OngoingWorlds blog

News & articles about play-by-post games, for roleplayers & writers

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OtherSpace – Story arcs in a MUSH

Otherspace

I received an email the other week letting me know that the space-opera MUSH OtherSpace is starting a new story arc, and they’re asking for money contributions to help out with funding their hosting, marketing expenses and production costs. You might have heard of OtherSpace, we hosted an article about them earlier this year interviewing Wes, the creator (you can see it here).

Whilst OtherSpace is a bit different to the types of roleplaying games ran on OngoingWorlds, they’re remarkably close and still have members who contribute to an ongoing story, just like our play-by-post games. I interviewed Wes again, asking some questions about his new story arc called “Broken Web”. Read More

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Your character is a product of their ancestors

I hope you’re enjoying Way Back When Week! If you’ve not heard of it yet, see here.

Your character is a product of their ancestors. It’s a weird way to look at it, but it’s true of us all. The knowledge and experience that our parents have gathered gets passed onto us, including many life valuable life skills, and family values. Often we pick up hobbies and interests from our parents, follow the same sports, watch the same TV programmes, and do similar hobbies. Don’t forget though that your parents probably got a lot of these skills, values and interests from their parents too, and them from their parents and so on. Read More

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Time distortions in roleplaying – Do your story threads match up?

Distorted clock

One of the most complicated aspects of writing for a roleplay online is one that I’ve actually never heard many people discuss, although every game and group probably has their own interpretation of how it should be handled. What I’m talking about is time.

Time is more or less constant (unless you ask an astrophysicist of course). And often days or weeks can go past between writing your roleplay post, and you often don’t want time to have elapsed since your last post, which means time goes slower in your roleplay. Read More

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Way Back When Week Competition

way back when

Way Back When Week is a great opportunity to really get to know the background of your character, why they have a certain trait or family experience by telling it in the form of an extreme flashback to the event that first developed it, but more than that it’s a chance to enter your stories into a competition! Simply write your story and then send it to us, for a chance to win! The final date for competition entries is the 1st of December. Read More

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Way Back When Week Is Almost Here!

Way back when week

Ongoing Worlds will be having an extravaganza known as Way Back When Week from November 25 to December 1 2012. For this week, we invite the simming community to write posts in the format of extreme flashbacks to past generations to show their character’s family and backgrounds in a new light.
Read More

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Introduction to Star Army – a bespoke play-by-post universe

People and armour

Star Army is a play-by-post roleplaying game using a phpbb forum. The game consists of dozens of plots, all taking place in the same shared universe. They have about 80 regular members who write and roleplay for the site, and has been going since 2000.

I spoke recently with Wes Davis, creator and administrator of the game, and he was able to answer a few questions about Star Army.

Tell us about Star Army

Wes DavisRoleplay primarily focuses on military starships and their crews. We’re just coming out of a multi-year metaplot that was war-centric, so we’re starting to shift focus onto independent adventure plots on the dangerous frontiers of the major empires and improving the diversity of plot types and character types.

Star Army is a space opera setting with faster-than-light travel, aliens, space navies, and post-human construct races. Major themes include questions about what makes us human and what is worth fighting for. In Star Army, the galaxy is in the aftermath of an epic series of wars. Read More

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New OOC update for everyone

I heart OOC

The OOC update has been around for quite a while, but until now you’ve had to opt-in by registering on a form on the original article. Now it’s available for everyone, in all games.

Here’s a video where I explain how to make a post into an OOC post, it’s really simple. Read More

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Chas Hammer is awarded the OWCH

The OWCH awardI’d like to inform everyone that Chas Hammer, a member of our Board of Advisors, has resigned and decided to move on with his career. Chas joined us earlier this year in March when OngoingWorlds and the Simming League merged. During his seven months on the board, Chas has been an invaluable asset to us all. With that in mind, I now present the second Ongoing Worlds Community Honor to Chas Hammer for his service on the Board of Advisors and for hosting SciWorld 2012.

Congratulations! Read More

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Announcing Way Back When Week

Way back when week

Way Back When Week  is a week event where writers and roleplayers are encouraged to write a story depicting their characters ancestors, and the similarities and differences between past and present.

This will be a good exercise to get inside your character’s past and see their ancestors, and perhaps show where they got that certain personality trait, or where they got their interests from. Did their ancestors share a certain genetic trait, or perhaps an important ability. If you’re not familiar with thinking in such detail about your character’s history, give this a go, it’s only for a week! If you’re used to exploring your character’s past, you might have some ideas already, here’s your excuse to write it!

Way Back When Week will take place between the 25th of November – 1st of December Read More

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Fallfest 2012 – IRC event for roleplayers

Fallfest banner

DavidThis article was written by Charles Star of Independence Fleet. Fallfest is similar to SciWorld, a chat event that ran a few months ago, but at a much more friendly time for Europeans. This sounds like a good idea to me, I was asleep when the best bits of SciWorld were happening!

Charles StarWe’re less than a week away from FallFest ’12!  What is FallFest, you might ask?  Well, it’s actual name is the Simming Fall Festival, and it’s an annual extravaganza held in online IRC chat rooms.

So this year on Friday, September 21st, role players from around the globe will come together to celebrate their craft: online simming and role playing.  We’ll meet for discussions, trivia games, and live sims hosted by some of the most talented and celebrated role players on the net.  With everything from Star Trek to Buffy, we’re sure to have something for you! Read More