Speed date idea

[Variota]

As said in the RP mentoring channel, I've had the idea to organize a sort of speed dating idea to switch things up a bit and establish ties between nations. In part, the concept is based on things I've seen in different regions that had 'news cycles' and such. Basic idea:

Sign up
Easy enough. Each time the subject changes, I'll make a sign up thread for people to sign up in. This allows people to decide their participation based on whether they'll have time and, also important, whether the subject interests them. (We could change this up to have the subject randomly chosen at the same time as the couples, in order to keep numbers from falling in the case of less-liked subjects.)

Assigning people
People will be assigned at random, through random.org's number generator. Names on a list, each name a number, easy enough. I'll release the list both on the OOC thread and the OP of the IC thread.

Subject
Each thread will have a subject. It could be something quite precise or something as vague as cuisine, which means the people teamed up could elaborate about fusion cooking (ex. Variotan-Fulgistani cuisine), a chef that holds fame in both or one of the nations, a famous restaurant, a well-known cook book, whatever. The goal here would be to promote connections between the two nations in an as large or as small a way as both participants can agree on. People can propose subjects, which I'll keep in a list together with whatever I think up and use random.org (because I like it and it gives all subjects a fair chance to get selected) to select the next thread's subject.

How
The how will be kept as open as possible. For example, both participants could come together to write a short story such as a critic's review of the famous restaurant I mentioned in 'Subject'. Or a travel guide bit, news articles, a wiki page, etc. Obviously, it'd be great if this leads to something both nations could use in their RPs, although that's not always possible of course. The goal is a bit of nice worldbuilding in ways some/most wouldn't have thought about with people they might not have thought about.

Duration
I'd imagine a sign up time of a week being good enough, as it would be as simple as 'I want to join in this round'. For the duration of the IC thread, I feel two weeks should be good for discussing things and writing them out especially as this is meant as a way to set up the connect, start it up. Theoretically, we could do the sign ups for the next thread once everyone has put in their bit, which might done sooner than the full two weeks, or during the last week of the IC thread in case things work out and it doesn't feel too rushed. It's all up for tweaking while we do it, of course. Learn and adapt and all that.

 

I'll keep this in the moderation forum for 24 hours or so, in case there are any glaring issues we as the moderation team see, before moving it into the normal public forums.

[Orioni]

Yes! NationDates is back again.  And this time it comes with writing prompts.

I've been snooping around on other worldbuilding communities and their Discord servers. A nice one is Worldbuilding Magazine. They have a "Worldbuilding Wednesday". It includes a weekly writing prompt. Here is a selection:

1. When somebody has money to blow and a desire to travel in style, how do they do this in your world? Have you got a fancy car, prized steeds, or perhaps sleek ships that do the trick?
2. Why was a town named the way it was? Why is the border strange-looking? What happened in the past to cause these things?
3. Every world has that piece which people forget about. Tell us about what makes your forgettable corner of the world or region unique.
4. Everyone likes to play a game, be it for gambling, simple chance, or education. In your world, what sort of games do your folk enjoy?
5. Let's discuss medicine. What is your worlds most advanced medical salve, operation, or other treatment? What medical practices are being used despite the fact they are outdated? Do they know of germs, or have they discovered that germs aren't real and it's something else which causes ailments?
6. What roles in your world/culture are affected by gender? An example would be how women in the music industry in America are much more likely to be solo performers, while men are seen more often in bands.
7. What are some of the most prominent, influential, and/or divisive corporations in your world? What do they do that causes such a response? What do they do which most don't know about? What's their logo look like?

These selected writing prompts I shared are focussed mainly on a single person writing. If the aim is to establish ties between two people, there needs to be a twist that brings them together. Let's use the opportunity here to collect some of those ideas.

• https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/
• https://www.writersdigest.com/prompts
• http://writingprompts.com/ (funny)

[Variota]

Moved this into the regular parts of the forum. The writing prompts @Orioni gave are a good beginning of a list, so I'll add them. In case everything goes right, I think we could start the first sign ups at the end of the week/beginning of this weekend.

[Variota]

I've listed them more as general ideas, so 'currency', 'wealth', 'immigration', 'entertainment', etc. That way, there's room for two people to come together.