What is the Relation Between Player and PC Nation?

This is an opinion poll. There is no right or wrong answer, this is simply an effort to gauge public opinion. Which of the above poll options do you feel best summarizes your understanding of the common relationship between a player and their player-character nation in the average nation-state/civilization/empire oriented NES? An expansion on these options is given below:

1. Disembodied Noncorporeal Zeitgeist of the Nation: You, the player, act as the sum manifestation of the nation, as traditionally embodied in characters such as Uncle Sam/Columbia, John Bull/Britannia, and other national personifications, and so in some very real sense you play as the sum totality of the nation; your wishes are its wishes in aggregate, and there is no real distinction between you and any part of it.
2. Gestalt Government Apparatus: You, the player, represent the sum total of the national government, whatever its composition and construction, and accordingly all the varying factions and political parties within it, as well as all its branches (traditionally: Executive, Legislative, Judicial), possibly (but not necessarily) including government down to its smallest levels. This is akin to the above, but reduced in scope.
3. Ruling Party/Faction: You, the player, represent whatever political party, faction, dynasty, et alia, is in charge of the nation.
4. Executive Government: You, the player, represent the bit of government which has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state. (There may or may not be a separation from the other responsibilities of state.)
5. Executive Ruler: You, the player, represent only whomever is at the highest position of executive authority of the state, i.e., its head of government/state (whichever is actually in charge, or both if they reside in the same position/person).
6. Immortal Being/Beings Guiding Civilization Directly/Indirectly: You, the player, are actually manifested in some fashion in the narrative, possibly behind the scenes or under an assumed name, steering events as if you yourself were a character in the narrative of the story, albeit one never directly recognized. This is akin to how Civilization presents its leaders, and similar to the concept of Highlander, or the implied historical presence of Kane in Command & Conquer's universe. Essentially, events that unfold are a direct result of your machinations.
7. Other/Please Explain: Perhaps none of these is how you see the relation. Please articulate your view of the relationship as best you can.

An example of each of these, utilizing the United States of 2014:

1. The United States of America.
2. The (Federal) Government of the United States of America.
3. The Democratic Party.
4. The Executive Branch of the Federal Government of the United States of America.
5. President Barack Obama.
6. Lord Xenu. HAIL XENU!
7. The Illuminati/Majestic 12/New World Order/etc.

I'm still kind of new to NESing (well, it's been just over a year now), but the way I've approached it thus far has been as the ruling party or faction when it comes to actual orders, but for the purposes of stories I'd be okay with straying outside of that.

Ideally, I think the player should be the executive ruler or some form of the executive government. I'm not sure I entirely understand the difference between options three and four.

In reality, I think it's usually some combination between all options. Sometimes it is different for different players in the same game, as it often varies between player style and what the moderator is willing to tolerate out of them. More consistency would be preferable, in my opinion.

bombshoo said:

I'm not sure I entirely understand the difference between options three and four.

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In a lot of cases there's a (nominally) apolitical bureaucracy that stays in place and gets things done as the rulers above them come and go; sometimes this exists as almost its own faction or party. This is more a feature of modern democratic states (in so far as the ruling elite routinely changing goes) but comes up in other circumstances as well.

Usually this maintains a certain consistency of policy regardless of which particular faction or party is in power at the time.

Symphony D. said:

In a lot of cases there's a (nominally) apolitical bureaucracy that stays in place and gets things done as the rulers above them come and go; sometimes this exists as almost its own faction or party. This is more a feature of modern democratic states (in so far as the ruling elite routinely changing goes) but comes up in other circumstances as well.

Usually this maintains a certain consistency of policy regardless of which particular faction or party is in power at the time.

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I see what you mean. So for the first one, the player's control would extend only over the ruler, their inner circle and other immediate political appointees, while the latter would include your day-to-day civil servants (but probably still excluding those who work for local governments and other branches).

If that's the case, I still tend to support the executive government style and it's roughly what I was trying to model in my last couple of rule sets. Anything above it seems like too much power in the player's hands, damaging any attempt to model real governmental workings, while anything below it seems to be getting into the realm of just playing in domestic politics, which would be okay, but NESing is primarily about the interactions between state and state-like actors and that's where the focus should stay.

Obviously my opinion would be subject to change given the exact circumstances of the NES (era, style, etc)

Both 1 and 2. I voted for 'Zeitgeist of the Nation' as players usually have a large role in areas that traditionally are not under the purview of the government, but when this is abused, you usually have to pull their priveleges back to 'Gestalt Government Apparatus' so that people don't make nations of fanatically loyal people who freely choose to constantly train for combat as a hobby.

Lord_Iggy said:

Both 1 and 2. I voted for 'Zeitgeist of the Nation' as players usually have a large role in areas that traditionally are not under the purview of the government, but when this is abused, you usually have to pull their priveleges back to 'Gestalt Government Apparatus' so that people don't make nations of fanatically loyal people who freely choose to constantly train for combat as a hobby.

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I know how you like to design your nations and frankly I think this is great, however, in my opinion, this is sort of secondary and more part of the story element than the competitive part of NESing. It should only influence the game itself at the mod's discretion. It's why I think most of the "Zeitgeist" design coming from players should be done before the NES even begins.

bombshoo said:

I see what you mean. So for the first one, the player's control would extend only over the ruler, their inner circle and other immediate political appointees, while the latter would include your day-to-day civil servants (but probably still excluding those who work for local governments and other branches).

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Well, to draw a few different examples: compare the Democratic Party (3) vs. Barack Obama's Federal Government (4), or the House of Bourbon (3) vs. the Ancien Régime or more specifically the administrative section thereof including the King (4), or any of the Chinese Dynasties (3) vs. the Imperial government including the civil service (4).

(4) necessarily includes some members of (3) (e.g., Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Louis XIV, the Yongle Emperor, etc.) but is not coterminal with (3), and may or may not have a very different agenda. A person playing the Democratic Party would behave in a very different way to one playing The Executive Branch of the United States of America.

A combination of 1 and 2. I feel that players should have some control over things like who wins elections, etc, but at the same time they really shouldn't be doing actions that are too out of character for their current leadership, even (especially) if its the logical best option to take.

I reserve the righ to punish people for gamey or dumb behaviour (i.e. after four years of incompetence, the player writes "the conservative party wins the elections and everybody loves them." and I respond by going "cool, the conservatives win the elections but everybody hates them so the populace calls fraud.") Stuff excessively controlling the nation's responses is right out, but I have no problem with somebody forming, say, a fascist movement in their country and slowly building it for ten or fifteen years before having it take power in a contested or rigged election or a coup or something.

For that matter, I have no problems with players intentionally starting civil wars or coups if its reasonably plausible. I see no reason why players shouldn't be able to come up with ingame cultural mores and artifacts as well - its part of the fun of playing a NES. Not doing any of the things I talked about above seems like its essentially taking away a big chunk of the worldbuilding from the player, which seems bizarre to me.

For NESes with turns over a long time period, you absolutely have to play as essentially a gestalt national concsiousness - you can't, say, order the domestication of an animal or the development of a horseworshipping religious cult as an individual, you have to abstract it away. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is for actions that are somewhat out of your government's direct perview, you aren't so much giving orders or playing someone as you are writing a narrative. For example, you don't order the passage of a law - you order your Conservative government to pass it, the Socialist opposition then opposes it, someone challenges it and takes to the High Court on constitutional grounds, it gets through the court but the Socialists fight an election campaign on repealing it, they lose and the resulting defeat splinters the Socialist party into a moderate centre-left-wing party supporting the law and a core of hardline socialists who want it repealed.

The above is something that I would have absolutely no problem with a player ordering (with the result being +1 Stability or something, I dunno), controlling for context. I don't see anything wrong with players writing out actions that are outside of the purview of their government, as long as they aren't "Republicans pass DOMA and everybody loves them for it and abandons the democrats in droves and Cindy from math goes to the formal with me." If I get something like that I'll either throw it out or rework the results to punish the player for doing gamey stuff.

For the record, I will happily order negative reactions and occurances in my instructions/narrative. I tried to build a fascist analogue party in Spain in Capto over like 10-15 years, taking all the negative results that came my way - some of which I explicitly ordered.

I personally play as the natural force that takes the nation through the flow of time, decides the historical contingencies etc... I play its history, not really the state itself (only in diplomacy, then I would play the current ruler).

You could say I play the evolution of the nation, not the nation itself.

I voted for ruling faction (3) but I think I vary between (3), (4) and (5). I tend to adjust the breadth of what I represent depending on how widely I consider political power and governmental responsibility are spread. In absolute monarchies I tend to play as the current monarch; for instance, I consider my role in N3S to constitute purely the current Redeemer, because he is the whole "ruling faction", in a sense. I took a similar stance in DaNES II, and even in PerfNES I (where I was King Leofric, and my parliament was, I considered, essentially NPC). In EQ's CI, I considered that I more or less operated the ruling party, but particularly as it was manifested in the parliamentary party and the government. So I tend to vary my position from NES to NES a bit - and if I tended to play NESes in which I thought other approaches were more appropriate, I expect I would take them.

blend of 1 and 6. i now need to figure out a way to give myself a cameo at least once.

somewhere between one, two and three, since I would consider it legit for the player character to in some since direct say culture and trends in extra-governmental forces (academia, religion and the like), but only indirectly to a lesser or greater degree depending on the particular NES in question. Actual absolute decisions and directions I think for a player apply strictly to the decision making of the administrative apparatus.

Lord_Iggy said:

Both 1 and 2. I voted for 'Zeitgeist of the Nation' as players usually have a large role in areas that traditionally are not under the purview of the government, but when this is abused, you usually have to pull their priveleges back to 'Gestalt Government Apparatus' so that people don't make nations of fanatically loyal people who freely choose to constantly train for combat as a hobby.

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Which is funny because ONO & DSZ (Općenarodna Obrana i Društvena Samozaštita) in old Yugoslavia was a subject in highschool were students learned basics of firearms, improvised explosives and guerrillas tactics. Combine this with a period of mandatory military service for males and a Territorial Defense unit on Municipal level and you had a lot of reasonably useful tactical elements. You could say it sort of backfired but for other reasons.

1 and 2 is what I am used to but I'd like to try the idea of 3 and 4. I liked Immac's way of doing things where you had major factions listed and their primary concerns. So you as part of the ruling party and/or executive government could try to sort out some at the expense of others which might or might not screw you down the line. Like politics.

I enjoy having the aegis to occasionally pit factions within my government against each other and have them work at cross purposes. Internal conflict and whether it should be a mod or a player's responsibility is a fairly sticky area in modding theory, with the answer usually coming out to be 'both'.

But for that reason, I prefer to be the gestalt of the ruling government rather than simply the ruling faction, since I believe that limiting one's control to the ruling faction also limits the scope and creativity of the narrative you can build.

In practice it is generally the first option, considering how players tend to have power over opposition factions and culture. There have been experiments aimed at curbing this tendency and/or refocusing the players on playing the government, but even if they had some success (I honestly can't say right now) this seems to still be the case in the main stream.

Other options are interesting possibilities but I'm not sure if they were ever properly realised; maybe they were and I'm unaware/forgetting something. I'm not sure if there's a difference between 1 and 5 in practice, by the way; they seem like two different ways of conceptualising the broad sweep and long term continuity of player control over nation, more than anything else.

bombshoo said:

I know how you like to design your nations and frankly I think this is great, however, in my opinion, this is sort of secondary and more part of the story element than the competitive part of NESing. It should only influence the game itself at the mod's discretion. It's why I think most of the "Zeitgeist" design coming from players should be done before the NES even begins.

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Nothing is secondary to the story element of NESing. It should never be competitive. That said, I dislike all of these options.

Zeitgeist/Gestalt, depending on the NES of course, ideally it's Zeitgeist but within proper boundaries of inworld realism.

I have to agree with moose, though I voted for #1. I reserve the right to change or switch any government in my country through story (Within reason) and so no other option would work.

Amon Savag said:

I have to agree with moose, though I voted for #1. I reserve the right to change or switch any government in my country through story (Within reason) and so no other option would work.

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That is not what I mean and you do not hold the same views as me.