So I love reading anything by Sally. She’s just fabulous. But it’s always on Facebook, and sometimes I need to stash it where I can link to it later. From here on – this is all her, and entirely verbatim.

The seven nations of Empire.

So, I half mentioned this yesterday, but it’s been my mental chewing gum since then. This is based off the ‘seven nations’ theory of America which states “America is not a single country. It is a collection of seven competitive nations and three quasi-independent city-states, each with its own tastes, proclivities, resources and problems.”.

My related theory is “Empire is not a single game or gaming culture. It is a collection of six competitive nations AT LEAST, each with its own tastes, priorities, cultural norms, taboos, proclivities, resources and problems, and half the time they are actively incompatible with each other”.

My own vague analysis is that I can spot six OC Player Nations in Empire that I have cheerfully and tastelessly named Fantasy Ren Fair, Seeking Community, Totally Immersive World, EuroLRP For £2.50, Vampire In The Mud, Mud & Beer.

There are probably more and I think they tend to overlap and many people will have sympathies with multiple, but this is my observation. To flesh them out:

Fantasy Ren Fair

Probably first came across Empire via a podcast or YouTube channel. Didn’t read the wiki. May well have posted pics of their trial run for their costume pre-game on the Empire FB group. Possibly the happiest of all the nations as they aren’t being constantly disappointed by Senate elections, and have taken the ‘make your own fun’ mantra to heart. Have no idea why Totally Immersive World keep glaring at them so much. Most likely to hide ducks on the field.

Seeking Community

LRPers who want LRP to be better than the shitty real world we live in. These are the people who come to LRP to maybe explore elements of their gender that they can’t in the outside world, or who feel like saving refugees at Empire acts as a kind of therapy for the people they can’t save in the outside world. These are the people who gets madly frustrated when people say ‘we can’t take someone disabled on a skirmish or we’ll all die’ because it’s just a fucking game and are most likely to say ‘yes, I did think Eve Orzel was just being manipulated by Bohemond but supported her anyway because women need to uplift each other and that matters more’. Probably the nicest people on the field. Locked in a terrible battle to the death with Vampire In The Mud.

Totally Immersive World

LRPers who *really* read the wiki. These are the people seeking a sandbox game. They are the people who may genuinely have cried over the Whittlefolk children. They include the costume makers who hate zips, and the Synod players who use the words ‘unitarian heresy’ in utter sincerity. They are the deathly enemies of the Fantasy Ren Fair and are driven into murderous fury by so much as a fleeting glimpse of a plastic duck. They may sympathize with Seeking Community, but may also think that Cruelty isn’t innately Unvirtuous, and can co exist with Vampire In The Mud but are exceedingly grumpy when told ‘look, those babies in the Barrens were not real and the maths say we need to take the territory this season’.

EuroLRP for £2.50

They really want a deep emotional journey, maybe with some edgy elements (and barely concealed references to sexual violence), probably with a very well researched costume that makes them look like they might be Totally Immersive World players, but then you realize that they don’t actually care whether or not the wiki says it’s plausible as long as it’s a *good story*.

Vampire In The Mud

Their battle cry is ‘but it’s a PvP game’ as they scream in constant frustration at the idiocy going on around them. Who gives a fuck about your tragic backstory? The people who died in the Mourn were fucking NPCs and never existed! Ducks are not on brief but whatevs, and they also don’t give a toss if it’s a ‘bad look’ to revoke the only femme presenting general if she’s shit at the maths. They play to win and are constantly a bit lost as to why this seems to generate so much antipathy when it’s RIGHT THERE ON THE WIKI that they are playing the game as written.

Mud & Beer

They’ve been doing this since Lorien Trust in the 90s. They really don’t mean to upset anyone, and just want a nice ruck and to hang out with their mates, and what is wrong with their filked football chants? Likely to be older than the rest of the players and probably own a Viking tunic that is older than some members of the Fantasy Ren Fair nation.

And in all nations, most of the players will be lovely, and creative, and fun, and no one is bad. But they want and expect totally different things out of the game and most of them aren’t really aware that the others exist, as opposed to being members of their own tribe who are Doing It Wrong.

Now, you should all tag yourselves, and also, tell me which nations don’t exist and I’ve made them up totally, which I’ve missed, or just tell me I’m wrong wrong wrong.