1 . Name: Goat @ 2010-11-28 05:51

Neat new thing.

Anyway.

t's plain as a fresh pair of modern prison jumpsuits that there's a present and undeniable problem which we all have with this setting; or at least which should be dealt with even if it's only a few people bitching on the matter. What's the clear and undeniable problem? National Uniqueness. It's a big problem here [and on many nation level RPs for that matter], in that it is the source of most of our peripheral problems. If there's a level of national uniqueness, then there's a level of interest in the nation for most players, even if their nation IC hates the other nation's guts so hard it isn't funny. Our OOC grumblings are almost all rooted in the lack of national uniqueness and how this slight flaw brings one closer and closer to the cardinal sin of 'copy-pasta'; and with these OOC grumblings, comes OOC dislike or OOC hate, which is not something we want. It's a community killer and goes past one of the long-standing rulings of RPing everywhere. "Your character can be an ass, you cannot."

-Back on topic.

It's not hard to give yourself uniqueness, so readers and other players [as it's a commonly acknowledged fact that many players are not necessarily readers of other players RPs if they're uninterested in them] want to actually read the stuff you're putting hard work into. We face a problem on these forums where people make the [highly dumb] mistake of assuming that because an ethnic group have a culture IRL that they'd automatically have a mirror culture within game. This is not the case- not at all; and something tells me a bunch of history nerds, politics nerds, and collaborative writing nerds such as ourselves know this.

Think for a moment, how different Normandy or Brittanny would be if they had been independent from France; would they have the same culture and attitudes as the Parisian domains or the Orleans french? No, not at all. This is the same in our world, and without a doubt- people just don't try on the matter of creating their nations in this sphere of things. And let's face it, if we wanted to be reading about copy-pasta nations that have events almost exactly like an IRL history events of their mother nation- we'd be reading history books, not lurking on these forums.

National Uniqueness is paramount, even if it's little things. With every step you take to make your nation more unique and different from others of its sphere or its IRL counterpart, you make it more your's; as you had a an absolute factoring in the exact existence of it, [as opposed to something almost copypasta, which anyone could pop out for any nation with enough research.]

I will give examples, now; on how just little things could've changed the whole history of a nation but made it immensely more unique in all considerations- and please note I'm trying to write this with no bias, so don't think I'm picking at you.

Anglyn, for Instance. English red cross on a white banner for a flag, with a Wyvern on the banner and speaking English, with for the most part a sort've English as the ethnicity of his people and English attitudes and ways of doing things being the assumed modus operandi of his people, as that's what is presented. What does this make the average player who isn't immediately friends with Anglyn think when first presented with it? "Oh, he's England in the new world..." and then when they see the other English nations and roll their eyes-, probably end up ignoring Anglyn's RP when they can as some of it mirrors IRL stuff or does so as best as it can. At least in my case, that's what happens. Despite the English [and British] peoples being one of the ones who's histories interest me the most IRL, in game I end up ignoring all of the Britons to a point because of it. Those who stick out to be unique are the ones who get my attention, and the merchant pacifist not-good-at-keeping-imperial-holdings Breotonia sticks out for me then and there, as does Cornavia; because they're different than IRL Britain, and it doesn't feel like I'm reading posts where players go "BRITAIN STRONG." when I read their posts, and as such I feel like I'm actually reading a nation that's different from the RL counterpart and the other 'Britains' running about.

The same, too; goes for our germanies, and so forth: The more uniqueness a nation has, the more likeliness I am to like it and bother to read it; the more that others are going to read it.