The Rules Of The Game: A Comparative Study Of Two NS Communities

[Gruenberg]

"The Rules Of The Game: A Comparative Study Of Two NS Communities"

Rules are an intrinsic feature of all games, so much so that even satirical games nominally without rules, such as Calvinball or Mornington Crescent, have to abide by the singular rule that there can be no other rules in order to sustain their anarchic fun. Rules are necessary to ensure the game retains its meaning, to ensure that new players can enter and thereby continue the game once its original players are no more, and to ensure fairness. Given this, an important aspect of studying games is to study how their rules came about, how those rules work in practice, and how they compare to the rules of other games.

NationStates was originally a game with no rules beyond the limits of its technical architecture: war and trade was not so much illegal as impossible, for example. The unmoderated forums went the way of all such enterprises when conducted on such an unexpectedly massive scale: absolute chaos, until Melkor Unchained and Reploid Productions were appointed as moderators and began to bring order. R/D play emerged organically, at first operating in a lawless frenzy, then checked by arbitrary rules, and finally codified into the formal Influence system. The NSUN was similarly disordered until the introduction of rules by Enodia.

Today, Max Barry's dream of a game limited by only the most basic set of rules, against spamming, flaming, hacking and such severe offences, is largely gone, replaced by a set of multiple games, sometimes overlapping, all with their own sets of rules: roleplay is governed differently depending on whether it takes place in the International Incidents forum or the Portal to the Multiverse; the rules on gloating in some parts of the game do not always apply in Gameplay; even the supposedly unrestricted Forum 7 in fact operates by a number of codified rules.

This lecture looks at two particular communities within the NationStates game, the World Assembly and NS Sports, and compares the way rules govern those two largely unrelated games. In particular, it seeks to contrast the withered and increasingly unsustainable irrelevance of the WA game with the vibrant, active success story that has been the Sports genre, and to argue that a significant reason for this divergence stems from their respective differences in the origin, scope and manner of their rules.

Both the World Assembly and NS Sports superficially date from the period of substantial game upheaval in 2008-09, from the reset of the NSUN to the transfer from the Jolt forums, but both can trace their origins much further back, the WA to the NSUN itself, which began operating in a recognisable manner within a couple of months of the game coming online, NS Sports to a litany of sports threads scattered over the NationStates forum and originating in Ariddia's first World Cup.

Since those humble origins, both games have seen substantial revision of their rules: almost every single early NSUN resolution would be illegal by the standards of the modern WA, while the inaugural World Cup was organized using random dice rolls, a practice now seen as incredibly bad form in NS Sports culture. Yet those early experiences also fundamentally shaped what was to come: the NSUN's first resolutions established that it was to be an organization for debating international law, and the World Cup actually continues to this day, one of the longest running and most successful roleplays in all of NationStates.

Beginning in cluttered chaos, both games began to organize themselves, and used rules to do so. The NSUN banned references to real life events, attempts to change game mechanics, and proposals intended to defame or harass other players; NS Sports evolved a system of scorination, a technique by which results were decided using a partially random number generator that took into account a combination of ranks based on prior participation and bonuses for roleplaying.

Differences began to emerge, though, in how rules were created and enforced. The NSUN, and later the WA, came to be heavily dependent on moderator decisions, particularly once the moderators began creating new rules that did not come from the players. This led to a class of rules governing MetaGaming, restrictions on committees, the banning of repeals using only national sovereignty arguments, and many other individual rulings forming an increasingly complicated mosaic impenetrable to all but the most dedicated players.

NS Sports, by contrast, saw little moderator involvement beyond ensuring basic forum rules applicable to all were followed, and its rules were instead created by the players. These included limiting participation to one puppet per user, creating a voting system for hosting tournaments, and devising sometimes complicated mathematical formulas to determine ranking points. To enforce these rules, sports began organizing, more or less formally, committees of people entitled to vote on matters and to write constitutions governing these organizations: the World Cup Committee is the longest running, most prominent, and largest, but similar entities exist for sports from basketball and baseball to cricket and the Olympics.

Both games went from spontaneous disorder to a regulated, at times legalistic, system of rules, yet in one, that system flourished, while in the other, it proved suffocating. It is increasingly impossible to play the WA game at all because too much is dependent on moderator capriciousness, yet at the same time the moderators are a small group of players mostly uninterested in the WA game itself. As such answers to rules questions are usually vague or unhelpful, when they can be solicited at all.

By contrast, NS Sports is essentially self-governing, beyond moderator intervention to calm flaming in OOC threads or check on puppet status, although even that is more a matter of community enforcement than top down rules strictures. People voting on hosts, decided to exclude players deemed to have broken rules, rewarding contributors with roleplay bonuses, and choosing whether or not to participate in new tournaments are all players who actually enjoy playing that part of the game and have an interest in seeing it continue and grow.

This distinction can be seen in how the communities resolve disputes. In the case of a legality problem in the WA, the resolution depends on moderator intervention, so much so that it is highly difficult for even experienced players to offer newer ones any guidance because they cannot predict how the moderators will eventually act. By contrast, NS Sports has been able to resolve serious issues, such as Spaamgate, Qazox's puppet escapades, Burchadinger's plagiarism, and numerous hosting disasters, all through their own internal procedures.

Whether or not a particular nation wins a host bid, an unranked nation defeats a highly ranked one, or an improbable result is generated: none of these outcomes ever concern the NS moderators. One moderator, The Archregimancy, is heavily associated with NS Sports, but the extent of his official involvement is mostly limited to preventing the World Cup Discussion Thread from spiralling too off topic, and even he has routinely expressed a preference for players to resolve questions such as puppetwank themselves rather than plead for moderator intervention.

By contrast, many NS moderators have a background in the WA game, and even then that well stocked corps is incapable of keeping up with the demands of the forum. But it is a hole they have dug for themselves by establishing rules that can only be resolved through moderator discretion. The MetaGaming rules in particular have been massively injurious to WA roleplaying, while there is no moderator imposed limit on NS Sports roleplaying, which has as a result spawned remarkable creativity and inventiveness. It would not be an oversimplification to attribute the contrast in the success of the two different games to the extent to which one rewards and the other punishes roleplaying.

The limitations of the game mechanics prevent the WA from now embracing the model of NS Sports community-driven rules decision making, however. The unfortunate unwillingness of the admins to abandon the nonsensical delegate voting system means that active WA players have little to no chance of actually enforcing any community standards. Because there is no real relationship between the forums and powerful delegates of large regions, a situation where one group of players is trying to roleplay the game and a completely unrelated group with totally different and in many cases opposing priorities are deciding the outcome of the game has been created.

Whenever reforms of the WA are proposed, suggestions of putting rules enforcement in the hands of the players are routinely dismissed and indeed, without reshaping the voting system from one where power lies with those who have no interest in using it fairly or wisely into one in which genuine community standards can be upheld such an endeavour would be difficult. But the example of NS Sports provides an instructive contrast of a successful, active, and (mostly) harmonious model of community-driven rules enforcement that calls into question the received wisdom that the only way of running the game is to have moderators convene in private, removed from player concerns. It might be time to reconsider.

[Gruenberg]

Do you mean "clique"?

But really, the WA community is no more insular than GCR politics, or R/D, or the main roleplay forums, or even General debating. Compare the reactions to an enthusiastic newbie who wants to reform their region or start a new raiding group or launch a roleplay about war or begins a debate on abortion or gun control, to those when just the same comes from an experienced player. Besides, the WA is about passing international law to affect thousands of nations: there should be a bit of a required entry level for participation before you can start changing loads of other people's nations.

who would claim the 'top jobs' and hold authority in the new GA?

Yes, I'm well aware of how you would react to anything less than Eduard Heir being declared Supreme Commander of the WA Army.

[Gruenberg]

...in what?

[Gruenberg]

'd like to see the mentors include people who are able and competent at that task - not just good chaps of UNOG - Auralia and CD come to mind.

CD is a member of UNOG, so I'm not sure what your point is in juxtaposing him. Auralia isn't, fair enough; if I had my way both he (and GR) would have been invited, but I'm not the only person who decides who gets to join. PC and Mik weren't members and both enjoyed playing the game for years, quite successfully - both would have been excellent mentors.

Next, I'd suggest allowing people to post WA roleplays in the WA.

This doesn't really make sense. NSUN/WA roleplays used to be successful: for example, the Great Dodgeball War, TPP, UNCIAT, the Invasion of Chechnya, the romance between Ariddia & that other guy's ambassadors, the reaction to Promotion of Solar Panels. The only reason they're not any more is that WA roleplaying has declined, and that's because (1) the MetaGaming rule imposed by the moderators and to the frustration and opposition of UNOG members at the time and (2) the new players! Newbies like Mouse, Defwa, Arararararakar, CP/JPT, etc., most of them don't really bother to engage with roleplay. Dare I say, but GR, CD and Auralia are not faultless in this regard either. Which forum it's posted in doesn't make a difference: had I been around at the time, I would have happily got involved with the ICC roleplaying. Love that kind of stuff.

if we're really thinking of a new era, hold a funeral for Catherine Gratwick - kill the bird off - and give newbies what they've wanted and requested for years, an open regular vote to decide the new Secretary-General done in the GA, for the purposes solely of roleplay

Literally the only two people I have ever seen complain about this have been you and Mahaj. NPCs are common, useful tools in roleplaying: it means anyone can invoke Catherine Gratwick in their roleplay if they need to without worrying about godmoding.

[Gruenberg]

Sure you can use her. Not as your own character, but as someone to react to. Shit, the very first post I made in the WA with DSR bounced off her!

NS is an unmoderated open world roleplay. You can write whatever you want, and if people don't like it, then just ignore them, there's no need for them to play with you. Instead of fretting so much over the possibility that someone, somewhere, might disagree, just go out and explore.