Feb
19
This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David
In a strange bit of irony, Im still talking about originality here. Seems sort of weird to keep covering a subject on being more original by not shutting up about it, but here goes. Read More
Feb
18
In every good story the world is ever-changing, just look at the world in Star Wars (I suppose we should say “galaxy”) at the end of Return of the Jedi, the world had changed completely. In Lord of the Rings, the world had changed throughout. Read More
Feb
16
This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. 
So last time I covered the risk of creating Omnicompetent characters – those good-at-everything characters that are hard to believe. Too often we make our heroes and villains omnicompetent, and it’s a warning worth heeding. The Omnicompetent soon end up Omni-unbelievable, distorting the world and making things just seem wrong.
However, there’s a flipside issue I want to address, that of Incompetent heroes and villains. Though I find the former more common than the latter, it’s still an issue with good worldbuilding. Read More
Feb
13
You might have heard that there’s only 7 basic plots, and that every type of story has been told, every type of character is just a rehash of another, and every fantasy world is just a rip-off of Lord of the Rings, and every story about spaceships is just a rip-off of Star Trek. Read More
Feb
9
This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, and has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles.
So last we met I discussed originality being an illusion, but I feel I do need to cover something – the use of tropes, stereotypes, and “seen-it-all-before” elements in our worldbuilding. Read More
Feb
7
Dwarfs are known for their colourful use of the common tongue, especially when it comes to insults. Sometimes these are meant in jest, with some dwarfs known to use words as a weapon to rile up and anger their opponent into making a mistake. A few dwarfs have taken to using this as a part of their arsenal in battle, with a few being true masters of the insult, making their opponent slip up and attack them in anger, only to be met with a well-placed axe or hammer to the head. Read More
Feb
5
There’s a great Tumblr with funny quotes taken completely out of context from roleplaying games (mostly D&D it seems), that I wanted to share here. I wondered if we could create a similar article with quotes just from games on OngoingWorlds? Submit them via the form at the bottom of this article or to our Facebook page. Read More
Feb
4
I bet that picture to the right looks very boring. Just… a white background. I bet you think you can make a good picture for it. You probably can. You know what, you should. Right now Ongoing Worlds is hosting a two week contest stating tomorrow to see who can make the best picture for our 404 page! To see a set of guidlines and contest dates, just hit that really nicely formatted read more button! [It’s a really nice button too] Read More
Feb
3
This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog under a different title, Steven has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles.
Every worldbuilder, author, artist has had that moment. That moment where originality seems to be a fleeting illusion.
Perhaps they feel that they can’t seem to do anything original. Read More
Feb
1
We use the term Mary Sue a lot in roleplaying. That’s because it can be a huge problem with one character trying to hog the limelight more than others. A Mary Sue typically is too “perfect”. They’re either unrealistically skilled for their age, or just freakishly talented at exactly whatever needs to be done to solve the current plot. Read More
