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The Red Sands New Players Guide

Zarfef

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Zarfef Newbie

Zarfef

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RED SANDS NEW PLAYERS GUIDE

An Aid to new Players in Fantasy RP

The following is a work in progress that I have built over the last several days. It needs a lot of work, as in ALOT of work and can hardly be considered a conclusive end all guide. But I built it up because I believe it needed to be done and even if this great wall of text needs a few more bricks, or perhaps a few less, then it should be endevoured upon to achieve that end.

That stated, upon posting completion (I'll add a done tag at the end), please feel free to add comments about any of the sections additions or otherwise that you believe should be added and I'll do my best to edit and post the newer modified versions in the future as I get time. (You may be asked to update your post with an edit though to make it continuous :P)

If you are a new player, please don't be intimidated by this massive wall of text, nor take it as a definitive guide. It is simply one RPers guide trying to help another, so perhaps it simply the blind trying to lead the blind. Instead, take it as a reference in case you are ever confused on some RP (Role Play) term or ettiquite you don't quite understand. We all know it isn't easy being a new player, so this was meant to help without placing you in the awkward situation of having to ask or wait for us to respond.

Ultimately though, if you do have specific questions, feel free to jump on IRC to #Red_Sands or probobly a better location #CNRP, there are role-players there that would love to help you out with your questions to the best of our knowledge.

Have fun RPing!

-Zarfef

CHAPTERS

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Terminology

It is ironic the sheer volume of terminology that goes along with a role-playing game like this. Really, given the great walls of text we role players write, it is amazing to think that we'll go out of our way to save a teaspoon of space to write RP instead of role-play. All the same, if you understand the meanings of some of these acronyms and some other words often found, then it will greatly reduce the difficulties you experience when reading the game and adds some laziness to your long rants that will surely come later on.

At the same time, it is generally a good idea to learn these terms in context, referring to this common dictionary as you come across the terms.

CN (Cybernations) : The game we are currently playing outside of role-playing. The one where you interact with alliances, do trades ect.

Canon: The set of events that are agreed to have happened within the current game storyline by all players in the game. An event that is likely too extreme or cannot happen within game runs the risk of being considered non-cannon in which case players will continue on as though the event never happened. This is very frustrating, so most players try to stick within the realm of canon role-play. (Alternatively if done too much (Considering someone's work non-canon), there is the risk of general lack of respect where both sides refuse to recognize the events of the other.)

CNRP (Cybernations Role-Play) : An acronym phrase for the fantasy role-play forums on the board. This is a world completely separate from the that of game politics, alliances or anything like that, there is nothing in this thread regarding real history or the history of the game players themselves. In other words, the Soviet Union never existed or fell for that matter and enemies from the Karma war play even during their war as though it never existed.

This is where you play as your characters and control a nation that is based off your in-game nation but whose history and existence is generally a separate matter. It is the place to which this was made for.

Continuity: One of the critical elements of role-play, continuity represents that all events within the RP represent a causal reality. In other words, if one event occurs, it will directly effect future events in a logical manner. A GOOD RP portrays excellent continuity with all events having some logical source in the past. An RP with bad continuity can have events popping out of no where, but the player just envisioned them to have happened in their heads and even multiple time-lines depending upon who is posting! It is impossible in a large RP to keep perfect continuity, but we should always try to keep the best continuity that we can without negatively impacting the fun for all role-players.

Deus Ex Machina: This is latin for "god in the machine" which essentially refers to a typical meme where all things are against your character when suddenly the calvary shows up and saves them when they normally would have been dead or something suddenly breaks causing the enemies master weapon to be destroyed. Avoid this, too many players have used it and really there is no evidence that the divine support your nation in CNRP :P.

DoE (Declaration of Existance) : This is a courtesy thing that generally represents the first thread that states the nation exists. Unless you're a really good role-player this is generally nothing fancy, it is a way for you to say "hi, this is my nation name, we'll be playing together in the future". To this, most players will respond in-character saying hi back... or threatening to blow you off the face of the planet depending on how it is done.

DoW (Declaration of War) : Hopefully you don't see this aimed at your nation right off the bat, it means that someone has declared war on someone else and if it's your countries name, that generally isn't a good thing. Of course, it isn't bad either, a well-played war is better then a wimpy peace... I'll talk more about war later on.

Factbook: A thread, generally considered private and restricted in posting to the starting nation itself, that has information similar to an encyclopedia article regarding the said nation and its various properties and primary characters. A very valuable resource to make and to look at when role-playing with other players.

FTW (For the win): A positive phrase meaning that post was particularly epic or cool, the opposite of "FAIL".

GM (Game Master) : No, this isn't another way of saying god-mod, these are judges whose primary purpose is to make sure that the game is flowing in an enjoyable manner for everyone. When called upon, they can try to make unbiased decisions on certain situations and keep thing civil but for the most part in the fantasy role-play they tend to let the players work this out on their own. If things start getting uncivil though, don't be surprised if one steps in.

god-mod: This is when a player role-plays or writes out the way another player acts with characters or any element of their roleplay. It is considered very bad etiquette because the response (no matter how deeply you believe they will act some way) is strictly the right of the player owning the responder. Items considered property of the user include all players and characters within their nation and organization and that nations military and other functions.

IC (in character) : This represents your actions as a character in the game given the way you defined and play them. They act, exist and go about their lives as though they had no knowledge of anything more then they possibly could given their in-game and in-character circumstances. The personalities, abilities and tendencies of any in-game objects are strictly limited to the domain of fantasy role-play and can make use of no outside justification biases of the player from history or otherwise. Your dislike of a certain group, or historical political party or another player can have no bearing on the origin of their nature as such things are outside the domain of fantasy role-play.

IG (in game) : That which relates to cybernations your game nation specifically. In other words, things like your daily income, your national population, your military defense and standing armies ect. It is worth noting that you can neither role-play any amount of forces you want nor can you limited to the exact numbers present in your stats themselves. There is some lee-way as to how these are played out, but things such as tanks, troops, planes, cruise-missiles, tech levels and nuclear weapons all have very specific rules relating to them as listed in the world map thread, stickied at the top of the role-play forums:

It is important to review these rules and devote them to memory, especially reviewing them at the time of any military action. It is key to note that, at the time of the writing of this document, things like troop levels and tanks are limited to the GREATEST amount you CAN HAVE. While things like cruise missiles and fighter planes are the amount YOU HAVE, not CAN HAVE. Also, in technology, there is apparently a certain amount of tech snobbery where some players believe that a nation with less then about 100 tech should role-play with only 1960s-1970s technology (Or even 1940s O_O). As a small nation, this will be a difficult challenge as you will be doing tech deals constantly to build up infrastructure until all of a sudden your nation explodes in tech.

For this reason I recommend the following phrase (and you should back up your works with research from at least 3 internet resources generally): Everything that is being done has already BEEN done by the greatest generation that ever lived, the Baby Boomers.

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) : For some (seemingly) strange reason, everyone on cyber nations likes to use IRC, its a means of having out of character chats with other players. You can hop on by going to coldfront.net and joining IRC chat. For fantasy role-play, the main place to hang out is #CNRP. You can enter by typing /j #CNRP, although it would probably be a good idea to register your nickname and use a program like MIRC first.

MAP (Mutual Aggression Pact) : If any nations are part of a mutual aggression pact, than this means that if one of them attacks another nation, the other nation agrees to attack them too or in some cases has the right to attack them. This is generally more rare then a mutual defense pact because defense implies that the other nation is not the aggressor, while this suggests they must join a fight that the other player decides to start.

meta-gaming: When a player uses information that is noted in narrative or OOC material that wouldn't normally be known to them save that it was written out. This is another major no-no in role-play etiquette as it implies that you are using good role-play narrative and information provided by the player to dictate your moves in order to gain some kind advantage in character.

MDP (Mutual Defense Pact) : If any nations are part of a mutual defense pact, then that means that if any nation attacks any nation within this pact, all other nations in the pact will join them to defend and perhaps even launch attacks into the aggressor nation. However, if the aggressor nation starts the war, this does not imply that must join the battle but does not imply that they cannot.

OOC (Out of character): That which relates to you the author and your world, the real world (it does exist and yes the sky is blue).

protectorate: A protectorate is a grey zone denoted on the world map and corresponds to territory that is owned by another nation, but can be claimed by new players. The general rule is that you must contact the person owning the protectoratefirst in order to request permission to RP there, you don't have to describe what type of nation you're RPing or anything else, nor is it supposed to be a form of OOC favor to inspire IC support of their nation, it is simply a courtesy to make sure that someone else isn't already claiming the land and suddenly two trains of IC storylines crash like a massive wreck.

Protectorates also serve as a means of larger older nations securing land to avoid land hogs eating up all available territory such that new players have a hard time joining.

Rage-Quit: Rage-quitting is when a player, upon facing some set of IC or OOC behavior they found intolerable within the game, decides to go out with a "bang" by RPing a full out insane action that results in their destruction (or likely destruction) on their way to quitting the game. As a new player, there will be times you are frustrated, however, you're not alone and many players want to support you in RPing. Don't rage quit, instead seek a more positive solution to your problems as you see them. Doing this will only result in an event that will likely not be recognized in the role-play and will stain your future hopes of returning to the role-play in the future once the anger has worn off.

RP (Role Play): The act of playing out the part of a fictional character separate from our reality with other fictional characters or in our case armies and nations and everything else having to do with international affairs. RP consists of the set of all events described by in character moves and contains nothing of the out of character world.

Wall of Text: This post. A really long post.

White Space: Territories on the map you can claim WITHOUT asking anyone, do check that they are still white space at the end of the map thread though so that you're not accidentally grabbing someone's land which will lead to some head butting.

This concludes a GENERAL list of terms, now there are many others, especially in the military world where we have several major military leaders that believe that every other person has a doctorate degree in military strategy, but for the most part, if you know these terms (or look them up if you run into them when you don't understand them) you should be fairly well off.

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Rules, IG Stats and RP Etiquette

As with any game, it is important to understand the rules in role-playing on CNRP (check out the above section if you're curious on any acronyms used here, it's good practice). Further, like any other reality, there are written rules and un-written rules, of the latter not even I know all, but I am going to do my best to distill these here so that you can best come to grips with how the game works. While even the best

Obey All Forum Rules

This is more then just about etiquette, this is about keeping yourself in the game. If you break forum rules, you will get warnings. If you get sufficient warnings, then you will be banned from the forums and can't use them anymore. In RPing, the most prevalent forum rules I can think of would be trying to stop the auto-curse blocker function on accident or using too much OOC within an IC forum (which can be labeled as spam ect.).

The first can be avoided by just plain out not using any curse words, or if you use one don't try to block only part of it, just let the filters do their jobs. The latter involves not making lots of frivolous OOC comments within the Fantasy RP boards. Overall though, these are hardly the only rules, please review them all at:

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?act=boardrules

Avoiding OOC Chatter

Besides being a rule if you over-use it. Avoiding OOC or comments from you as a person and not from your characters or nation represents a courtesy thing as well. You may be surprised just how many people not DIRECTLY involved in your region or RP event really want to read what you are writing, or what someone else is writing... thus OOC acts as a form of commercial break, it happens but no one wants it. The more OOC, its like more commercials and at a certain point the enjoyability factor is lost. That is why, if you're going to start a long conversation as players in a manner that is out of character, do so in the OOC forums:

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showforum=72

(Under open national RP)

And always remember to speak courteously and treat your fellow RPers with respect.

Steering Clear of the IC/OOC Line

When you're fighting a war or even role-playing the most simple of events, it often comes to be that you'll find your viewpoint of what another player can do or would do in conflict with others. Conflicts of out of character opinion happen. Conflicts of in characters events also happen. All the same, realize that this is a game, which means that you should never act in an unsportsmanly manner towards any other player in the game. Remember, the players they play in game do not represent their personalities in life and vice versa. Hating their actions towards you in the real world is no excuse to hate them in the role-play and hating them in the role-play is never an excuse for hating them as people out of character. Your characters may declare to wipe the others off the face of the Earth, but you should always both strive to be the best of friends out of character.

Actually, because we're all trying to be good role-players here, we should ALL try to show some level of good sportsmanship and respect each other as friends to one degree or another.

Requesting Protectorates

Protectorates are interesting areas of land. They represent the light grey space on the world map which is technically owned by nations, but is available for new role-players. Theoretically speaking, if you are looking for land you either have to find that rare white space or ask for a protectorate.

This is okay, and for that matter, asking for a protectorate doesn't mean that you even have to be on friendly relations with your neighbors in the game. Generally though, from above we should remember that the OOC/IC line should never be crossed. Being enemies with your neighbor doesn't mean your enemies with the player RPing that neighbor.

Thus, it is the common etiquette and a requirement to ask the nation whose protectorate the region is for the ability to RP the start of your nation there. Once you get permission to do so, then you can get started on that whole creating your nation thing (see below).

If you don't get your protectorate, hopefully that doesn't mean they themselves are crossing the OOC/IC line (in which case THEY are the ones acting in a bad nature) but it might just be because they are planning on restarting their nation there soon because someone else is about to wipe their current nation off the face of Bob (the name of our planet).

In fact, if you are planning on requesting a protectorate, I suggest making a request in the very definition of vague IC wise while remaining polite OOC wise. Feel free to use this example with some modifications:

Dear XYZ Player:

My name is XYZ PlayerB and I would like to ask for permission to RP in one of your procterates located at STATE LOCATION HERE. I am excited about this opportunity to RP near your border and I hope that we will have many exciting tales to tell as a result of my joining the RP community.

Thank you,

XYZ PlayerB

Note that lawyer-script wise, that paragraph says nothing, NOTHING about how your nation will be. But it still keeps a kind OOC demeanor that is hard to turn down, how COULD this person be planning a nasty evil nation of doom?

Avoiding God-Modding

God-modding? What is it and why is it so bad? Well from above:

This is when a player role-plays or writes out the way another player acts with characters or any element of their roleplay.

So imagine that you're walking your main character down a road and all of a sudden that dastardly foe of yours shows up on the right hand road. God-modding would occur if he were to state in his post that you suddenly ran away down the other path because you were vastly out-numbered so you fell into his other trap there, when in reality (because your character is more of the crazy risk taker) they would have charged them head on or jumped down the cliff to make a break for it.

No matter how god-modding is done it takes away control from the other player by directly using one's post and once it happens to you, you really feel ticked off. It's like someone setting you up in a game of chess and they are sure you will act in a certain way, so they move your piece for you, all the long assuming that their plans are so perfect that you didn't notice the fallacy sitting right there from your perspective.

That stated, never god-mod and when you post only move your characters in an incremental manner, so that you grant the other player a sufficient opportunity to respond. Generally, in direct contact, this involves only role-playing a single action or so while in longer events where you are not expecting contact, you can generally post a few more. Overall though, always leave your wording open to their interactions and interjection before or even during your posts. That way, they never feel like you're trying to control them.

OOC Check Killing all Repeat Use Named Characters

When you kill a character, you kill a story. Characters which are named have special significance in RP generally, especially if they exist in multiple posts. They likely have planned futures and interactions that are crucial for a players RP. Nations rebuild from war, but the destruction of a single main character can devastate an RP.

Thus, when RPing a nasty event that happens to another character, at worst (even with full control) injure them in a way that can heal. But in the long term (e.g. permanently wounding or killing them) you should always ask OOC if it is alright to do so.

Avoiding Meta-Gaming

Meta gaming is defined as follows:

When a player uses information that is noted in narrative or OOC material that wouldn't normally be known to them save that it was written out.

So you've noted some top-secret piece of information in an OOC post or you've role-played out how your plans are going in a classified thread and then some other player you're up against all of a sudden acts like that was their cue to use it as if they knew it all along to defeat you. They can do this either as though their actions were by accident or as if they used some technology to acquire the information. Good role-playing isn't an excuse for other players to use your role-playing against you. If you note something as private (Or it seems obvious that it should be private) then it should always be treated as such.

(mark your classified data with ****CLASSIFIED**** at the top if you want it to remain free from other players Meta-Gaming (it's a good reminder to them you're looking for them to do such a thing and you won't stand for it)). Even still, if you don't want ANYONE to know about it in the fear that they might subconciously meta-game, it's generally a good idea to take the following route. Define out the plan and then (if you want to make sure that they don't claim your just making it up as you go to beat them) send it to an RP moderator in CNRP to hold until need be in case any questions come up.

This will prove that the information was planned out before they came to that point showing that you're characters were acting with pre-planned strategy and not deus ex machina style junk pulled from the sky.

Respecting the Moves of other Players

This should essentially be a matter of not crossing the OOC/IC line. But when things get particularly annoying or bad, often times players will claim that they just plain out refuse to accept the actions of the other players RP. In other words, they will just continue to act as though their posts never happened. This not only results in a lack of continuity, but it also ticks off the other player more to the point where the RP essentially falls apart.

Alternatively, this can refer to a player who simply acts like every move made by the other RPer is a trivial worthless effort that has no effect on their masterful tactics. This is perhaps worse because it devalues the RP characters of another player and if you take it to mean that it is role-playing how their machines work in comparison to the others by downplaying the mechanics of their posts, then it is almost borderline god-modding. Instead, role-play as though your enemy were cunning and powerful and your RP will be more enjoyable and more respect will be given to your posts when you post yours.

Keeping your IC Nation Within IG bounds

When you role-play out how powerful your nation is, it is generally a temptation to role-play the most powerful nation you can. I mean, powerful nations are fun to role-play. However, there are limits to your power set up to avoid power-gamers (players who simply set all their stats to max). In particular, nations are limited by their in-game statistics with certain multiplier or class effects to determine the limits of their abilities.

All the same, don't let these limits worry you. Even the weakest of nations has the ability to role-play ALOT fast. And while this leaves larger nations feeling as though they are invincible, also remember they hardly are. They may have 30 years of technology over you, but 30 years isn't really all that much if you think about it... we haven't even been back to the MOON in 30 years!

So, while you role-play always keep to within those stats and your actions are far more likely to be recognized. When talking about tech, players especially have the tendency to believe that everything that has been done was done in the last 10 years, but fail to remember that most of our major cold-war spending was done... during the cold war. So with a few good internet sources and a scientific argument, you can generally RP a lot of cool stuff, even with lower technology.

Remember: Everything that has been done has been done by the baby-boomers.

Link to RP Guidelines: http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=66057

Set Limits on Your Actions BEFORE Rping

This is a key point for avoiding making your RP posts seem like you just pulled junk out of the air. Sure, you may be able to figure out a cool gizmo or feel a sneak attack sure would have been great when you enemy launches that really good attack on your nation, but don't post it! Why? Because your characters never thought of it in the past and if they never thought of it in the past that means that you never had the opportunity to do it... and given that the event likely would have been secret, for them to realize this in the past most likely would have represented meta-gaming.

Thus, when your characters go on a journey, or your armies go into battle, plan what you will do ahead of time and act as though the only real-time variations you can do are only with what you can do at that point in time when you find out about it. You may even write down the supplies you're bringing in the first post to force yourself to a set list.

To this end, this is just why weapons such as air-planes, radio and cruise missiles are so valuable. They can be called in to interact quickly (generally within minutes or hours) so when you can get these devices, it is generally a good idea to have some on hand.

Stay with a Consistent and Clear Form for Writing out your RP Moves

When you roleplay, there is a lot going on. Players are talking, tanks are moving and messages are being sent to people around the planet and secret codes are being sent. HOW DOES ONE MAKE ALL OF THAT EASY TO READ!

Well, the answer is that one should always RP with various formats in a consistant manner to represent certain events.

For instance,

I use bold to represent text from a talking player

Zarfef: I will own the world!

I use italics to represent strict military actions

The Aether Empire War Tzars flipped over to long rang bombardment mode and began launching attacks against the enemies as they moved into the mountain region.

I use plain text for narrative

Thus, with the advent of new research centers, the Aether Empire continued their pursuit of knowledge, aiding the dark plans of Zarfef and his evil organization.

I use Quote tags for messages sent to the world, or to other fellow leaders as if I was using a text message in a letter or electronic document.

The Aether Empire welcomes the empire reading this document to the world, we hope you will help us in taking over this blue planet.

Or I may even use codebox tags for noting classified or top secret messages sent in my nation or to other nations that I don't want other leaders to learn about.

Prepare the cruise missiles to destroy ALL of Ellasia! I've dealt with that madman Rei Juuryoku long enough!

-NOTE with codebox, make sure to use enter when you want a new line... otherwise, CN will not automatically text-wrap.

You could of course, use my style and it would be most honoring, but then again, I just stole my style from other players before this. So it really wouldn't be "mine". What matters though is that you form a consistent style and try to use various elements to make your posts visually appealing as they are appealing in word.

IG Stats are no Excuse For Acting Like a Jerk

Let's say you're one of the largest nations on the map. Cool. That's really great, but that doesn't mean that you should use your power to step on tiny nations as you see fit simply because IG stats warrant that you can. Smaller nations are generally new players, and when you beat up a new player you're just plain being mean and pushing new RP'ers out the game. If you're going to have a war with a much smaller nation then you, at least have the courtesy to offer them the chance to OOC work out how the war will go ahead of time before role-playing it and if they seem like they can't handle it, just find something else better to do. There are plenty of big nations to go to war with, so you don't have to go picking on the little guy (everyone roots them on anyways).

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE

The most important rule is this. When you god-mod or meta-game or break RP rules so that you can gain something IC, you're the one the loses the most. RP is a strange kind of competive sport, it isn't all about winning, in fact, it has very little to do with winning. Instead, it is a battle against your own self, to show enough discipline and self reserve to act against your own drive for power out of character in order to produce a better world in character. When you violate these rules, you not only make it a bad experience for your fellow RPers (who will slowly isolate you and leave you to write stories no one will read) but you also lose to yourself, because you never could achieve what you were without cheating and that is worse then failure.

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Forming your Nation

Ok, welcome to CNRP, you have an IG nation and now you want to roleplay how it would interact if placed next to other nations on a real world globe. But how do you start?

Find your Nation

First, check the global map:

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=66057

Go towards the final pages of this map and look for the latest version which should be done on a somewhat regular basis.

Request your Nation

White space on the map represents land you can claim instantly, if you see it and want it, you can make a post on the global map thread (the one I linked) stating your claim and if you can, post a pic of the region with your border shown.

Grey space represents protectorate regions, which must be requested (See my Requesting Protectorate section under Rules, IG Stats and RP Etiquette). Don't be afraid to request protectorate territories, these are simply procterates because the other players don't want land hogs (players that just claim tons and tons of land) coming in and claiming everything that is white.

If you already have land, it is unlikely you will get a protectorate. But if you are creating or starting a new nation, then you are very likely to get it if you ask nicely. (Do this via the Forum PM function after you do a quick forum search for the country that owns the protectorate to find the player that owns the country)

Once permission has been granted go about making your request as though the location were white space on the global map thread.

Declare your Nation

Once you have permission to RP in that location and have posted in the global map thread, start a thread in the Fantasy Role-Play forums with a title like this:

DoE: My Nation Name (Cool Phrase for begins)

The DoE represents the phrase Declaration of Existence, which states that your nation exists.

inside of the thread that you are creating, you should role-play out how your nation came to be. This represents the history of your nation prior to it existing and you can role-play it however you like. Frankly, no one can keep track of all prior history in the RP so you may as well act like they are your people and starting out from scratch without reference to the previous nations history there.

Overall though, it is common practice to have your role-play here contain at least one segment that represents your nation declaration of existence as though it were a television news broadcast so that other nations can recognize it.

If you role-play anything other then America in another form though, you might just want to keep that aspect of your nation silent for the first post and then RP it later on without necessarily stating it directly until you manage to find other nations of like manner and grab some alliances with them.

Find Friends

Once you form your nation. MAKE FRIENDS! Nothing feels worse then RPing alone, it's plain boring. Interact, no matter what your nation has to do, but let the world know you exist!

Of course, it's generally best to make allies and not enemies. If you're planning on transforming the world into a peaceful place of happiness and goodness, you'll likely have an easier time finding allies (there are a lot of good guys in the world). But bad guys need friends too. There are many nations that are neutral too mind you, but if you do stand towards the dark side watch your words carefully in the public sphere and seek out those who can help hone your dark traits...

Not that I would be one to advertise my organization, but generally one such organization is that of the Red Sands. So if you're planning on playing off an evil nation of doom you may think about contacting some of our members and we might at least be able to give you some pointers.

Create a Factbook

Once you've gotten into the hang of playing the game for a little bit, you may want to create a factbook.

A factbook is essentially a thread within the OOC forums that has your national information in it in condensed form.

It is a place that tells a short version of your history (possibly with links to various things like wars and what not), your current government and national stats and describes various elements within your military like the weapons use or how many tanks you have ect. However, when you write down this information, make sure to organize it well so that you and others can easily find each section and move to the region that most influences the RP.

Overall, it's a place that other players can quickly go if they want to quickly find out information about your nation in a short period of time or that you can go to in order to reference information you have about your nation.

Have FUN!

Most of all, this is the most important part! HAVE FUN! I look forward to role-playing with you and welcome you now to the world! Good luck in all of your future plans! ^_^

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Forming your Characters

YOU ARE IMPORTANT!

Ok, so maybe you're not. Or you THINK you're not which is more likely. But at least you play an internet leader taking part in a an online nation simulation... I mean, in that regards you're kind of a big deal! The characters and personalities you use to play out this world add the greatest flavor to RPing.

Describing your military practices or genius economic plans is cool, but can it can also be as boring as reading an advanced journal article. That's why we need players on the ground, to both portray the story as it happens to people we can relate to and to provide actions to show how individuals that we role-play influence the history of the WORLD.

In fact, the actions your characters take are perhaps of greater importance then the actions your nations take. That is why designing a good character is very important and you may even consider writing down their information in a factbook.

The basic structure for writing out IC information for characters can be summarized as follows, a stolen random character fact sheet:

Name:

Gender:

Age:

Appearance:

Personality:

History:

At the beginning of the story, you should be able to fill out all of the information included within this sheet. Your character may change with time (and they will likely age slower then your nation... which is weird but meh).

Ultimately each component is very important as they tell a fellow RPer what social norms they should be expected to use when around them or somewhat how to react.

Beyond this, it gives an origin, a reason for their pursuits in the world of power and how they came to achieve that power. That is to say that a character and their history represent an important part of keeping continuity.

You shouldn't just limit yourself to one character either. As you RP more, you'll gain an assortment of characters, each with unique personalities which act out different behaviors depending on the situation. However, while creating characters, you shouldn't use too many either. Characters aren't means of ganging up on players with only one character (who will end up looking like they can use the inverse ninjitsu law anyways by the time it's done - ask Generallisimo).

What's also critical is that your players act real. You may be able to think out logical brilliant conclusions, but can your character? They certainly can't react as though they know each other's thoughts nor are they driven by the same needs.

In the end, it is FAR harder to role-play multiple characters then about anything else. Every time you write out a new post, you are forced to think from their perspective and use only the knowledge and influences they have. Finally, every character should have a unique highly diverse nature that makes them unique so that you don't just RP a bunch of clones.

RP them well though and you won't just play a single character, you'll describe an entire community of friends, enemies, allies and traitors... every form of element you can imagine (and that would be a great RP to read).

WARNING: When you RP, you may find that a certain character resonates as you, and that you become particularly attached or emotionally connected with the character. It sounds weird, but it is true. If so, if you're starting to feel really down and a bunch of bad things are happening to that character and you know there is a link, you may want to ask the role-players as individuals to lay off them for a while so you can bring yourself back up. Role-playing should always be fun and should never act as a negative or depressing component of your life. But like listening to too much sad music, it can influence your emotions, play a happy song once in a while!

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Edited by Zarfef
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Zarfef Newbie

Zarfef

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Zarfef's AirLand Battle Tactics (War)

So let's face it. War happens.

That stated, this is about running a good war RP, because making war is great even if you're on the losing end. Losing a war can be an excellent source of great role-play material. It can cause paradigm shifts that turn raging war-lovers into peace-loving flower children. It can embitter and break the whole and perhaps mend the broken. It can take your characters to places they have never been before more then anything else... if they survive the event...

On a national scale, losing a war can mean a major shift in strategy and a change in tactics. It can mean a major change in the value of military spending, or take out democracies and replace them with dictatorships, bring about new crime rings or define new economic structures.

Ultimately though, war is about change and it causes ALOT of it.

To that extent, there are two types of RP that go with warfare

Large Scale Warfare

Large scale warfare has to do with the movement of thousands of troops, hundreds of tanks and all kinds of events that take place on... well the large scale. This can be finely detailed mind you and you can work out who squads are organized or how your strategies are implemented (I recommend reading some strategy warfare books if you want to RP this alot) even down to individual air-strikes and critical ambushes. They describe battles, but they almost never describe individual people. (Mind you, if they are TOO complex or badly written though, these posts won't be fun to read, so do try to make your posts somewhat enjoyable)

These events are devoid really of most emotions and your reactions and the reactions of your opponent should revolve around the viability of what has been stated and you should recede losses when it is expected. No matter how big your nation may be, a good strategy can tear your men apart by the thousand if implemented correctly. Thus, despite the advantages that first world nations do have on many levels, they cannot begin to make up for good strategy with fancy descriptions of advanced technology and swarms of troops.

This implies that both sides should always do their strategic best and freely admit casualties were casualties are to be lost.

As nations have actual IC troop, tank and plane numbers, you should also RP their losses with real number estimates as well. Although, due to the fog of war, the enemy can never truely know just how many enemy soldiers he has killed. The rules for these are, as before, listed in the world map thread:

*Your in-game (your actual CyberNations nation) citizen count will be multiplied by one hundred (100), and the subsequent number can be your CNRP (CyberNations Roleplaying) citizen count. As long as it isn't bat!@#$ insane, you can go with other numbers.

*For soldier and tank counts, multiply max soldiers x10 and take tanks as the max tanks you can have.

*Your in-game tech (technology) level is directly used in CNRP. See below for technology guidelines.

*Your in-game navy is directly used in CNRP. Meaning, whatever you have IG = whatever you have in RP.

*Your in-game air force is counted as your CNRP airforce. However, once you become a "developed" nation, one plane may count as one squadron.

*The amount of nukes (warheads) you have is equal to your in game level of warheads. Everyone with standard nukes has fission bombs(max 500kt) Weapons research complexes give you hydrogen bombs (keep them within reason not tens of megaton warheads), and neutron weapons. This decision was reached by consulting with the GMs and at their urging.

*Also, large Fuel air explosive bombs, chemical weapons, large EMP weapons, and biological weapons are capped at 50 and equal to the number of CMs you have in game.

*You cannot arm your citizens and have them fight a war. It does not matter if you give them full time military training and automatic weapon, the maximum number of armed people you can field in a war is determined by your soldier count.

As far as actually winning the war however, having a big nation helps (but as stated it is nothing compared to strategy). But there are other things I have noted as well.

For instance, for winning a war, it is generally a good idea to have close friends you can depend upon. Numbers aside, I have ironically noted that nations with more people to RP for them tend to do better (their OOC wars go better, they convene and brainstorm better, the can work in unison and produce more complicated advanced strategies that the enemy with fewer players has a harder time RPing against). Wrong or right, it just tends to be how things go for military affairs as far as I've seen.

Also, no matter what the odds, believe that you can win. If your commanders don't believe they can win, the fastest way to end a war is to lose it. But if you believe (even though believing may seem stupid) in the face of all odds you'll continue to remain a terrible threat on the battle field and eventually (with time) you will repel the attackers or succeed. Those who win the battle are those who are still there standing after everyone else gives up.

Never let yourself be the victim in combat. Your enemy may have every advantage on you, but if you let them take their objectives without raising up heck with them (unless there are more strategic goals in mind) then frankly why fight at all? No one forgets the Japanese when they fought. Why? Because fighting the Japanese on one of the islands they captured meant going through a living version of heck. In war, there is no lesser punishment for fighting back harder, you're not fighting your mother, you're battling for your very existence. ACT LIKE IT. If that means, chemical weapons, nukes... whatever it means, if you're battling to stay in existence, there are no rules and no lesser pats on the back when your finished.

When your enemy posts, don't get down - realize that in every lemon there is always lemonade. Sure they can wipe out that base, but did you form that base in a manner that somehow their movement to destroy it left them with something less? Not everything your opponent does is in their favor, realize this and look over their posts like a lawyer, within are great treasures they never even realized, but ALWAYS make sure that you never cross the meta-gaming line and act only on the information you can acquire and not random stuff you pull out of no-where. You won't just happen to have a spy plane flying over some region, but you will know that a large or rather an impressive force is destroying your base...

-Note, also make sure to give them credit to, each side should enjoy some victories from their wars as well as defeats. So when they take that base, let them feel good about that aspect at least.

Read texts on strategy. A lot of players on here have military backgrounds or are in the military, thus they know about every single aspect related to their job and they show it. That means you're at a disadvantage. Thus, if you want to bring your terminology and strategy up to par, read some good combat books. What is better is that due to their status as being devoted to the military, they can't shed their nations best secrets and strategies on a role-playing game, so they have to fight with one hand behind their back... you don't know such things, so if you figure it out on your own, you're not limited in such a manner.

Use these and keep within good role-playing etiquette and you can and should wage some impressive strategic level wars.

Character Warfare

Character warfare is really almost the more interesting aspect of conflict, because it gives a soldiers view of the combat as it goes on. However it is also a dangerous character to play, expect or even perhaps plan to have this character killed in the future. They should be named and their experiences should act as a continuing thread to link one set of events to another (let them be the unlucky ones who have their names drawn to the cool battles, there are plenty of other guys to stay at the boring fronts).

One important thing to note though is that these are characters and so they live in the small world of military combat. They are not individually affected by the gains or losses of the war any more then at a morale level or perhaps the loss of some useful thing they feel they need, but neither do they majorly impact the final events. They are there to observe and tell a story.

Finally, these characters add perhaps the best opportunities to role-play out the finer details of your military world. You can describe how an individualized small scale battle goes between groups of men in the tens or hundreds rather then thousands and a single tank is considered a really BIG thing (an air strike is something akin to amazing). If they move to a larger scale region, these are the individuals who can describe the intricate nature of your defenses and how your strategy applies when it hits real war.

To that extent, these posts are as important or perhaps even more important then your grand scale strategy posts, because they show a consistency in military structure and command going all the way down. If your enemy is forced to realize that your army is such a fine tuned machine that for every region that he looks deeper to seek some limit to your fine-tuning he finds even more, he will have to at least admit that he is fighting an incredible foe.

OOC Warfare

At the start of any war, a few things should be done. First, create a thread linking back to the thread that showed the start of the war, and then link the new thread to an OOC thread where OOC battles can take place.

OOC wars will occur. You or your opponent will declare that something the other one is doing violates IC abilities, or is impossible in some means or way and that you need to retract it. Given that they don't choose topics to battle on that are of little significance, it's generally true that losing an OOC war can really hamper your military strategy (especially when they act like your old military strategy should continue even though some crucial piece is missing after being ripped out of the plans mid-way).

That is like saying. We're going to win this war with no tanks, so we should march on them right away... then when you get there, your opponent steps in, grabs your tanks and walks out and suddenly you are slaughtered because you have no tanks that you RP'd having earlier and... well that's just a mess.

As a result of this, it is critical to know how to form a well formed argument. Before you go to war, you should always have a well-formed theoretical background behind the components you are using and have sources to back those up. Unfortunately, many people require a link they can click on, although I haven't seen anybody that will turn down a book citation either (but they have declared that individuals who have specialized in the area are wrong).

Then, with these resources, form you argument in three parts, a thesis statement (that which you are claiming you want to use and your declaration that you believe some statement is true), three supporting paragraphs that defend and provide a backing for that thesis statement and a concluding paragraph that ties the above together so that anyone willing to take it from a fair vantage point can conclude that you know something about what you're talking about.

Ok, generally this isn't necessary and you can box it out a little giving one reason or link or another, but if you really want to seem academic try that format and keep your support strong. At the worst, you'll improve your abilities for writing papers so that your instructors in your English classes can be happy with you, but at best, you can determine the course of the war and make sure your enemy isn't playing with random junk while you are forced to play within the confines of reality (if you both agree to RP outside the realms of non-fiction then cool).

Ultimately though, some kind of agreement is always best, as it is more fun to RP a war with armies then with words, even though sometimes, the word is more powerful then the sword.

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Final Statement

Once you have this personal information, the rest is up to you. Evil aspiring leaders, I'd love to chat strategy with you any time, meet me on Red_Sands, but beyond that I will say no more but good luck. Good luck and may you write an excellent RP.

I look forward to Role Playing with you in the game and hope you look forward to role-playing with me.

-Zarfef

Edited by Zarfef
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iamthey Apprentice

iamthey

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Nice guide. Just to point this out though. Deus ex Machina is not a creation of CNRP. Its a common term in literary theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

Also Canon is generally just anything within the general RP of CNRP; whereas anything not within it is non-cannon. Placing the term "canon" within the game of CNRP then wouldn't make sense as it exists outside of CNRP. Then again I am sure some would debate as to if CNRP is indeed a sanctioned RP.

Edited by iamthey
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Zarfef Newbie

Zarfef

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Modifications made on the spelling of protectorate, I couldn't find any alternate spellings of canon as cannon (I was spelling it that way originally, but I think I caught them all when I thought about it :P). Thank you everyone!

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loannes Newbie

loannes

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god-mod: This is when a player role-plays or writes out the way another player acts with characters or any element of their roleplay. It is considered very bad etiquette because the response (no matter how deeply you believe they will act some way) is strictly the right of the player owning the responder. Items considered property of the user include all players and characters within their nation and organization and that nations military and other functions.

Oh, the irony.

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Il Terra Di Agea Newbie

Il Terra Di Agea

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So, despite the feeling that I'm gravedigging this pinned thread, I have a few things about character creation:

Names: This is incredibly useful for names, because if anyone else (like myself) has a problem with characters, it's making up the names, and very basic character info. I use it a lot when I just need a person with a name for a one time role, and even occasionally with characters I intend to reuse endlessly.

Appearance: Pictures always help. Having a picture will probably humanize a character more that a lot of very good character based RP ever could. That said, avoid very well known political leaders and celebrities if you go for a picture. I can honestly saw that just about every celebrity and politician of any popularity has been used at least once, and it gets annoying to have three people RPing a Fidel Castro look-alike in one event. It's just weird. If you take the pictures of celebrities and politicians path, take a few steps to choose what picture to use:

1: Look in people's avatars. People will often have their leader int heir avatars, so that is a good first check

2: Has the person been the president/ leader of a big, important country like Russia or the US? If so, there are at least three of them in the RP now, and you should avoid it.

3: Is the person a celebrity with any measure of Dignity? They probably exist already.

4: Did the person recently die? Someone may have RPed just that event, so watch out, you don't want to be RPing someone rising from the grave by accident, especially because people will point it out

So, how to choose a person, there are a few easy things to look for:

-Leader who died right before a major war began (They always get excluded from history books for some reason, like a big history shadow effect)

-Character actors (The more obscure the better. You can get tons of pictures, mild good looks, and you don't have to worry about messing with their personalities and beleifs, because that is literally what they do for a living)

-Drawings and illustrations of fictional people (In this case, less is more. The more stories written, the more likely it is someone has used the person, but it's a lot more rare. Comic books and Manga are a good place to look, just for the massive numbers of them in existance, and the ease of filling a new character into the looks)

-Draw your own person (That is a viable choice for the two people who have actually have the training to do this)

-Use obscure government members (Where the president of a nation may be recognizable, who can honestly say that they know the Secretary of Agriculture under Warren Harding (It was Henry C. Wallace, but that's not the point)? Cabinet members and advisers are useful in a lot of pictures, because they often have a more professional look to them.)

-Absolutely nothing (You don't need a picture, and even for the benefits, don't force yourself to settle for something you don't want, and a picture will never make a decent RP fantastic, it just makes it a bit easier to envision)

Personality: Sometimes, it is best to completely avoid basing a character on yourself. It will only bring issues that you have to kill what is essentially yourself off, or have to see them go through pain and hardship. It's weird, but it happens. It's also good to try and base characters off chunks of people you know. You like Xs sense of humor, but want Y's sense of political boundaries and Z's inability to comprehend the moral complexities of pudding, go ahead. It makes characters seem more natural to have some basis in reality, even if it's minimal.

History: Once again, it could be tempting to base a character on yourself, but try to avoid it. As should be obvious, the cornerstone of good RP is actually RPing things, so, you will be better off if you RP something in your leader's past rather than pull it out of your own experience. Making a life story for a person seems daunting at first, but it gets a lot easier. Generally, you only need to write for a few events in a few periods in life. I make time lines and paragraphs when I'm designing a character to get an idea of their most important life events, and how those would influence their motives and plans for life, but that's not necessary. Sometimes, it's even more interesting to have a character too scared of their life story to tell it to anyone. It's all really a matter of what you want for the character, and what is pertinent to their life in the present.

EDIT: Be reasonable with your stories. How many people do you know who have spy training, a doctorate in advanced physics, have been in the special forces and can shoot a nickle from thirty paces? I bet you can count them on one hand. Because that had is a fist. Because the number is zero. Be reasonable, and don't have that sort of crazy thing happening.

As Zarfef said, it is not necessary to have multiple characters, and it can actually help your RP flow. Most of the characters you will use will not be important later on, but making them seem human and natural will always help your RP. Don't take it too easy with one time characters, they need to be more than words, they need to seem alive.

As a final thing, you should try to avoid gimmicks in your characters. If your character can be summed up in under five words, and still give a good idea of what they do, you need to expand them.

Alright, no, this is the last thing: Don't do anything here if you don't enjoy it. Character RP, unlike a lot of other things, is not necessary, and if you don't like it, you can avoid it. You don't need to write biographies for all your characters, or use every character all the time (I haven't used a few of my main characters of months), but it can make RP a lot more interesting to work on, and is really something one needs to master before becoming a more Advanced RPer.

Just thought I should throw this out there.

Also, Zarfef, it may be beneficial to have links to various examples of things like particularly good factbooks, diplomatic and character RPs and things like that.

I can say right now that there are a few factbooks that go to excellent levels of detail:

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?s...t=0&start=0

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=61002

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?s...t=0&start=0

(Zarfef's factbook that I can't find for some reason)

And maybe a few factbooks that are about average/ a good baseline of quality:

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=69851

http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?showtopic=67531

Edited by Il Terra Di Agea
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loannes Newbie

loannes

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So, despite the feeling that I'm gravedigging this pinned thread, I have a few things about character creation:

Names: This is incredibly useful for names, because if anyone else (like myself) has a problem with characters, it's making up the names, and very basic character info. I use it a lot when I just need a person with a name for a one time role, and even occasionally with characters I intend to reuse endlessly.

Sadly, that only covers the most common regions, like Germany and America. Not much of a help for people that need to make Georgia, Armenian, and Azerbaijani names. :P

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Zarfef Newbie

Zarfef

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I generally go to baby name sites and then use the meanings behind the names to help shape what the character will be. I also admit to allowing some of myself to leak into the RP, but it's somewhat of splitting me into component parts in rather Jungian manner, like Zarfef being the archtype of the mad scientist or Ziggy being the child hero, ect. I am able to act out components of myself on the internet, but if they die, I've gotten used to the myth of the rebirth of the hero. People may look in horror that one character seems similiar to another, but this does have some basis in reality as people take on different archtypes by drawing from the power of myth to survive.

Thus, if I want a place to act out the archetype of the mad scientist, don't be surprised if killing off Zarfef doesn't mean the end of new mad scientists. There are actually a few on the planet right now even as we speak.

Anyways, I really like that post , when I get some free time I think I'll update this (adding credit where credit is certainly due of course).

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Subtleknifewielder Newbie

Subtleknifewielder

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But you're Aussie in CNRP, so it's easy for you. :P

In CNRP, yes.

But I refer to ERP... :P

Should you be needing some Indonesians to keep things down in Australia interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indonesians

:P

I've already used that list, thank you very much...

Though mixing and matching seems like playing with fire, to me... :D

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