OngoingWorlds blog

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

Oct
1

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Halloween story competition!

Category: OngoingWorlds site news Tags: , 4 Comments

Pumpkins

Please note this competition has finished. You can see the winning entry here.

After the success of the Flashback week competition in August, we decided it’s time to run another competition!

Halloween is just around the corner, and many roleplaying games take advantage of the event to run a spooky story in their play-by-ghost, er sorry, play-by-post games. Even if this isn’t tradition for your game, you might want to think about writing a short story using the characters in your roleplaying game. Read More

Sep
30

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Giving yourself ideas (and remembering them!)

Category: Inspiration for writing, Writing tips Tags: 8 Comments

thoughts in head

I expose myself to a lot of really good stories. I watch films, read books, read comics, watch TV series, listen to audio books, read the news, and hear a lot of really good ideas for stories in my roleplaying game.

Copying isn’t bad

Taking a story that you’ve heard before and using it isn’t bad. There are many ways you can take an idea and use it as a story which is totally legitimate, and might be totally different to the original story that inspired you. Most works of fiction are inspired by other works of fiction. Taking a good idea that you’ve heard and applying it to your own characters might create a very different story.

There are many interesting background stories or settings that you could use, and adding your own characters into the story will create a very different story, and could have a dramatically different outcome.

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Sep
23

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Should a character’s “thing” be unique?

Category: Inspiration for writing Tags: , 7 Comments

Jack Harkness in Torchwood Miracle dayI just finished watching the latest series of Torchwood. Despite its many flaws, it’s a fun series. The final cliffhanger of the series though has left me asking a question that applies to other TV series, roleplaying games, and any ongoing stories. Read More

Sep
20

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Don't be afraid of your characters failing

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: , 3 Comments

Detective Jayden from Heavy rainI’m writing this after playing Heavy Rain on PS3, which is not a roleplaying game in the sense we’ve come to use the term today. But it’s definitely a game where you assume the role of different characters. The game is like a film, each scene you assume the role of a different character who has their own story, and each story overlaps with every other. The way this game is a bit different to other games I’ve played is that each character can die, and the game continues. The story is just dramatically altered because you can’t ever see the continuation of that character’s story, and any scene that includes them from that point will be different.

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Sep
13

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New feature: Rating member posts

Category: OngoingWorlds guide, Website Improvements Tags: , 1 Comment

Here’s a new feature that we’ve recently added to OngoingWorlds. There’s nothing better than receiving feedback to help you improve your writing. We’ve added a new feature that allows you to rate other posts to let the author know how good it was.

How to rate posts

When you read through posts in your game written by other members you’ll see 5 stars at the bottom. These will show the current rating for the post, showing the average rating that everyone else has given.

Rate posts

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Sep
8

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What do you do with characters from members who have left your game?

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: 2 Comments

a man leaving his character behindIt’s very likely that people who joined your roleplaying game will choose to leave at some point, and sometimes (or often perhaps) these people will just leave and give no explanation of why. There can be many reasons why people leave, usually they just can’t commit enough time, sometimes they’re lazy, sometimes they have arguments with other members of the game. But the question really is what should you do with their characters once they’ve left?

It might seem too harsh to kill their characters off, what if perhaps the member wants to re-join at a later date? If you do kill them, do you build a story about it? Should you make your existing characters react to the death like any real person would? Or maybe you should just neglect to mention them until the characters disappear into obscurity as if they never existed?

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Sep
4

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Announcing the winner of the Flashback week competition

Category: Awards, Competition, Flashback week Tags: 8 Comments

A few weeks ago we ran a week-long even called Flashback week where we encouraged roleplayers and writers to think about the backstory of their character and write about a flashback to a different time in their lives. We held a competition which finished on the very last day of Flashback week, and our team of judges have been busy over the last two weeks reading the entries and voting for the best story, and we’re happy that we can now announce the winner! Read More

Sep
4

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Flashback story – Lieutenant Saveron

Category: Competition entries, Flashback week Tags: , Leave a Comment

This is a story submitted as part of the Flashback week competition. It’s a Star Trek story written by Sarah Eccles from the roleplaying game USS Thunder on Starbase 118.

Lieutenant Saveron

The Vulcan doctor was accustomed to having the answers to questions or the where-withal to find them. His professional life was ordered, organised and logical; his personal life was anything but, and he had yet to deduce a solution to the problem. He had no answers, only a determination to search until he found them.

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Sep
4

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Flashback story – Xanxa Symanah

Category: Competition entries, Flashback week Tags: , , Leave a Comment

This is a story submitted as part of the Flashback week competition. It’s a Babylon 5 story written by Sarah Xanxa Bartlett, the roleplaying game is called ‘Beyond Babylon’, and is played on Facebook.

Xanxa Symanah

So you want to know what a Centauri is doing in the Anla’shok?  Well, I’m not the only one, but that’s not my story to tell.  First of all, I’m not pure Centauri, in fact I’m half Minbari on my mother’s side, so my entrance into the world was bound to be controversial anyway.  So many questions were asked about how I came to be conceived when Centaurii and Minbarii are physically incompatible.  Well, love conquers all, as the old saying goes, and with much consultation of Technomages and other shady figures, I came to exist.

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Sep
4

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Flashback story – Maisie Howard

Category: Competition entries, Flashback week Tags: Leave a Comment

This is a story submitted as part of the Flashback week competition. It was written by Izzy Stuart for the game What will be, will be on OngoingWorlds. 

Maisie Howard

Maisie smiled as she looked to her student. Saturday, it was finally Saturday. Luckily for her she could go back to school on Monday. Be a teacher again. She was pleased for the time off, but she missed her work. She missed what the students thought of her. And as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she missed the excitement.

“It was…nice to see you Natalie.” she smiled. Although she wanted to talk to her more, she was tired, so was Natalie, and they were both heading home.

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