Advice/Help What exactly is Nation Building?

[Fluxbauble]

The title is the question itself. After going through and reading roughly 2 or 3 of the threads listed in nation building I'm not quite sure I understand it. Is it roleplaying as entire nations or is it world building? From what I've read I lean towards the idea that it's players roleplaying as entire nations, but some of the context in the posts seem more like large scale world building plots than actual roleplay posts. Perhaps because I've never attempted to roleplay an entire nation before that's why I can't seem to comprehend this?

Any help in understanding this more is greatly appreciated as it sounds interesting, but I'm sort of a look before you leap sort of guy.

 

[Idea]

Take what I say with a grain of salt seeing how I myself am not an avid nation building roleplayer. However, generally speaking, a nation building roleplay is a roleplay in which one takes as a character not an individual but a nation, world, or other larger group too large to be handled as simple individuals. Your confusion may be the resul of, due to the increased scale of the actors, many nation building roleplays spanning as much more vast period of time and space in terms of action and their presence. It may seem like worldbuilding because the characterization is done through worldbuilding since an element of the world is being characterized, it may seem like worldbuilding because said element is what is taking the actions as opposed to the more narrow focus on individuals.

Hope this post is useful! Good luck and happy RPing!

 

[Beckoncall]

It's merely RPing whole groups of people (from dozens to thousands or more) instead of a single or few main characters. Personalities and leaders may emerge, but events are things like "Russia opens trade with Britain" or "The elves go to war with the halflings" -- I would love to talk about nation building with you, and I have a very old and successful nation building roleplay as an example if you want to look...

"Lost Continent: Flight From Muurdaan" (BeckonCall's FNB!)

Or of course you can just look at the nation building threads. If you're curious about them I would love to answer any questions you might have!