to equalize) and maybe govern military engagements (which are most prone to player disputes). Anything more than that, I think, just ends up working to the RP’s disadvantage by bogging the narration down.
If game comes first, well, go ham, make rules for everything :P
So yeah that was a bunch of babbling on my part, sorry to make you sit through it. To summarize, the point to take away from this is:
It is beneficial to determine both the intended tone (story genre, feel, emotion), as well as the intended purpose (game vs story) of the RP first, and structure the details around that afterwards.
