OngoingWorlds blog

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

Jul
22

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Way With Worlds: The Power of Timelines

Category: Writing tips Tags: , Leave a Comment

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

back to the future delorean

So let me be honest upfront. I love timelines in worldbuilding, in writing, in game design. I love history in general, so I’m biased, but there’s many reasons to love them in your creative endeavors.  Mine is probably just a bit more irrational.

When I write, I often create timelines as a form of writing, and in worldbuilding they’re very important to me. So I wanted to cover their value for you as worldbuilder, writer, game designer, and so on. Also it sort of justifies my love so I don’t feel weird. Read More

Jul
21

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Role-playing-games – are we playing a role, or writing a character?

Category: Roleplaying community Tags: 2 Comments

Puppeteer

The social aspect of play-by-post games can be a bit tricky. For as long as I’ve known, some roleplayers like to hide behind a character, and pretend to BE the character. I noticed this first a long time ago on a Star Trek game I was part of, where lots of the out-of-game chatter wasn’t necessarily out-of-character. People would still chat as if they were the characters.  Read More

Jul
20

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How to post to a Facebook page from OngoingWorlds

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, OngoingWorlds guide, Uncategorized Tags: , Leave a Comment

Post to facebook

So you might have a Facebook page for your game on OngoingWorlds. If not, it’s a really good idea because:

  • It helps people find your game
  • It gives you a place to announce stuff
  • People can follow your game easily, even if they don’t have time to play (usually called lurking)

Read More

Jul
19

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Way With Worlds: Welcome To Utopia

Category: Writing tips Tags: , Leave a Comment

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

Future-City

Let’s talk Utopias in the worlds you make.

Utopias seem to be less popular in fiction of all kinds as I write this in 2014. Sure we’ve got plenty of dystopias; it seems that there’s always a fire sale on at the Life Sucks Dystopia Department Store. But Utopias, not so much. Read More

Jul
19

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Expanded Universe: Giving Your Game Depth

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Character Development, OngoingWorlds guide, Writing tips 7 Comments

Xanadu Crest

The Xanadu Report

 

If you’re in the Role Playing community, chances are that you’ve encountered expanded universe content before. flagsofTSABe if from your favorite TV show, a movie that you’ve loved your whole life, or a novel you’ve read a few thousand times. In fact, fandom games are part of a franchise’s expanded universe. As a writer, I tend to be obsessed with detail, so much so that for every post I’ve ever written there’s at least a few paragraphs of detail that got left out just to keep it within a sane amount of words (I say sane because my first Blue Dwarf post’s word count would have been up in the tens of thousands if I hadn’t regained my sanity and decided “maybe a novella doesn’t make a good post”, telling an entire life’s story doesn’t really work well). Read More

Jul
16

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3 weeks left to enter the Ambassador of Awesome competition

Category: Uncategorized Tags: Leave a Comment

Ambassador of awesomeYup that’s right, only 3 weeks left. If you haven’t heard of Ambassador of Awesome, read the original article here. But basically you need to tell someone about OngoingWorlds to enter. The more people you tell, the more chances you have of winning.

So spread the love and be awesome!

Jul
15

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Way With Worlds: Pandering To Your Audience

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Writing tips Tags: , Leave a Comment

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

Scifi city by the river

Let’s talk pandering and worldbuilding.

You want the game to sell, you want the book to be read, you want the game to be exciting. But you also want to build an interesting world and a consistent setting. However, if you did just a few things you might just sell more, just a little fan service or . . . Read More

Jul
12

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StatCat – Highest rated users

Category: OngoingWorlds site news Tags: 17 Comments

statcat2StatCat is back! This time the clever moggy has found for us who are the users with the highest post ratings so far this year.

What are post ratings?

StatCat thought you’d ask this (isn’t he clever?) so he asked me to include this screenshot:

Post rating

People can rate posts of games they’re a member of. You’ll see 5 stars at the bottom of each post, where you can click and give this post a rating. Users will be able to see which of their posts are rated on their dashboard, but all votes are anonymous. Read More

Jul
11

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Help! I don’t know what to post!

Category: Inspiration for writing, Roleplaying community, Writing tips Tags: , , 11 Comments

Frustrated writer

This article was written for us by Amy O’Reilley from Blue Dwarf.

We’ve all been there, we’ve all started a post with “Jeff walked along the corridor and…” then suddenly been struck with an attack of the ‘Oh God what nows?’ Or what happens when you are in the middle of a fight and you have absolutely no idea what to do with third technician Jeff Jefferson who only cleans out the chicken soup machines. Read More

Jul
8

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Way With Worlds: Creating Religion Is Hard

Category: Writing tips Tags: , , Leave a Comment

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

Warhammer space marine

So let’s talk about creating and writing religions in your world. You may now start panicking.

Creating religions is challenging,as we all know. That sense of challenge, the burden, the awareness of all the effort it takes can bring us down in our world building efforts. Chances are even mention this is giving you flashbacks.

So before we explore writing religions and creating religions, I want to cover the challenges we world builders face – and discuss overcoming them. Will I cover all possible cases? No theres only so much I can do or remember, swear to . . . Read More

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