OngoingWorlds blog

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

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.
Read More

May
21

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Using a random generator to invent new alien ideas

Category: Inspiration for writing Tags: , 2 Comments

Alien idea

Mark writes useful alien & story ideas at ScifiIdeas.com (This isn’t Mark BTW, it’s an alien idea called an “Ancari”)

This article was written by Mark Ball, who blogs at SciFi ideas.com. 

As a science fiction writer, and as somebody who tries to pass himself off as an “ideas guy”, I know all too well how difficult it can be to think up new and original ideas.

Science fiction thrives on originality and creativity, and I’ve been told time and time again that coming up with something that has “never been done before” is incredibly important. I’ve also been repeatedly told that “there is no such thing as a new idea these days”, and while I don’t think that is any more true today than it was when the first science fiction stories started to emerge over a hundred years ago, it only goes to show that coming up with that all-important original idea really isn’t easy. Read More

May
17

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Kickstart: A service to help get your roleplay running

Category: Advertising your game, Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Interviews Tags: , , Leave a Comment

So I was on RPG-Directory a few weeks ago, which is a great social network for roleplayers (and a good place to advertise your game!) and I noticed something called “Kickstart”, a service to support roleplayers that have created a new roleplaying game, and need to get it started. And we all know this is the most difficult time for any roleplay, getting off the ground can be difficult. I asked user Xexes more about Kickstart. Here’s what he wrote for us:

Xexes

User Xexes on RPG-D

What’s Kickstart?

Kickstart is a community effort to help roleplays get going, for roleplayers, by roleplayers. It’s hard to start and keep a roleplay going, and kickstart is meant to be that one last push. Read More

May
15

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All good things – 10 years of USS Providence

Category: Interviews Tags: , , 5 Comments

The USS Providence

This article was written by FSF Josh. The phrase “All good things must come to an end” resonates with many Star Trek fans. That was a key line and the title theme of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s final episode. For many fans, that held true. The series had developed into a mature science fiction show that in many ways eclipsed the original show from the 60’s. Its 7 year span had brought many adventures to the screen for fans to enjoy. Read More

May
12

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Does your character have to be likable?

Category: Character Development Tags: 1 Comment

Gul Dukat roleplay character

Some characters we love to hate

Written by Lindsay Bayes at Star-fleet.com

Perhaps you started out with the idea, or maybe your character just happened to work out that way after you got started, but there are times when you have a character that others just can’t stand. Maybe it’s their attitude or their actions that alienate other characters, but for whatever reason, real or imagined, they just aren’t that likeable.

So is it a problem?

Not necessarily, if you play it right. Read More

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