Sep
6
This post was written for us by OngoingWorlds member Writing Bug.
Hello guys, it’s WB from OW. I want to tell you about something called a Writing Crutch. If you google it, it talks about how writers use safe-words in their writing. But that isn’t the only crutch I see in RP’s. Every role play has some form of crutch, that allows for a writer to lean on when giving an explanation. Some examples can include… Read More
Aug
12
This article was written by Nim, creator of the OW Community Platform & Engines of Chaos.
After a substantial amount of peer pressure, I finally took a personality test called the Enneagram. I didn’t really expect anything to come out of it, but the results actually surprised me with how true they rang. I then proceeded to read the descriptions of the other eight personality types (called enneas) and I realized just how much a person’s personality has the potential to affect their worldview. Read More
Jun
23
This article was posted by Hosea Tuinakelo in the game New Mutants. I’m sharing here with permission because this article will be useful to all OngoingWorlds members, and people wanting to know more about play by post roleplaying. Over to Hosea:
I’m going to give a quick run-through on how to participate in PbP (Post by Post) roleplaying. My observations and suggestions are based off of roleplaying in Ongoing Worlds, and are not in any way professional or derived from a professional standpoint. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s get started!
Post by post roleplay to me is a story-builder. The cool thing about it is that there’s a chance that everyone can be a main character (depending on the story). Read More
Mar
5
Nearly four years ago, I published an article titled Spelling tips – It’s your game they’re looking for. The concept was simple: Since what we do is sometimes called creative writing, shouldn’t we show some competency with the writing part? We also certainly don’t want to turn new players off with our own poor spelling or grammar, right? That piece covered the proper use of its/it’s, your/you’re, and there/their/they’re. Today we’re going to look at five more situations that are often confused. Read More
Dec
18
Between school and work, we forget that some players are also parents. But is that really a bad thing? As a parent myself, I don’t think so. There is something special about kids that can help you create worlds, characters, and situations that you may not have thought about before. But how?
Let’s look at the situations first. Sure, some are rather silly, like marshmallow dragons getting stuck in a chocolate fountain that is full of peanut butter. Actually, that sounds tasty. But sometimes, they can give you the next grand adventure in your Fantasy RPG, or an intergalactic battle for your ship to come across in your Sci-Fi RPG. Just listening to their silly stories can often lead to something amazing.
This goes along with situations, but you can also use the games they play as a bases for your worlds as well. Think about it. Read More
Apr
11
I know many of us don’t want to be writers for a living, though some of us might consider it. The descriptions we use often paint pictures. While some aren’t as descriptive as others, this isn’t about the level of skill. It is more a matter of how that skill is acquired. As Role-Players, we have adjusted ourselves to describe our characters and what they do in detail, sometimes venturing into the X-Rated zone.
While many find this exciting, the level of description is easy to see. Those who have RPed for awhile, or those who write stories in their free time, tend to be more descriptive than those who haven’t written for long periods. It is in the descriptors. But what are descriptors? Simply any word that describes something, including (but not limited to) color, smell, and sound. Read More
Mar
6
Star Trek fanfiction is as old as Star Trek itself, and heavily dominates the world of online roleplaying. There’s many giant Star Trek roleplay clubs, like Starbase 118 and Star Trek: Borderlands. We’ve even got Star Trek games running on OngoingWorlds (see here). Here’s some tips for anyone who wants to write fiction in the Star Trek universe: Read More
Feb
28
This article was written for us by Diego Herrera from the Star Trek game Outpost Eden.
Welcome back to the second in a series of articles designed to look at how sci fi and fantasy TV series can prove useful for writing roleplays (read part 1 here). In this article, I’m going to focus on what we can learn from the way TV shows manage large casts of characters when running adventures with our players. Read More
Feb
11
Just because we use five senses in our everyday life, and even do describe a scene in our games, this doesn’t mean we should stop with them. “Never ignore your gut feeling” is a saying that refers to your sixth sense. Read More
Jan
23
This article was written by Maxwell Traenor from UFOP: StarBase 118
We as writers are used to “painting a picture” with our words. Setting a scene that our characters inhabit is arguably the most important part of our writing in order to immerse the reader fully into the universe our characters live and breathe in. But, the phrase “paint a picture” can be deceptive. It implies sight, as in describing how the world looks through our character’s eyes. Read More
