OngoingWorlds blog

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

Jul
7

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Interview with David Ball about Blue Dwarf, going 13 years strong…

Category: Interviews, OngoingWorlds site news, PBEM games Tags: , , 2 Comments

Blue DwarfSo David, give us a little introduction to Blue Dwarf. I assume it is related to the classic Red Dwarf Television show?

It’s based on a British TV show called Red Dwarf which is a scifi comedy about a small group of characters adventuring in space, trying to survive. When I started Blue Dwarf I wanted a game that had the same feel, but didn’t want to be limited to the few main characters, so used the same universe and set the game on a similar ship, the Red Dwarf’s sister ship. Read More

Jul
4

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Why Role Playing Games Improve Speech and Language Skills

Category: PBEM games Tags: 3 Comments

Some dudes just sat on the grass, chillin

Role playing games (RPGs) have been around since the inception of Dungeons and Dragons in 1974, and have since developed into a variety of role playing games and scenarios in recent years.

Whether it’s a historical event, mythical place, exploration or some other type of experience, the idea behind an RPG is that you collaborate with real people to engage and immerse yourself in an imagined and theoretical world. Read More

Jul
3

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Stick your face in a cake for Moderator appreciation day

Category: Events Tags: , 2 Comments

It wasn’t widely announced, but Monday was Moderator appreciation day. I completely forgot until the night before, so didn’t make much of a big deal about the day itself apart from a meek message on our Facebook & Twitter.

Kim from RPRepository put up a fantastic message, thanking all forum moderators. She’d even baked a cake, which she proceeded to stick her face into. Seriously! Watch this:

Read More

Jul
2

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Nomatter how hard I try & ask you to subscribe, it won’t be as good as this video

Category: OngoingWorlds site news Tags: 5 Comments

Stupid subscribe video

I noticed recently that this blog gets a lot of viewers (I assume all cool roleplayers & writers like yourself), but not many actually subscribe, which would make it a whole lot easier for you. Subscribing by email means you’ll get a friendly email reminder when we publish a new blog. Read More

Jun
30

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Maintaining a creative atmosphere and inspiring players

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Inspiration for writing Tags: Leave a Comment

Greir Reinard from Starbase 118

This article was written by Amy Drysdale who plays Greir Reinard from Starbase 118

The roleplaying games that stand the test of time are those that can maintain a creative atmosphere and keep their players inspired. There are times when a mission seems to stall for one reason or another and posting rates seem to drop. If left unchecked the game’s players will start to get bored and eventually leave. There are several things that can be done in-game and as a group to keep players interested and inspired in the long term.

It all begins with mission planning and looking at the crew and the strengths they have. By thinking hard about players’ capabilities it is possible to find more creative and interesting ways to include them in missions. Read More

Jun
28

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Show us your desk

Category: Competition Tags: 3 Comments

Sabrina Pandora's writing deskI had an idea yesterday when I saw this cool photo that Sabrina Pandora had uploaded to Facebook of her desk (Sabrina is a roleplayer in Independence Fleet, and the winner from last year’s WBWW competition).

I started to wonder what everyone else’s writing desk looks like. Sabrina’s filled hers with some amazingly geeky collectables, I can only assume this is to give her maximum inspiration when she writes. But what does your desk look like? Is it cluttered? Is it clean? Do you surround yourself with inspiration? Do you even write at a desk at all, or do you write somewhere else?

Share a photo of where you do your writing on our Facebook timeline & we’ll share it, if we get loads I’ll also publish a blog article here with the best 🙂

Jun
27

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5 steps to world domination: How to create your own sim

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, PBEM games Tags: , , , 4 Comments

Nathan Fillion, Mal Reynolds in Firefly

Nathan Fillion (image: Gage Skidmore)

Blame Nathan Fillion. That’s what I do.

I’ve created a good number of sims for my club (Phoenix Roleplaying) and elsewhere over the years; including some original concepts that I have covered in a previous article.

In this post, I will be covering some more general points about sim creation, focussing in particular on Kvant, the Simulation Cup winning Firefly sim that I created for Phoenix in 2011. I’ll give you a description of that sim to help you get the idea:

The Eagles of Warsaw are an elite mercenary group who travel the ‘Verse, tackling ruthless pirates, vicious Reavers… and rabid music fans. Read More

Jun
25

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The Ball guy

Category: OngoingWorlds site news Tags: 3 Comments

David Ball

David Ball

This is a just a very small article to let you know that the creator of Ongoing Worlds, David Ball (that’s me, hello!) was interviewed recently by Steven Savage from Seventh Sanctum. If you’ve never heard of Seventh Sanctum you should – it’s an excellent website full of automatic generators of character names, alien species names, world names, equipment names, tavern names, disease names, etc etc anyway, you get the picture. There’s loads of really useful stuff there for writers and roleplayers, especially when you’re feeling lazy and need to come up with a realistic name for an NPC or gadget. Read More

Jun
24

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Operation: Chocolate Digestive

Category: Website Improvements Tags: , Leave a Comment

Chocolate digestives. The official biscuit for roleplayers, said no-one ever

The name Operation Chocolate Digestive was a name I made up about 3 minutes before I sent an email to all OngoingWorlds members announcing this new feature, just to make it sound more interesting than it actually was! It also helps because I can use an interesting image above. Read More

May
25

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Challenge Accepted

Category: Inspiration for writing, non-PBP roleplaying, Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments

Why do we roleplay?  What point do I dictate by typing these words upon this screen?  To explain, to confined, to emphasize?   What point is there in continuing to come back to this reality when the real world is so beckoning, so insisting that I take out the trash?

I’m sure many have tried this, to explain why we tend to write, to live outside ourselves through some off handed dwarf, elf, commanding officer, or some other conceived creature of creation.  Many have come to assume it’s an escape, a means to leave the stress and sometimes confining reality we live in.
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