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[OOC] Brutland's Occasional RP Guides Thread
#1

Hello!

Welcome to Brutland's Occasional RP Guides Thread!

This is a result of my productive spurts occurring in the occasional instances where I have time to write up RP Guides. Happywide So I decided put them here.

Note, these are guides, not hard rules. This is also a work in progress, and may still change, especially if another player has a bright idea that would work better.

Anyone is also free to contribute their ideas and we'll try to combine them to make RPing here more fun and meaningful. Wink
#2

Realism and Population

Part of being a good storyteller and a gracious player is being able to recognize that limits do exist and we have to be realistic. Nothing in the world is perfect. One of the most common pitfalls is national statistics, specifically population. Boasting über-large populations will give you massive armies that can stomp other nations, but that will make you look like a statwanker than a cooperative, considerate player.

(Unless, of course, you are a Future-Tech player, then the envelopes are stretched far out... but that doesn't make sense why is your FT nation interacting with modern-tech ones. So to clear this, this is good only for modern-tech (MT) nations, and to a lesser extent, past-tech (PT) nations.)

Is Bigger Better?
Um, not really. While it means that you can have large armies, it also means that you have to feed a lot of people. A LOT. You also need to have complex governmental systems to serve (or subjugate, depending on your ideology) them. Not surprisingly, larger nations tend to have higher barriers to increasing the standard of living of their inhabitants.

NS nations start out at 5 million, that's already larger than Ireland, New Zealand, or Croatia. That's larger than two-fifths of the countries of the world. And then it grows by a few million each day. So to start with, the NS population is already unrealistic. Better off not using it in its current form.

There are only two nations exceeding one billion - China and India - but we all know how high the standard of living in those nations are. Even most of the other nations above 100 million do not have a high standard of living, with the exception of Japan and USA, but even in the latter, the standard of living is not equally high.

Nations can be considered powerful even if they don't have a large population: Germany (82 mil), France (64 mil), UK (63 mil), and even Canada (35 mil) and Australia (23 mil). Countries in those ranges tend to be able to balance military might and standard of living.

Unless, of course, you are gunning for a really really poor nation, you might consider this argument moot. (But remember, even small nations can be poor too.) But take into account another thing:

[Image: r2bYeYE.png]
A country full of skyscrapers!?

Your Geography
Since players claim nations on the map, their country is tied to a specific area and the landforms it contain. Just the basic parameter, population density, can be a gauge of how much people can you have.

One cannot fit a billion people in a country the size of Denmark. If you look at the list of countries by population density, you'll see that the highest population densities are found in city-states such as Monaco, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Unless your country has dense concentrations of skyscrapers and apartment blocks from the shoreline up to the mountains, which is an unreasonable prospect. The most densely populated country with a relatively large areas is Bangladesh, and we all know how it looks like.

If you would like to be more realistic, you also have to look into your terrain, and climate. Sure, your population density is similar to the Netherlands, but it does not make sense if your country is mountainous and covered with glaciers. Plains can support far more people than mountainous, alpine, arid, or arctic areas. In plains there is more food to grow and there is more space to expand. The additional benefit of a coastline means having ports, where trade is conducted more easily, and there is another food resource: fish. These may partly explain why the Netherlands has twice the population of Switzerland, for instance, despite having similar-sized land areas.


[Image: WxK9Wei.png]
Slums over water in Bangladesh.

Tips and Suggestions
1. You first have to know your land well. If you claimed land in the TSP map, you can ask me to compute the area for you. Take note of your terrain, how much of it is suitable for agriculture and human settlement, how much of it is at risk from natural disasters.

2. Coming up with your population statistic. You can either use your NS population by lopping off the excess zeroes (for instance, the 2.556 billion becomes 25.56 million), or come up with your population that also grows realistically.

3. If you're trying to come up with a realistic population, you can look to RL nations for inspiration.
Aside from the lists I enumerated earlier, Wikipedia has another pretty list: Countries by real population density based on food growing capacity. Also note: the USA is a bad example to base your stats. The USA is usually an exception to what I said, and besides, it has a big landmass.

4. Give and take. No country is perfect. Your country may have a strong economy and high standard of living, but a small population. Your country might have a large population density and a large army, but poor standard of living and economy. Your country might have lots of oil and gold, but is a desert.

Making a country is like making a character - even heroes have their flaws.


Hopefully this mini-guide helped. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post or send me a telegram.

Happy RPing! Smile
#3

This is good advice!

You should come RP with us Smile
Roleplayer
Manager of the TSP and A1-0 maps
Roleplay moderator


#4

I want Ryccia to be in that isolated area... Sad
Deputy Regional Minister of the Planning and Development Agency(March 8-May 19, 2014)

Local Council Member(April 24-August 11)

Court Justice of TSP(August 15-December 7)






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