Jul
12

Using OOC to instruct other members

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: OOC, PBEM, play-by-post, tagging 6 Comments

Sometimes it's time to put your characters down and speak as yourself

OOC is an acronym for “out of character”. It is usually used in a PBP or PBEM game to indicate that the following text is written by the author, and not intended as speech from the point of view of the writer’s character.

If you see this in a post, it usually means that the following paragraph has been written by the member as something intended to communicate to other members, like an instruction or comment. The member is making it clear that this is something they are saying, and not the character they are writing about.

When is it used?

Use an OOC comment at the start of your post, or at the end to either comment on the post, or at the end to give a suggestion or instruction about what the reader should do next.

Jun
7

By David Ball

Tagging at the end of your post

Category: PBEM games, Play-by-post discussion Tags: tagging 7 Comments

Children playing tag

There might be many different words for what I’m writing this article about, but I’ve always known it as “tagging”. The word presumably comes from the game you play as a kid called “tag” where one person has to chase everyone else, and “tags” them (or we also used to say “tig”). The other person would then be “it” and responsible for catching and tagging someone else. The person who was “it” was the sole person who could move the game on.

So it’s this thinking why we use the word “tag” on the end of our posts, to signify that it’s another person’s turn to continue the game.

May
21

By David Ball

Interview with Mike Bullen, GM of Wizards Inc PBEM

Category: OngoingWorlds site news, Play-by-post discussion Tags: interview, PBEM, wizards inc 1 Comment

Wizards Inc is about Wizards in a modern day office block

Many many role playing games are set in a fantasy world, each with their differences in how you use magic. Fantasy is a staple of Play-by-post games too, and it allows the member’s characters to live their lives in a rich and exciting world where the only limits are our own imaginations.

Mike Bullen has created his own play-by-post game where the characters are Wizards. What is most unusual is that instead of being set in a typical Dungeons and Dragons type world, this one is set in our own world. Wizards Inc is a game about some Wizards who work in an office block in England. They solve problems for clients using their magic, but try to keep their wizardry secret from normal people.

I’ve known Mike since he joined up for my Blue Dwarf play-by-post game, and is a fun writer. I’ve asked him a few questions about his Wizards Inc game.

Read More

May
4

By David Ball

PBEM terminology: "Post"

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

I wanted to do an article explaining the basic terminology used in a PBEM/PBP game, as it might not always be clear. This article starts right from the basics with the word:

Post

A post is an item of the story that a member submits. A post will continue the story that has been told so far, usually from the point of view of the character of the member who has written the post.

May
3

By David Ball

Interview with Anthony Keen from the Star Trek Freedom PBEM

Category: PBEM games, Play-by-post discussion Tags: PBEM games, star trek, star trek freedom 1 Comment

Star Trek Freedom

Star Trek PBEM games on the web

Star Trek makes up a vast amount of PBEM games, mainly due massive scifi universe in which it is set, giving the chance to have an unlimited number of possibilities for different starships, and an infinite amount of locations your characters can explore.

Star Trek Freedom

Star Trek Freedom , a network of PBEM games which all take place in the Star Trek universe.

There are many Star Trek PBEM games around, but Star Trek Freedom stands out for two reasons, it has a very detailed website (http://www.startrekfreedom.com) which is always kept up to date, and a strict training process before you’re even allowed to join a ship.

Star Trek Freedom has five ships, with an average of ten people onboard each. The ships make up the “52nd Fleet”

Apr
19

By David Ball

Give your character some believable character traits

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: characters 1 Comment

So you’re playing a PBEM/PBP game and you want your character to be as believable as possible. The reason why you want this is so that other members of the game will read your posts and really feel like your character is a real person. They will also respect you as a writer.

Inventing some character traits will mean people can understand your character's personality

Other writers may use your character

There will also come a time when other characters will want to write about your character, this might be when they want their character to interact with your character, or perhaps someone is writing an *Action* post which involves your character, and it’s important that they easily get to grips with your character. It’s really handy for them to be able to assume how your character will talk, and how s/he will react to certain situations (or they might leave this part up to you). But if your character (lets call him “John”) has a French accent, is a vegetarian, and is really afraid of scissors, then it’s important for other members to know about these things so that when they mention your character they don’t mention John going to the butchers on his way to the hairdressers.

Apr
9

By David Ball

Should story posts be private?

Category: Play-by-post discussion, Website Improvements Tags: play-by-email, private, public, story, writing 3 Comments

Some PBP/PBEM games can be set to private so that you can’t see their messages but what have they got to hide? There are some disadvantages of a private game

Edit: At the end of the post I say that OngoingWorlds doesn’t have a feature to make games private. This changed in September 2014 when private games were introduced.

Play-by-email and play-by-post games have in the past been either private or public, and in this article we’re going to look at the advantages and disadvantages of each, and see why people might want their games to be public or private.

What is public or private?

Traditional play-by-email games (PBEM) were stories told by users who sent emails to each other, always keeping every member in the group cc’d into the email, or every member was part of a “newsgroup”, where emailing one email address distributed the email to all members of the group. Doing this meant that the posts that you sent to each other were only ever seen by other members of the group.

Games played on a public forum, or Yahoo groups are often public. This means they can be seen by anyone who has navigated to the website, and doesn’t have to be a member to view all posts in the story so far. In both forums and a Yahoo group, you have the option to make all posts private if you need to. This means that only members will be able to see the posts, retaining your privacy.

Feb
22

By David Ball

The first game is created

Category: Play-by-post discussion, Website Improvements Tags: Mike, pbp game, wizards inc 3 Comments

The office building for "Wizards Inc"

The Ongoing Worlds website gets it’s first (proper) play-by-post game! Mike, (who I know from the Blue Dwarf game I run) has setup a game called “Wizards Inc” about a magical society set in the modern world. The game is silly, which suits Mike’s sense of humour, and I’ve already joined and submitted a character.

I’ll let you know about how the game goes. If you’d like to join or want more details about the game please have a look here:

http://www.ongoingworlds.com/alpha/games/88

Obviously this isn’t the first time games have been created on the website, I’ve created many games to test the functionality of the site, and also I’ve tasked my friends with creating games just to make sure that the interface I’ve created is usable to people not just myself. But this is the first time a game has been created with the intention of playing seriously.

Feb
7

By David Ball

British TV series that would make great play-by-post games

Category: Inspiration for writing, Play-by-post discussion Tags: casualty, Dr Who, Hyperdrive, play-by-post, Primeval, red dwarf, role playing game, the Bill, thunderbirds, torchwood 4 Comments

This is a follow on from my article “TV series and films that would make great PBEM games”, which has become the most popular on my blog and I only hope has inspired many people to create new PBEM games (or play-by-post games as I agreed I’d call them).

Inspiration can come from many places, why not take a concept of a pre-created world and run with it?

Doctor Who

Dr Who

First aired in 1963, Dr Who is the worlds longest running sci-fi TV show. If you want to watch TV shows like this but is currently restricted with a poor TV setup, companies like tvwallmounting.ca is a professional TV mounting service Toronto in the GTA, Ontario, helping customers to have a great tv viewing experience by offering expert tv installation services and best tv wall mounts. The format of the show and the storylines can vary wildly, probably accounting for it’s long-running success. A new actor plays the Doctor almost every season, keeping the character fresh and different. The character of the Doctor remains throughout, although his travelling companions change often. This makes it very difficult to propose a play-by-post game based on this as the lead character is so strong, and a Play-by-post usually works best with an ensemble group of characters. So to create a play-by-post game set in the Doctor Who universe it would likely be set away from the Doctor himself, and focus on other characters.

The Doctor is the last of the Time-lords, a race of aliens who have the ability to control time. Although the series states that he is the last of the time-lords (following the great time war with the Daleks), it might be possible to mention many more time-lords which also escaped after the war which the Doctor doesn’t know about. Also over the years many other aliens have been mentioned, some friendly which could be used as main characters, but mostly monsters which your characters could meet on a daily basis and have to fight, or run away from, or thwart their deadly plans.

Jan
3

By David Ball

PBEM or Play-by-post

Category: Play-by-post discussion, Website Improvements 5 Comments

I’ve been questioning for a while what to call the games that people will run on the OngoingWorlds site, and have been disputing between calling them PBEM games, or play-by-post games.

I’ve recorded a short audio comment for this article:

What are people searching for?

As a website owner, I have to think about what people are typing into a search engine to try and find my site. So they would type in “PBEM” or “play-by-post”, often they would be more specific and want to find a “Startrek PBEM” or a “fantasy play-by-post”. It’s important that I get the wording correct on the OngoingWorlds website, so that it appears in the correct search results.

OngoingWorlds blog