Aug
1
The First Person Fortnight competition was a huge success, we had more entries than I even imagined! Before I tell you the winners, I want to thank the judges for all their hard work. Remember that every submitted story had to be read by our special ninja judges, then critiqued and scored to find the best story!
If you’re desperate to know the winner, you can scroll to the bottom but first Read More
Jul
26
The following article was written by Sam Richards, a Creative Writing graduate and geek from Wiltshire, UK. I’ve known about Tweet RPG for a while, always seeing fragments of their story on Twitter, but never truely understanding what they do, so I asked Sam for more detail.
Tweet RPG uses Twitter to provide users with an innovative new way of enjoying text-based adventures
If you want to enjoy fun, free, follower-defined adventures on Twitter, then get involved with Tweet RPG! All you need is a Twitter account and an imagination.
Tweet RPG takes the create-your-own-adventure format of roleplaying games and morphs it into a truly social and multiplayer experience. Stories progress through updates posted on Twitter, with a set of options at the end of each update. The players then have a twelve-hour window to cast their vote as to how the adventure should continue, with the majority choice shaping the story. All it takes is one tweet to change the hero’s destiny! Read More
Jul
16
Jul
13
I’ve been encouraging roleplayers to take part in First Person Fortnight, just for something a bit different, and after writing in first person myself I realised how difficult it can be! So I thought it’d be great to reward members who are joining in with an award.
I’ve already given members of my game (Blue Dwarf) a special award for taking part, and I think it’d be great if other GMs and moderators did the same too!
If you’re not sure how to give an award, I’ve recorded this video to show you how!
Jul
7
As First Person Fortnight starts tomorrow, I’ve been posting some tips on writing in first person perspective. I’ve already posted some benefits of first person over on RPG-D, but wanted to get more into the details in this article.
Everyone knows that first person is from the point of view of a character. One of the main advantages of this is the freedom of telling the story how you want to tell it (or more accurately, how your character wants to tell it). Read More
Jul
2
Yesterday I received an email which makes me worried about the future of Yahoo! groups.
Yahoo! Groups have been around for over 10 years, and before that they were called eGroups. This was where I played my first roleplaying game, as Yahoo! Groups was popular with roleplayers as it was free and easy, and allowed users to send emails out to members of the game. This was a proper PBEM (play-by-email) game.
I used a Yahoo Group to run my Blue Dwarf game for 10 years and in that time there were no new advancements made to the system, giving me the impression that Yahoo had abandoned the service, only continuing to run it for legacy purposes. That’s when I moved Blue Dwarf over to OngoingWorlds (If you want to know more about this process, here’s an article I wrote at the time). Read More
Jun
28
Kim from RP Repository
The internet is an unruly and sometimes dangerous place. When you find an oasis where people are friendly and capable of having civil discussions, you know you’ve found something special. Often these utopias are ephemeral, here one year and then gone the next. To survive its own success, an internet oasis needs some truly great moderators to prevent its culture from drying up.
As the admin of a large roleplay site, the RP repository, I have the pleasure of working with an outstanding moderating team. Every month, I hear from countless users who have nightmare stories about the behaviors of other moderators on other sites. And I hear how surprised they are to have discovered a place where they can be on friendly terms with the moderators, rather than living in terror of them. It’s enormously tragic that these tales of moderation woe are so common, but not surprising. Read More
Jun
27
This competition is now closed. Thanks for everyone who submitted. Please subscribe to this blog if you want to be emailed when the winner is announced.
First Person Fortnight is a great opportunity to really get into the head of your character (more details about the event here), 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 22nd of July.
We’ve chosen a panel of roleplaying professionals to judge these stories. Each is a veteran of a different roleplaying game, so there shouldn’t be any favouritism or bias. Just so there’s no lobbying going on, the identity of the judges will be kept secret! Read More
Jun
24
The idea for Roma came gradually, mainly through watching far too many films about ancient Rome and Greece – Come on, what GM hasn’t had a game at least partly derived from a favourite book or film? Anyway, the idea basically solidified when watching the film Troy. The thinking was effectively: “Brilliant, great film, historically accurate, good battle scenes, where are all the gods and monsters I wanted to see?” In the actual myth gods and magic frequently pop in and out, and the story’s pretty flat without them.
It occurred to me that this is true of roleplaying games too – Historical ones are great fun because it’s basically a fantasy setting that’s more believable and comes with its own inbuilt backstory. But the same problem applies: stringently detailed historical accuracy and ruthless realism take the bounce out of any game. Read More
Jun
20
First Person Fortnight is a 2-week event where writers and roleplayers are encouraged to write a story in first person perspective. Submit your story to us to be judged by a panel of expert writing ninjas! (I’ll post a link to a form where you can submit your story closer to the event).
First person perspective isn’t usually used, in favour of third person perspective, so this will be a good exercise to get inside your character’s head and really get to grasp with how they think, and their outlook on life. If you’re not familiar with writing like this, give it a go, it’s only for 2 weeks! If you write like this all the time, great! You’ll find it even easier!
First person fortnight will take place between the 8th – 22nd of July. If you’re writing in that week, make sure you’re writing first person. Read More
