The Don's Guide to Role-Playing

What is a character?

The character can be a head of state, minister, general or any other persona you use to represent your state in the international forum within a game. There can be one or more characters, used in combination or individually, and with varying story lines and background stories which may or may not be adopted. Your character will represent you in all state affairs, whether it be the sending of diplomatic messages or posting of articles, or negotiation of treaties and pacts. Your character will also be subject to any events that take place during the game, and will have to be played within reasonable limits of realism.

Example: Tsar of Russia Aleksey Mikhailovich I (head of state), General Alex Summers (chief of armed forces)

What are functions of a state?

This list can be neither complete nor exhaustive. It includes any and all functions of a nation, like declaring war, peace, trade pacts, military alliances, Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), holding military exercises, diplomatic communications, official press releases, declaring ultimatum, state of emergency etc. These events must be used realistically, such as they would in real life, and also in conformity with the game system, as playing realistically without regard for the constraints of the game is not viable.

Example: India and Russia holding a joint military exercise. To be realistic, both nations release units to the said territory to hold the exercise. However, since this will involve the units being deployed elsewhere and otherwise occupied, such an exercise is likely to be concluded quickly, in keeping with the constraints involved in the game mechanics. The conclusion is not because of a rule of thumb, but because not pulling your troops back will mean they are not where you want them to be, which is a situation you must avoid. If it means nothing to you, you may leave your troops in neutral territory.

What are events and scenarios?

Events are the occurrences that are controlled by a single nation. The appointment of a new Air Chief Marshal of Italy is an event, that is cast by the player controlling Italy, using his various state functions and his character. It cannot be influenced from outside directly, though diplomatic pressure may be put of the player to cast events favorably to other parties.

Events can, however, influence other players actions, by working to change the balance of power.

Example: Italy declaring the dissolution of parliament is a event. It may be forced by another country, remaining anonymous, by way of diplomatic pressure, and to avoid further damages, which will relegate Italy to a weaker position according to the game mechanics, Italy may conform. The importance here is that the event is the en-action of the action Italy would take to avoid incurring damages that would otherwise happen, and the original action being something that would take place in the normal course of a game, RP or otherwise.

Scenarios are group events, which influence and are influenced by more than one nation/player. Such events hold much greater influence on other players than a normal event, as they serve to change much of the prevalent Geo-political scenario on the map and shift the balance of power considerably. Hence they are herewith termed 'Scenarios'.

Example: Forming an alliance between two nations. Such an action would have a widespread impact, as players seek to either form rival alliances to counter them, or seek to to gain the favor of the nations currently allied to each other. It will serve to create much tension and fuel further events and scenarios. Such actions will be taken in response to these scenarios because of each players wish to either maintain the balance of power, or shift it in their favor.

Events and scenarios combine to form the basis of the game, and create tensions and fuel further events and scenarios, which will provide the material for further RPing the game. They must be used with care and realism, and at the same time in a manner that will not be self defeating or serving to subside the predominance of the game mechanics.

Example: Making an event whereby a player gives all his resources to another is possible, however, such an event is not realistic, and will stand harsh penalty from the game mechanics. On the other hand, giving resources to appease a player and gain peace is both realistic and true to the game mechanics, as avoiding war might be favorable in future consideration.

What is the promotion and extension of ones game?

The aim of this game is to make the nation you control the most dominant on the map. Playing an RP game on this site, with the current game mechanics, we must respect this object of the game, and play accordingly. Every action you take in the game must be for your cause, towards advancing your position, and achieving your goals, both long term and short term. Playing in keeping with the realism of this game is of utmost importance.

However, it is also paramount that you RP every action of take in control of a nation, and in keeping with real world realism. Every action must be re-enacted and communicated as it would be as a matter of operation of an actual state.

Example: On the brink of disaster, it may be correct, RP wise, for Germany to not surrender and continue fighting. But this is not realistic, or in line with the game mechanics, as fighting no longer serves your purpose of advancing your position. However, it is also not right for you to abandon all RP attempts and randomly attack another nation without a justifiable casus belli or proper reason for war, just because it is strategically viable to do so as per the game mechanics.

Attacking a nation because you can is not un-RP like. However, attacking without providing proper cause is. So, even as we seek to advance our position, and take advantage of a weaker state, we must take the time to find a casus belli and RP the events properly to lead to war.

The complicated balance between the above mentioned element and the casting of various events and scenarios is what makes role playing a fine art.

What is the natural course of a game?

The natural course of the game presupposes that you will act as a rational player and play to advance your own position, or at least maintain the balance of power, so that no player gains too much power and becomes dominant. In this condition, the actions of the players, as they wrestle for control, for the most case using diplomatic and economic means, the occasional subterfuge and the rare war, which are all means and extensions of state policy (i.e., state functions) , will create tensions and continue to fuel the RP, by providing events and scenarios which will lead to more events, in a self sustaining manner, until such day when the number of players in the game gets reduced to the extent that there are only a few and more or less equal superpowers remaining, who are in a state of stalemate, and cannot continue the game further without RP, or such a state where the game finishes by one player reaching the victory condition.

How to represent adequately and with reasonable limits of realism?

Adequate realism, conforming to both the games requirements and the standards of the role playing community is something of a balancing act. It requires practice, and patience. The first and most important thing is to understand that things can go wrong, and be ready to make changes to meet the demands of others. At the same time, don't let others change your intrinsic style. Your choices, should be your own.

Reasonable levels of realism mean that you should RP any event you may create, or influence, or otherwise interact with, and any communication you may engage in, with a likeness to the real world interactions between nations. However, you need not go to great troubles to make it in depth.

Example: While in real life, there may be many bureaucratic works intervening between two heads of state as they establish contact, you may play it as two characters establishing direct contact. However, realistic titles and signatures to the correspondence would be appreciated.

Example: Most games use a time scale, like 1 game day being 1 month. In such games, if you are to date your articles, or your events (ex: declaring a time bound ultimatum) then you would have to keep note of the time scale used.

What is the balance of power?

In this game, strategically, every nation stands an equal chance to win. The resource distributions and locations might be different, but every nation can win according to the circumstances of the game.

In this game, whether you are playing an alliance game, individual game, role playing game, or any other version of it, your first intent should be in keeping the balance of power as it is, i.e., making sure that the balance of power does not shift in favor of any one or more players. If all it does, it should shift in your favor, not that of anyone else.

The basic idea of making yourself more powerful is in securing enough of all resources to make sure you can build up and progress. This must be so even more in an RP, where you are not allowed to wage endless wars and attack without proper reason, as it will destroy popular opinion and support for you and will make more players opposed to you, as your aggressive attempts to shift the balance of power in your favor may be seen as dangerous to others.

Similarly, when another player makes a gain, territorial, economic, political or diplomatic, you should work to neutralize this gain. If a nation has won over another in a war, allowing them to take over the whole of the conquered territory will not benefit you. You must attempt to minimize his gains as much as possible, by supporting a peaceful and more or less equal solution, that would involve only a bare minimum of gains to the winner, and a bare minimum of losses to the vanquished. And an alliance should be countered by forming one of your own, or making favorable acquaintance with the allies.

You must also avoid long wars, and must try to make others stop prolonged conflict by using your diplomacy or ultimately, your own military intervention. This is because a war will eliminate one of more military powers, players on the geo-political playing field, which will tend to cast another power as dominant.

Playing with the balance of power in mind is important as, combined with good RPing, this will make for a game which lasts as players introduce checks and balances to neutralize each other, as well as providing enough tension and RP material, fueling events and scenarios to keep the game interesting. Remember, the real balance of power is not reflected by the game. Simply following these basic ideas will give rise to game that throws up crises and interesting choices in its normal course, without any artificially inserted scenarios/events that the players have to consciously make. And that, is interesting.

This, so far, describes the game as understood by the "Old Guard", the experienced players of the Supremacy 1914 Role Playing Community. It is also the style that has generated games with the most interest and longest life.

I like how you present RP the way the veterans did. I have not RP before but I'm really interested in it and wanted to learn more of it.

Role-playing is like poetry in a strategy game, and Role Players are like poets.....a crazy bunch with a head-full of delusions.

But, under the right circumstances, it can be quite enjoyable.

Looking forward to playing games with you, vindicator Did you have a S1914 name?

DonViswanath wrote:

Role-playing is like poetry in a strategy game, and Role Players are like poets.....a crazy bunch with a head-full of delusions.

But, under the right circumstances, it can be quite enjoyable.

Looking forward to playing games with you, vindicator Did you have a S1914 name?

That's right were playing a RP game at the moment,it's fun but not that fun since some people haven't showed up yet.

And my S1914 name is the same as my CoW name: Hellraiser1350

Yes, it really is a disappointment. Nearly a whole alliance didn't show up.

Yah Communist Russia Stronk lol

It's strong because 2 alliance never showed up and everyone join the wining side, apperantly im alone and surrounded by red, and taking the Don's advice in RP the game will eventually be a free for all, the balance of power is broken.

Let's just get it over with, and start a new RP this time with more activity and no more innactivity.

The game is on like day 4 just have 2 people join as France and UK. Its not my fault everyone joined on my side. Italy threatened Turkey's power so he joined my side and Sweden was scared or something and just decided to be communist. I messaged Germany saying i wasn't the neutral faction in Europe but for some reason the neutral's just decided to be Communist. It doesnt help that the leader of the Capitalist Faction is completely stupid and not trying to get people to join his side like italy and Germany.

Italy and Germany is its own alliance, being totalitarian, how neutral can we get? We do what we want, whatever and whenever we want, to justify since everyone become communist, I need to defend myself from everyone, 1 versus 5 is not fun, trying to make some breathing space is already hard is it is.

Guys, guys....I don't know what happened here, but a pre-set alliance is setting up to fail. Ideally, there should be no alliances to start of with. For example, if you are playing CW-RP (which I started back in S1914 btw... ), you have two very different ideologies (USA and USSR). You have a number of nations (all others) that have ideologies that are anywhere between the extreme ends represented by USA and USSR. This should form the basis of how the game sets up.

So, to begin, you can simply say country X, Y and Z are pro-Communist, while A, B and C are pro-Capitalist. There is no iron-clad alliance there. That is left up to the in-game choices and decisions of all the players. That will create a lot of RP-material.

Further, this will generate a balance of power by itself. For the purpose of this, to simulate the actual condition, we might have to make a few changes: make USA and USSR a bit more powerful than other countries. This could be done by a minor landswap for USSR, and a system of fixed alliances for USA (Canada and UK could start the game being US allies).

So on and so forth.

If you want, we can try a new game. One that has already started and progressed a bit down the wrong path will be a bit difficult to bring back. But that said, if we do start a new one, we have to stick with it to the end, agreed?

DonViswanath wrote:

Guys, guys....I don't know what happened here, but a pre-set alliance is setting up to fail. Ideally, there should be no alliances to start of with. For example, if you are playing CW-RP (which I started back in S1914 btw... ), you have two very different ideologies (USA and USSR). You have a number of nations (all others) that have ideologies that are anywhere between the extreme ends represented by USA and USSR. This should form the basis of how the game sets up.

So, to begin, you can simply say country X, Y and Z are pro-Communist, while A, B and C are pro-Capitalist. There is no iron-clad alliance there. That is left up to the in-game choices and decisions of all the players. That will create a lot of RP-material.

Further, this will generate a balance of power by itself. For the purpose of this, to simulate the actual condition, we might have to make a few changes: make USA and USSR a bit more powerful than other countries. This could be done by a minor landswap for USSR, and a system of fixed alliances for USA (Canada and UK could start the game being US allies).

So on and so forth.

If you want, we can try a new game. One that has already started and progressed a bit down the wrong path will be a bit difficult to bring back. But that said, if we do start a new one, we have to stick with it to the end, agreed?

"Spain who had nothin but Capitalist Nations around felt afraid and proclaimed Communist too"

That seems counter-intuitive.... But in that case, the game failed, as you say, exclusively because some players failed to join. That happens, regardless of how carefully one plans.

So, new game, or continue with the old? I can try to bring in a few other RPers, but they will have to get used to this game, and I don't think it is time for that yet....

Also, before we try the more complex CWRP....let's try a simpler one? The WW2 RP...starting in, say, 1925, where S1914 lets off....begin with a twenty day peace period and starting diplomatic positions, and the rest will evolve over the course of the game. Maybe it will (I am betting it will) eventually reach CW by itself. Wouldn't that be cool?

Also, while we are here, I would like to discuss the RP Game Limiting System. An informal control on how many active games there are in the community at a time. The RP community is unlikely to grow very large, and it is time consuming to play a good RP - you can only be so many characters at one time. It is therefore in the interest of all involved to agree on an informal limit to the number of games there are actively going on at any time, to avoid players dropping out of running games and joining new ones. Kind of like a gentleman's agreement.

DonViswanath wrote:

Also, while we are here, I would like to discuss the RP Game Limiting System. An informal control on how many active games there are in the community at a time. The RP community is unlikely to grow very large, and it is time consuming to play a good RP - you can only be so many characters at one time. It is therefore in the interest of all involved to agree on an informal limit to the number of games there are actively going on at any time, to avoid players dropping out of running games and joining new ones. Kind of like a gentleman's agreement.

If other are also in agreement, I would suggest first browsing this: http://forum.supremacy1914.com/showthread.php?150639-Roleplay-a-Guide

The limiting system is discussed there in brief. You could take ideas from there.

have you guys ever played 30k? Thirty kingdoms is the Medieval/fantasy version of S1914 with elements of CoW.

Me and a group of players are planning a RP game, i was wondering if this guide to RP is applicable, there might be some complication when adapting this to a medieval so i kind of need some help.

What kind of complication did you have in mind?

there will be some changes in this guide while some that will conflict it like these:

Functions of the state:

Diplomacy and other communications outside your kingdom, declaring peace, war and trade pacts. the problem will arise that during the medieval period the only way for other kingdoms to know whats happening inside another kingdom is by using spies, declaring war and peace is unheard of in the medieval period, war and peace is known in their respective realms but other parties will not know unless spies and rumors. Medieval politics will be filled with deception, lies, and intrigue, where alliance can easily broken and most kings and noble lords are self centered warlords filled with rivalry (depending on the character used)

the function of the state will be more spying than actual talks.

Events and scenarios:

this category will be filled with war, alliance openly shared between others. to apply a degree of realism in the game no one should post articles on the newspaper since no one know what the others are doing without spies. to keep others informed private communications in-game will be anonymous tips, but even those can be lies. the medieval times were sometimes called the dark ages for a reason.

Balance of power:

the balance of power is non-existence, the promises of kings is only good if they mean it. some players can choose to desert or betray their allies if its beneficial and can elevate there standing. you can say that chivalry binds a knight to a lord, and a lord to a king, but this relationship of loyal servant-master does not apply between kings. this will depend if the character being used is loyal to others, but if the character is ambitious and/or greedy than backstabbing is not a crime but more of a "political maneuvering" if you must. rivalry runs rampant even if two parties allied each other, the alliance is more of convenience than an actual alliance.

Essentially the most important facet of RP in the medieval setting is the personality of the character used, if there loyal, ruthless, and other traits that can shape how they act in-game.