The State of the Nation

WIP

A good SD nation needs to be:

• Fun for you to play.
• Fun for the other players to play with.
• Fun for the GM to run a game containing.

You might want to do something else with it too, like stretch yourself as a writer, but if it isn't those three things it's not a good nation for a game. If a nation seems like the coolest shit ever to you but nobody else wants to touch you, it's not a good nation for a game. To be fun to play, play with and run, a nation needs to provoke interest and inspire interaction, not just from your perspective but from the other players too.

Here are some guidelines:

• The nation needs potential to actually do stuff. This is the most important one, because doing stuff produces posts, and posts are what makes an SD.
• The nation should have a strong idea. The nation should be a unique entity in itself, not just be defined in relation to other things, like 'Imperial Germany, in Space, with Mecha'. A sack of vague themes might be a good starting point for a nation but if you're describing it entirely in terms of tropes and references, your nation isn't standing by itself as a concept.
• The nation should gel with the setting. The nation must work as a part of the broader SD universe. If it's a sober space game, resist the urge to base your military on super robot tropes. Keep your technology (or magic) style similar to that of the background fluff and other players. If major events and ideological currents led up to the status quo at gamestart, describe how they influenced and still influence your nation today. Unless the game starts with your nation being sucked in from a separate universe to the game world, it's been sharing it with others for centuries or millennia and is not an island unto itself but a product of the world it lives in.
• Resist the urge to snowflake. Strongly related to the above. In most game settings there will be a few things noted as rare exceptions. Inevitably, they become common exceptions once PCs grab for all the cool stuff when nationbuilding. In extreme cases, they go on to outnumber the 'normal' cases and cease to be exceptions at all. Or maybe whatever it is that makes your nation cool and unique really is unique, but doesn't fit the setting. Or maybe it does fit the setting, it's just totally superfluous and not terribly interesting to anyone else. Everyone wants their nation to be the Special One, but what really makes a nation compelling to the other players is richness of society, history, and connection with the world. Not your unique magical style or snazzy trenchcoat and katana.
• Don't dicksize. Nobody cares how amazing your technology is, how elite your military is, or how many archmagi you have. They care about interesting flavour, how what you're doing relates to them, and how it can produce exciting stories that make both parties look cool. Too much waving stats around produces irritation, resentment and destructive arms races more than genuine development.

There's also things every real nation has, but some SD nations don't, that are more or less guaranteed to make it more interesting.

• Not everyone in a nation agrees. If they do, it's probably boring. What are the major divisions? Are they open or veiled? Lopsided or equal? How are they arranged geographically or demographically? How are they resolved, through politics, shadow games or mass violence?
• What failings does your nation have? What is it bad at? If the answer is 'nothing really', something that is actually a good thing, or something that mainly serves to make your nation look more badass or heroic, take a step back and rework it.