OngoingWorlds blog

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

Feb
10

By

Good Writers vs Good Players

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs Leave a Comment

One of the most pleasant aspects of being a GM is reviewing applications and welcoming new players aboard your sim. Opening my email and finding a new application to read and review can be quite exciting. However, as a GM, you have to be selective about who you accept on your sim, and this is where things get tricky.

Making the wrong decision on a potential applicant can cause a lot of headaches down the road, as many GMs have learned the hard way. We have a lot of tools in the application process to determine whether a new player is a good writer – the biography and the sample post are generally a good indicator of writing skill – but is that enough to determine whether the applicant is a good player?

Being a good writer and being a good player are two different things.

Read More

Feb
9

By

2021 WarGames Competition

Category: Awards, Competition, Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: , 1 Comment

Image by Malkfan

2021, which was equally as dreadful as 2020, has finally come to a close. That means it’s time for the annual WarGames Competition! Wait, don’t I mean the annual Tournament of Simulations aka ToS? Yes, they are one at the same!

According to our records (which are suspect, of course), the second tournament was held in 2001 under the WarGames banner. In honor of that event 20 years ago, we decided to use its name again today. And the movie from 1983 was pretty cool, too!

The mechanics of the game remain the same: Here are a few tips on how to win. For those who may be unfamiliar, this is where you can enter your role play to potentially win a prize at no cost or risk to you! Judges from across the community go through all of the entries and grade them on story, characters, and readability. As has been our tradition for several years now, play-by-post games will be graded on 10 consecutive posts while chat games will be graded on a single chat session. All sims will be considered regardless of club or fleet affiliation. We then present awards to the top-scoring games. The sims that don’t place are not announced. That’s right: you’ve got nothing to lose, so why not enter?

Okay, enough on that. How about we get on with the nominations…

Read More

Jan
17

By

Submit your 2020… and 2021… and 2022 Squiddie Nominations Today!

Category: Awards, Competition, Roleplaying community Tags: 2 Comments

It’s time, and also past time, to open the annual Squiddie awards to nominations from the community.

As it turns out, we still need to award winners for 2020, 2021, and 2022. Yes, we’re way behind! Each year, three entities win a Squiddie for their actions and achievements of the prior year. To translate that into English: the 2020 award is for achievements made during 2019, the 2021 award is fore achievements made during 2020, and the 2022 award is for achievements made during 2021. Confusing? We know, and we’re sorry! Of course it wouldn’t be that confusing if we had done these when they’re supposed to happen!

The due date for all submissions is February 15, 2022. If you’re unsure if you should submit your game, a community, or an outstanding person…. Just do it! (Sorry, Nike.) There are a lot of great people, games, and clubs out there, and we want to hear about them.

Submit your nominee(s):

Read More

Jan
15

By

Babel Conference Today!

Category: Events, Play-by-post discussion, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: , , , , Leave a Comment

Good morning and salutations everyone,

Just a quick note from your resident SimmingHub Event Coordinator here. Babel is occurring today ran by SWA, RPG Writing and Theta Fleet. As with all of the cons; if you have the time to attend it’s totally a good thing to do and allows you to have some fun, meet new people and learn more about your fellow role players. Community is what makes this all work even now as the Internet and other technologies have further advanced we still stick to our love for role playing… so come join some of your fellow hobbyist and have a few hours of fun. here is the link to the website where are you can find the discord link and additional information including its schedule.

https://babel.sim-station.net/about.html

Josh

Jan
1

By

Top Blog Posts of 2021

Category: Roleplay Systems, Roleplaying community Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

When we bid 2020 farewell one year ago, we hoped for better things in 2021. Unfortunately, I’m not sure it played out that way. Moreover, due to the ongoing pandemic, we’re going to have to put off our plans for an IRL Simming Get Together indefinitely. Should conditions change to allow us to hold the event, we will provide advance notice here.

But 2021 wasn’t all bad. There actually was quite a bit to celebrate. In fact, you could say that 2021 was the year of anniversary celebrations as four clubs marked significant milestones:

Read More

Dec
28

By

We Hope You Enjoyed FallFest!

Category: Awards, Events Tags: , , , , Leave a Comment

Good day,

I hope that you all are enjoying the holiday season of 2021! We are still not out of the woods in this pandemic thing but hopefully in 2022 we can make further progress together. Earlier this fall we all joined together for a wonderful FallFest hosted by 5th Fleet and chaired by their Chief of Operations Nixon. The event was great and people spoke well of things; I am happy that the hand over to SimmingHub has went so well and that people were willing to help run the event even though someone else was handling behind the scenes. I am honored to be a part of this moving forward and I want to thank 5th Fleet for helping this year making the event a success. This all could not have been done without their direct oversight of the set-up, planning and running of the event. I hope that we all as a community are able to keep all of this going over the years to make future FallFests and this next year’s SciWorld as successful as those prior.

Read More

Nov
14

By

Another 2021 Anniversary: Obsidian Fleet’s 20th

Category: Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: , , Leave a Comment

2021 has been the year for anniversaries. However, there’s another that happened this past summer: Obsidian Fleet marked their 20th on July 25th. One of the first fleets to initiate recurring Discord celebrations, they held their 5th annual Obsidian Day on July 24th, which included simming and a lot of prizes!

Obsidian Fleet was founded back in 2001 after a split from another group. Two things about that event are striking to me. One, they didn’t just create a carbon copy of their mother group. They went on to develop a unique culture that evolved over time while still staying true to their founding principles of creative and character freedom. Second, while many splits in simming often lead to resentment, and sometimes all out conflict, Obsidian Fleet almost immediately made peace and even began working on common goals with the club from which they emerged–this was unheard of in the early 2000s. Perhaps this is why the club has endured, more than 20 years later.

Read More

Nov
13

By

2021 Simming Fall Festival

Category: Events, Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: , , , , Leave a Comment

Good morning/afternoon everyone!

Please remember that today; the 13th of November at 10:30 AM Eastern (less than an hour from now) is FallFest. Come join some of your fellow simmers/role players to take part in one of simmings premier conventions. We have games, talks and role playing planned so please join us today whenever you can. The event lasts until 4:30 PM Eastern. You can find out more information on the FallFest website at https://fallfestonline.com/. Link to the Discord and schedule are located on this site. Thank you to Fifth Fleet for hosting today’s event and Nixon for charring the event.

Josh
TNU/SimmingHub

Simming Fall Festival

Read More

Sep
29

By

FallFest is Coming

Category: Events, Play-by-post discussion, Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: , , , Leave a Comment

Greetings everyone,

I come to you today with information about our host for FallFest this year. After deliberations and discussion with those interested, we have asked 5th Fleet to host this year’s FallFest. They have accepted and appointed Nixon, their Operations Chief, as the Chair for this year’s event. It has been scheduled to take place on November 13th, 2021. SimmingHub and 5th Fleet have also discussed the potential of doing voice panels for those who are interested. We are hopeful that this year will continue the success of previous events and welcome your feedback.

As always please reach out to the host and chair if you would like to host a panel, help out in any way or if you have any questions. Last but not least mark your calendars for November 13th. We hope to see you at FallFest XI!

Website: https://fallfestonline.com

Josh

Sep
25

By

Zodiac Fleet’s 20th Anniversary

Category: Play-by-post discussion, Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: , Leave a Comment

This article was published at the request of Zodiac Fleet:

You are cordially invited to join Zodiac Fleet today, September 25, 2021 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time for our 20th Anniversary Celebration! 

Zodiac Fleet was created in 2001 to be a place for all roleplayers where people could come together to just have fun and leave the politics at the door. We are a fleet where the players are in charge and they run their own games with very little red tape and bureaucracy getting into their way. It is a lot like the tabletop games of yesterday where a group of friends come together to tell stories. 

Read More
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »