Advice/Help A bit of help with Nation Building RPs?

[Redfork2000]

Hello everyone! Some of you may have seen me around before, interacting with different users and discussing different topics. Well, today I wanted to ask about something that I find very interesting, but don't really know much about. You see, I'm very familiar with traditional, character-based roleplaying. It's what I've been doing for years. However, ever since I joined this site there's been one thing I don't really know much about, and that's Nation Building roleplays. These are one of the kinds of roleplays that appear as a possible prefix in the Group Interest Checks section.

I've never done a nation building RP before, but I definitely find the concept very interesting. The problem is that I don't know how they work, and the only information I've been able to find on this kind of roleplay so far is what is said about this kind of RPs in the Prefixes thread that's pinned to the top of the Group Interest Checks section. This is what it says:

" Nation Building - This is for nation-level roleplays, the sort that focus on countries rather than individuals. "

What I understand from this is that we RP countries instead of characters. Am I getting it correctly? So, would an RP of this type by like a history simulator of sorts, where we'd make a world and everyone RPs countries, and basically we have them develop and interact with each other like they would over the course of history? If I'm understanding it correctly, then the idea sounds very appealing. I've been watching videos from Alternate History Hub, and I've always had a certain interest in topics like history, geography and other similar topics that would come into play for such a roleplay, and I'd personally love to try a nation building RP where we can basically create a world and see civilizations develop, countries grow, and eventually create an entire lore and history around it all.

So, do you have any experience with Nation Building RPs? How do they usually work? Am I understanding correctly, or am I wrong? And if there's anyone who would like to help me in starting a roleplay of this kind, I'd be very happy. This is honestly a completely new area for me, but it's one I'd really like to give a try. So if anyone has any advice, or even better, would like to help me in making a roleplay like this, then I'll be very thankful.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this post, and for all the help and advice. Have a wonderful day, and happy roleplaying to you!

 

[Jannah]

I have dabbled in Nation RP a bit, but I definitely prefer the more character driven RP. Basically the idea is to choose a nation(or create one if you're doing a fictional world) and then play out diplomatic interactions and such.

 

[Lorsh]

I use the tag even for smaller scale RPs that just involve leading a faction of some kind, along with members/resources.

 

[Redfork2000]

I have dabbled in Nation RP a bit, but I definitely prefer the more character driven RP. Basically the idea is to choose a nation(or create one if you're doing a fictional world) and then play out diplomatic interactions and such.

I use the tag even for smaller scale RPs that just involve leading a faction of some kind, along with members/resources.

Interesting. And how do those RPs play out? I mean, with characters, one has them do things, talk to each other, but I'm intrigued as to how the RP is played. Does one narrate the events that happen in one's nation, perhaps highlighting a few characters who are significant in the country's government, for example? How is the pacing? Like, I imagine something like this would span over the course of ingame years and decades instead of hours and days.

 

[Jannah]

Interesting. And how do those RPs play out? I mean, with characters, one has them do things, talk to each other, but I'm intrigued as to how the RP is played. Does one narrate the events that happen in one's nation, perhaps highlighting a few characters who are significant in the country's government, for example? How is the pacing? Like, I imagine something like this would span over the course of ingame years and decades instead of hours and days.

Yes, you pretty much summed it up

 

[Beckoncall]

Redfork2000 :

I live and BREATHE nation builders. If you're curious and want to talk about them, I'd love to chat with you over DMs or on discord. I've run so many and a couple have been really successful.

I'm currently running a fantasy prehistoric nation builder called "dawn of man" if you want to check it out, or I can tell you about it. My best nation builder on this site was "Lost Continent: Flight from Muurdaan -- which lasted like three years or so!"

They are definitely worth doing if you can get the right people to be invested and keep the story going with you.

Even if you just wanted to see the discord server we have for the RPN forum game, I'd be happy to show you.

 

[AnnJam]

Interesting. And how do those RPs play out? I mean, with characters, one has them do things, talk to each other, but I'm intrigued as to how the RP is played. Does one narrate the events that happen in one's nation, perhaps highlighting a few characters who are significant in the country's government, for example? How is the pacing? Like, I imagine something like this would span over the course of ingame years and decades instead of hours and days.

The user Malphaestus explained it to me here. They said: "Effectively, it is a genre of roleplaying which involes the creation, and subsequent direction, of a nation, and their subjects. This usually, typically, manifests in the production of more text than usual." Also here is their example.

 

[Jannah]

I've done some Cold War era Nation RP's. It seems to be a popular era for this sort of thing since alliances and such are very clearly defined. Of course there's also room for creative liberties like alternate history type scenarios, depending on how the RP itself plays out.

 

[Redfork2000]

Redfork2000 :

I live and BREATHE nation builders. If you're curious and want to talk about them, I'd love to chat with you over DMs or on discord. I've run so many and a couple have been really successful.

I'm currently running a fantasy prehistoric nation builder called "dawn of man" if you want to check it out, or I can tell you about it. My best nation builder on this site was "Lost Continent: Flight from Muurdaan -- which lasted like three years or so!"

They are definitely worth doing if you can get the right people to be invested and keep the story going with you.

Even if you just wanted to see the discord server we have for the RPN forum game, I'd be happy to show you.

Oh, definitely! I'll PM you right away so we can discuss more about these. I'm interested in learning more about the topic, perhaps even starting one.

 

[Malphaestus]

Considering I was tagged, somehow, I might as well mention this in addition. There're several degrees to nation building types, that is to say some prefer to perform it as a game of sorts, whereas others, like myself, prefer to uphold the tradition as a more narrative process.

Games typically embody mechanics, do not focus as much on the narrative, and instead makes it more competitive. For whatever reason. Narratively, a nation builder is little more than a sandbox for people with excess creativity to excessively create. It demands communication, and roleplay-coordination, in addition to excess dedication. These are some of the most demanding roleplays, from my perspective anyway, that a roleplayer can engage themselves in. Mainly due to the high writing demand, and the high creativity demand, involved in their production. Making them some of the more succeptible roleplaying types to ghosting and quick heat-death.

 

[Redfork2000]

Considering I was tagged, somehow, I might as well mention this in addition. There're several degrees to nation building types, that is to say some prefer to perform it as a game of sorts, whereas others, like myself, prefer to uphold the tradition as a more narrative process.

Games typically embody mechanics, do not focus as much on the narrative, and instead makes it more competitive. For whatever reason. Narratively, a nation builder is little more than a sandbox for people with excess creativity to excessively create. It demands communication, and roleplay-coordination, in addition to excess dedication. These are some of the most demanding roleplays, from my perspective anyway, that a roleplayer can engage themselves in. Mainly due to the high writing demand, and the high creativity demand, involved in their production.

Oh yes, sorry about that. I was trying to reply to someone else's post. Maybe I did something wrong? Anyway, thank you for the information. I saw the example, and definitely, I see that it's much more demanding than a character-based RP. I imagine a game style nation builder would play out perhaps a bit more like say, Age of Empires or Civilization, where it's about resource management and defeating the other nations? While that definitely sounds like, I do think I would prefer trying the narrative style instead.

Do you have any tips for someone who wants to introduce themselves to Nation Building RPs for the first time?

 

[Redfork2000]

Oh yes, sorry about that. I was trying to reply to someone else's post. Maybe I did something wrong? Anyway, thank you for the information. I saw the example, and definitely, I see that it's much more demanding than a character-based RP. I imagine a game style nation builder would play out perhaps a bit more like say, Age of Empires or Civilization, where it's about resource management and defeating the other nations? While that definitely sounds like, I do think I would prefer trying the narrative style instead.

Do you have any tips for someone who wants to introduce themselves to Nation Building RPs for the first time?

Wait, never mind, I think I know what happened. Someone else mentioned what you said on another thread, linking to that reply. Perhaps that's how you got tagged here.

 

[Malphaestus]

Oh yes, sorry about that. I was trying to reply to someone else's post. Maybe I did something wrong? Anyway, thank you for the information. I saw the example, and definitely, I see that it's much more demanding than a character-based RP. I imagine a game style nation builder would play out perhaps a bit more like say, Age of Empires or Civilization, where it's about resource management and defeating the other nations? While that definitely sounds like, I do think I would prefer trying the narrative style instead.

Do you have any tips for someone who wants to introduce themselves to Nation Building RPs for the first time?

It was not you.

I wrote a moderately okay guide to it on the same site AnnJam quoted me from: here.

 

[Crayons]

I was in a Sandbox RP for a long while which was a nation builder/character RP hybrid, and it was my first (so far only) RP where I have engaged in nation building. The actual *building* was pretty fun, but the nation on nation RP was ugh in so many ways. So I don't know if this is usual but here are some things to watch out for:

Nation vs Nation: A hot mess. If two moderately equal nations went against each other this always ended in violent OOC conflict and/or all the power gamers jumping into the war and refusing to back down if defeated. They were all willy measuring contests like player vs player on PCP.

Big Nation vs Small Nation: There was a point system so that nations with more characters had more NPCs that they could use to build armies/navies/etc. Which meant that the older nations could gobble up the smaller newer nations whenever they wanted just by invoking NPC points and turning up and shitting in their sandpit.

Nation on Nation Politics: No one can play politics like ... actual politics. All of these scenarios were tedious wastes of RP time punctuated by one of the delegates or the host doing some ridiculous thing "just to stir things up a bit" like I dunno, proposing a peaceful alliance and then murdering someone for show at the dinner table. How about stirring things up by actually playing politics well? There would be plenty of conflict that way, but no.

Nation on Nation Trade: Would have been fine except for a) the big nations forcing "trade" on everyone like the British Empire. b) all nations being constructed as though they were self-sufficient so having no reason to trade.

Essentially it took everything bad about power gaming and just amplified it to extreme proportions while adding nothing. The RP within nations was much more fun and much more coherent. I had some fun playing politics with a couple of players within my nation but this just didn't seem to happen internationally.

I don't know if these things are endemic to nation builders in general or if the RP I was in happened to just be composed of very immature people. But thats my experience, hope you enjoy. XD