A short question about countries

[Superfluous Crow]

Okay, this is barely worth a thread as it is not much more than a query, but here goes.

Basically, the question can be boiled down to: How many?

How many countries do you have in your setting?
How many do you think there should be for a classic continental setting to be self-sustainable?
How many other concepts/ideas do you have concerning countries and nations?

And these questions only concern settings that would have countries so "None. You can have a continent only with tribes" is not a valid answer.

As i see it, in a setting that more or less follows the normal rules, you need enough countries to provide
1) international tension, and
2) Diversity enough for the setting to be able to sustain almost all cultural character concepts.

EDIT: oh, forgot myself. I have about 6 nations divided over 2.5 continents. Personally, i'm pretty sure this isn't enough, which is the underlying reason for this thread..

[Nomadic]

I have what is known as city states. Different setup than nations.

To answer the first question, alot. No reason to count them. As city states are much smaller than nation states and a bit more isolated you can have many more. Secondly I don't think there is a required number to make a campaign sustainable. Heck I once ran a successful campaign in which it was just one city and the surrounding area.

As to tension and diversity, that can be found within a single country or without a country at all. To be proper all you need is inter-group tension. It doesn't have to be international you could have intertribal or interracial, etc etc... Same thing goes for diversity, look at a country like America. A single nation yet extremely diverse with its own pockets of very different culture and thought.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

gah - meant to preview not post - can't delete so see next post. . .

[Elven Doritos]

How many countries do you have in your setting?
I usually set each campaign I run in the setting in a slightly different era, but my two longest and most successful backdrops from my Red Valor campaign setting are vastly different. The original version of the setting had around 8 nations on the main continent, with outlying continents undefined politically. In the more successful revision of my setting (just a fifty year advancement in the storyline of the former), there were twenty-seven different nations on the main continent alone, and 13 on the second continent.

I'm in the process of working on yet another revision of the setting, and this time I'm moving back towards a smaller number of nations, basically a movement back to the larger empires of the setting's history. I believe the current layout has eight major nations, though one is an Empire composed of multiple realms.

How many do you think there should be for a campaign to be self-sustainable?
It really depends on the themes and concepts of the setting, really. I could see a single continental empire being an excellent backdrop for adventure, as well as hundreds of independent city-states. Successful games can be as politically complex or multinational as the players and the DM need to tell their stories.

How many other concepts/ideas do you have concerning countries and nations?
Ideally, the distinctions between nations should make for interesting storytelling tools. Players should be able to draw from certain regional and social expectations that nations typically embody, and nations are an excellent source of stories revolving around war, politics, prejudice, and diplomacy. They make a great body that's easy for players to relate to, and the complexity and stylistic detail of a nation can enhance verisimilitude and immersion more than almost any other element of setting design.

[Superfluous Crow]

I was actually planning on making a more or less contested area in my setting be home to a load of city states, but the problem with city states is that they are somewhat indistinct. Not to say that they can't have a culture of their own and be a viable part of the setting, but in a world with both city states and nations, the nations will be features while the states can rarely rise beyond being quirks.
And i should probably rewrite the "sustainable" question; i meant to ask how many there should be to make a world-setting viable. This is, a setting with continents and the like; more experimental settings like Ptolus and the like don't have to play by the same rules.

[Polycarp]

I was actually planning on making a more or less contested area in my setting be home to a load of city states, but the problem with city states is that they are somewhat indistinct. Not to say that they can't have a culture of their own and be a viable part of the setting, but in a world with both city states and nations, the nations will be features while the states can rarely rise beyond being quirks.

and[/i] part of a cultural whole.  Classical Greece had many city-states, but all shared to some extent in "Greek culture."  You don't need to make every city have a culture of their own; give the region a culture and give the city states their own little quirks or interesting variations on that culture, showing that they are part of a whole but still have their own personalities.

And i should probably rewrite the "sustainable" question; i meant to ask how many there should be to make a world-setting viable. This is, a setting with continents and the like; more experimental settings like Ptolus and the like don't have to play by the same rules.

world[/i], then I'm not sure what the "optimal" number is - a lot, certainly.

It also depends on what you mean by "country."  Viewed on a world scale, a large country might seem like a monolithic cultural and political entity, but someone who actually lives there might recognize it as composing a vast array of different local cultures, power structures, religions, and so on.  The more precise you are about defining countries and cultures, the more there are going to be.  When an empire conquers many lands, do those lands cease to be "countries," even though they still have their own unique cultures and traditions?

[khyron1144]

My setting kinda has 10+ countries on the start of the map at thestart of the game and there's room for expansion.  One country is a disputed zone, the mountains that dwarves adn the svartaelfs are fighing over.  Two more countries are kind of collections of mini-countries: the barbarain lands are divided up by tribes; the Beast Lands are a very loose association of countries dominated by the races that look like humanoid animals.  Both of these conglomerate countries are prone to internal warfare over which group's territory ends where.

My basic starting point was a sort of racial homeland for PC races plus a few different human cultures plus some enemy groups.  I don't view this as any sort of hard-and-fast rule for a minimum number, it simply worked for me.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

As Nomadic touches on by example - sovereign entities (which term I think covers what you are asking about in the largest set of possible examples) can take multiple forms and encompass widely varying degrees of territory. A particular reason for focusing on these entities in terms of sovereignty goes back to your own example which you imply would not fit. (Or you are implying that others would think it doesn't fit without believing so yourself.)
 
[blockquote CC]these questions only concern settings that would have countries so "None. You can have a continent only with tribes" is not a valid answer.[/blockquote]

How many sovereign nations exist within the borders of the United States? Most non-natives will fall for this trick question. I don't actually know the current number according to US Gov't bullshit rules of recognizing that status, but to quote Nomadic re: City State "Lots." Every "tribal" group with which the US Gov't. signed (and subsequetly broke in ever single case, but that's not wqhat this post is about. . .) a treaty is defined by that very act as a sovereign nation. Only a sovereign nation can enter into a treaty with another - because nothing subsidiary has the authority to do so. This is why, if you are curious as to a Native American's "tribal" origin the proper question to ask is, "What nation are you from." The Dine Nation (like all of the others) has it's own seal, governing body, etc., aqnd when it's convenient to the Unites States to mess with them (such as pressuring them to get out of the way of the oil companies) goods which they export off of the reservation are assessed customs!

Okay - why this is germane - a few hundred years ago there were a couple of thousand such tribal nations here - astounding diversity and international tension - Turtle Island provided what you're looking for, and here's the significant part, without establishing territorial, i.e., national borders. Yes, tribal nations did engage in wars over access/use of certain geographic regions - but not ownership, nor the right to govern/rule over the people living there. (Mesoamerica does show that happening, as realms in South America.) Now they, like city states, constitutes smaller population groups occupying smaller geographic territories. If you look at medieval Europe, you'll find numerous small nations. Italian city states were such - Italian by culture and language, but not by country. Most of Germany and the slavic countries likewise consisted of small principalities which could be lumped together by language or other cultural commonality but were constantly at war with each other. China on the other hand covered a huge territory with variances of language and culture (though similar) an likewise experienced much internal tension and conflict - sometimes as an empires, sometimes much more fragmented as smaller states sought to overcome the others and establish a new empire.

In game world terms then we also need to include the diversity of races (if your setting has more than one) and often because of that territory often becomes 3 dimensional - at least a second layer of geography directly underground, whether or not you enter another sovereign territory if you travel still deeper. In the water can likewise hold one or more sovereign nations - who may contest territorial claim to the water's surface with any maritime activities of surface nations. This all boils down to a single continent will readily accommodate hundreds if not thousands of countries. A campaign can be self-sustainable with only one - such as is presented by Imperial China or feudal Japan, or in fantasy by Rokugan (L5R).

The question then really boils down to, how many can you as DM manage at a time? A setting can be envisioned as containing many times that number - a given campaign within the setting is not likely to involve the entire planet explicitly even if the story does so implicitly, e.g., "Buffy saved the world. Lots." was a campaign which essentially only spanned a single town in southern CA. Panisadore covers 2 continents and change as well - for the whole planet. I have no idea yet how many sovereign nations currently exist - lots and lots. A self sustaining campaign can be readily run with just what I have outlined now - the Empire in the equatorial sea and the semi-united Khurorkh tribes in the islands of the western end of that sea, 3 (southern) coastal nations, an inland region of nomad tribes south of the central of those nations and an independent city on the border of two of them. There's still undeveloped territory westward along that equatorial coastline and an undeveloped northern coastline just in the equatorial region - with very large continents extending from those coastlines north- and southward which are still essentially blank. (Trade with other coastal nations implies them within the campaign boundaries but they don't need to be fleshed out - really at most an idea of what is being traded.)

Campaign sustainability then isn't really a function of multiple sovereign or even cultural groups. What does your story require? If you answer that first you can then create the necessary elements - and leave room for different stories and/or for the initial answer to change. You don't have to create the entire gameworld before you can start running games within it. I wouldn't advise trying even, not only because it could mean years before you even run your first session, but also because once you get people playing in it they will provide tons of ideas and concepts, explicitly, "Hey, I want to play a foreign X from somewhere that lives like Y and thinks Z about all of this because of it," and implicitely, e.g. the mage's mentor has an old nemesis from back when he taught at a college of magic with a major grudge somewhere which extends to all of the mage's close associates and proteges. None of your current nations has, or believably would have, such a college so you eventually create one. Six nations is more than enough to tell some stories, hardly scratching the surface of some other stories. (Gormenghast was really only one gigantic building!)

[Kirksmithicus]

I would say to start with what you have. If later you decide you need more, you can have civil wars and balkanization. you can change or add things during play by simply stating "this" is the known world, and let the players know it may expand during play or between campaigns.

My $.02

[Kaptn'Lath]

depends on how much traveling you or your players want to do... some campaigns/partys are good having all the action happen in one backdrop/setting, however you or your players may find they also enjoy the imaginative exploration of RPGs as much as combat or owning cool majik stuff.if thats true then yea make as many as you want to experiance. rememver its a game, balance planetary realism with what you want at the table. if you think that in 20 levels 4-5 different places/cultures is enough to see for you and your group then go with that.

[Elemental_Elf]

1 is the bare minimum. You only need more if you (or your players) intend to travel, lol. There is no magic number of countries that makes every setting perfect, though there might be a number that makes a particular setting better. The point is, make a few, test them out and if you enjoy them, great, let your players adventure there. If not, then go back to the drawing board, or simply add more. Find what makes you and your players happy and run with it.  

[Superfluous Crow]

The issue is not so much how many you would need to run a game, but how many you would need to cover an entire continent. I *am* actually already DM'ing a game in this setting, i just took the liberty of starting the campaign on the new, unexplored continent, reducing my unfinished countries to background material. So i have plenty of free room to add countries, which i'll probably do at some point, I'm just having some trouble coming up with some usable concepts.

[Raelifin]

I have a mostly tribal world that has 6 real nations spread out over one continent of area. If I include organized tribal alliances, this number jumps to 9. If I include regions of territorial tribes with their own distinct culture, I have 12.

[Moniker]

Using the geographical measurements of Asia and Europe combined, I developed 17 major countries: http://deismaar.pbwiki.com/Political+Geography - specifically, Aglador and Goth Moran as the focus of the campaign world.

However, my recommendation is to strongly develop two countries that play host to a couple of ethnicities, whether human or demihuman, and create some general personality types to those races. From there, nationbuild as that the racial characteristics (not the bonuses/penalties to ability scores, but the personality stereotypes that are inherent to their race) will provide a good measure on how to apply real-world political/social norms within each nation.

Hope that helps!

[Superfluous Crow]

My races are mostly offshoots of the human race that have happened either relatively recently, or otherwise don't really have any cultural connection to a racial background. But i might add some more obscure ones later