OngoingWorlds blog

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

Dec
14

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How Star Army uses custom imagery

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, PBEM games Tags: , , 3 Comments

ketsurui_rikouOne of the most important and obvious aspects of a text-based roleplaying game is that it uses text. But we don’t just have to stick to the written form, many roleplaying games use imagery and cool graphics to convey ideas, places, characters and mood. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!

One of the most illustrative roleplaying games I’ve seen is Star Army, which uses brilliant custom artwork. I recently spoke with Wes Davis, creator of Star Army about the amazing artwork they use. Read More

Dec
10

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New "story summary" feature added

Category: OngoingWorlds guide, Website Improvements Tags: , , 1 Comment

Last week I added a new feature to OngoingWorlds which allows long-running games to show an summary of the recent story. This is to communicate recent events to a new member without amending your game description.

I explain it better in the video here:

Dec
8

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1882 – WBWW runner-up

Category: Awards Tags: , , , 1 Comment

Here’s the story that came third place in our WBWW competition. It’s the tale of a cowboy called Alex Solvay in the American old west, being told to his great grandson, also called Alex. Alex is a character in the game Blue Dwarf played on OngoingWorlds.

The story is written by Jack Tennant, who has even recorded this story to audio, which you can listen to through the YouTube video below, or read the story underneath.

Read More

Dec
7

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Empty Skies Over Tokyo – WBWW runner-up

Category: Awards Tags: , , 1 Comment

Here’s the story that came 2nd place in our WBWW competition. Empty Skies Over Tokyo written by Marissa Jeffrey from USS Victory, part of UFOP: Starbase 118.

This story got a lot of praise from one of our judges, Aimee the winner of this year’s First Person Fortnight competition.

aimee-mug-60x60The strengths of the story that spoke to me most, aside from the expected “good grammar/punctuation/understanding of storytelling”:

1) Great demonstration of “Show, don’t tell.” It’s probably the only story that didn’t do this to a fault. It was narrating but it was describing what the characters were doing and how they were interacting with their environment and thus communicating “this is good/exciting/something I’m proud of” to the reader.

2) A clear format made to show the intended style; well-chosen names of places and dates. Very striking in their military/future origin, but not over-explained.

3) It comes full circle and leaves this reader with a simple feeling of family identity and pride in one’s place in the world, but doesn’t get more complicated than that. Vocabulary is tight and story feels focused.

4) Mature and sophisticated world outlook and a writing style to match it.

I also liked the detail that the “ancestor” was from 2003. 🙂 That makes great sci-fi.

Here’s the story in full.

Read More

Dec
7

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Want to know who the WBWW winner is?

Category: Awards, Competition Tags: Leave a Comment

Way Back When Week

The judges have spoken! I’ve added up all the votes for each of our WBWW stories, and we have a winner! I want to first thank everyone who took part in WBWW, and whether you submitted your story or not, you’ve helped inspire others to do something just a little bit different, and that’s what life’s all about isn’t it?

I absolutely want to thank the judges who have read each story and had the difficult task of deciding which is their favourites. We chose judges from different roleplaying games and genres, for a broad range of tastes.

So here’s the top 3 winners. Read More

Dec
5

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This holiday, give the gift of a drama-free gaming group

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, non-PBP roleplaying Tags: , , Leave a Comment

Kim from RP Repository

Written by Kim from RP Repository

Drama destroys gaming groups. It happens all the time.

There’s a popular wisdom that would have us think that this is because “nerds” or “geeks” aren’t the most socially apt, but in fact, petty conflict breeds misery all over the world. From school rooms to board rooms, from church groups to hockey teams, tough talks are still tough talks, and even the most well-adjusted individuals don’t enjoy rocking the boat. EVEN if they don’t like the boat!

Over on the RP Repository, the social network for Roleplay Gamers and their characters, we’d like to propose a different theory:

1) Gaming is only genuine fun when you’re playing with people who you like, and who like you back
2) Most damaged relationships can be repaired, with a bit of work
3) Most people, nerd, geek or normal, want to be friends and are willing to make changes if they know what they are Read More

Dec
1

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OtherSpace – Story arcs in a MUSH

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, non-PBP roleplaying, Play-by-post discussion Tags: , 2 Comments

Otherspace

I received an email the other week letting me know that the space-opera MUSH OtherSpace is starting a new story arc, and they’re asking for money contributions to help out with funding their hosting, marketing expenses and production costs. You might have heard of OtherSpace, we hosted an article about them earlier this year interviewing Wes, the creator (you can see it here).

Whilst OtherSpace is a bit different to the types of roleplaying games ran on OngoingWorlds, they’re remarkably close and still have members who contribute to an ongoing story, just like our play-by-post games. I interviewed Wes again, asking some questions about his new story arc called “Broken Web”. Read More

Nov
29

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Your character is a product of their ancestors

Category: Events, Inspiration for writing Tags: Leave a Comment

I hope you’re enjoying Way Back When Week! If you’ve not heard of it yet, see here.

Your character is a product of their ancestors. It’s a weird way to look at it, but it’s true of us all. The knowledge and experience that our parents have gathered gets passed onto us, including many life valuable life skills, and family values. Often we pick up hobbies and interests from our parents, follow the same sports, watch the same TV programmes, and do similar hobbies. Don’t forget though that your parents probably got a lot of these skills, values and interests from their parents too, and them from their parents and so on. Read More

Nov
23

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Time distortions in roleplaying – Do your story threads match up?

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Play-by-post discussion, Writing tips Tags: , 2 Comments

Distorted clock

One of the most complicated aspects of writing for a roleplay online is one that I’ve actually never heard many people discuss, although every game and group probably has their own interpretation of how it should be handled. What I’m talking about is time.

Time is more or less constant (unless you ask an astrophysicist of course). And often days or weeks can go past between writing your roleplay post, and you often don’t want time to have elapsed since your last post, which means time goes slower in your roleplay. Read More

Nov
14

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Way Back When Week Competition

Category: Competition, Events Tags: 8 Comments

way back when

Way Back When Week is a great opportunity to really get to know the background of your character, why they have a certain trait or family experience by telling it in the form of an extreme flashback to the event that first developed it, but more than that it’s a chance to enter your stories into a competition! Simply write your story and then send it to us, for a chance to win! The final date for competition entries is the 1st of December. Read More

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