OngoingWorlds blog

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

Nov
28

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How to give awards to members of your game

Category: OngoingWorlds site news, Website Improvements Tags: Leave a Comment

Award trophyWhy not reward the members in your game for taking part, and writing great posts? Some players work really hard to create an interesting storyline, and write great dialogue between characters. It’s time you gave them a little something for their effort!

We’ve been testing a new awards feature that has previously only been available for a very small amount of games. To have the ability to give awards to your members you had to sign up for it here (but now they’re available to everyone! Read More

Nov
23

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Don't turn new members away!

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: Leave a Comment

Go away floor mat

Recruiting new members into your roleplaying game can be very difficult. Roleplaying is quite a niche hobby, and not everyone has the patience and the writing ability to roleplay properly. Also it’s sort of difficult to get your head around understanding what roleplaying actually is, unless you’ve done it before. Read More

Nov
21

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2011 Tournament of Simulations

Category: Competition Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Trophy

Two months and 27 sims later, the best games – the winners of the 2011 Tournament of Simulations – have been announced.

The Federation Sim Fleet (FSF) and the Starfleet Legacy Alliance (SLA), both venerable clubs noted for their chat sims, captured top honors in the chat sim category, with the USS Lionheart of the SLA winning as best Star Trek chat sim, and the Paragon of the FSF named the best Star Wars chat sim.  Starbase 27 of the SLA and the USS Providence of the FSF also earned marks, with Starbase 27 noted as the most creative chat sim, and the crew of the Providence named the best chat sim crew. Read More

Nov
16

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Before the Mast, roleplaying in the Age of Sail [Interview]

Category: Interviews, non-PBP roleplaying, PBEM games Tags: 1 Comment

Before the Mast sailing ships

Before the Mast is a forum-based roleplaying game set in the ‘age of sail’, a term I’ve only recently learned – I’ve previously just called it “pirate times”, but it’s clear there’s a lot going on at this time in history, which is where Before the Mast RPG comes in. Fixing itself firmly in history, this is a roleplaying game (or “writing community” as Elena prefers) for history fans.

The game has been running since the 6th of August 2010, and Before the Mast has been very active especially on Twitter and Facebook. I interviewed their moderator Elena Vasilescu and asked her about the game. Read More

Nov
14

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Streamlining the games list

Category: OngoingWorlds site news 3 Comments

Streamlined trainI bet you’ve seen hundreds of websites claiming to be an awesome play-by-post game, and you might have even got excited about the game and wanted to join – but then realised the game stopped running 5 years ago (or maybe even longer in some cases!).

Some play-by-post games fail, it’s a fact that we have to live with. Some are fun for a while but then go stale and close due to inactivity, maybe the members had an argument, maybe they all went on holiday or moved house and forgot about the game until it was just a distant memory. Or maybe the game just wasn’t attracting members, maybe it was too complicated, or maybe it wasn’t advertised enough to new members. Read More

Nov
10

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Godmodding: The Q effect

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: , Leave a Comment

Q from Star TrekThere are many types of godmodders in roleplaying games, but for me it’s Q from Star Trek who represents the most dangerous type. I love Star Trek, and I especially love the character Q. He’s funny, he’s playful, and he’s all powerful, which is a very dangerous combination for a foe. But it’s the all-powerful that’s most dangerous to the integrity of the storyline on Star Trek.

When I was younger I would watch many Star Trek episodes where they got into danger, and used to wonder, what if Q showed up right now and just saved them by clicking his fingers – wouldn’t that just be awesome?

But no, it wouldn’t be awesome, it’d be boring. If that happened, the Enterprise would never really be in any danger, and the characters would never be in any kind or peril. There would be no tension or drama.

In roleplaying games you need that same sense of danger, which adds drama to the story.

Read More

Nov
4

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Using social media for your roleplaying game

Category: OngoingWorlds site news Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Social Media

Social media is a massive thing at the moment, and it seems like everyone is using either Facebook or Twitter. TV programmes, radio stations, companies, products, and even your local gym will want you to either follow them on Twitter, or ‘like’ their page on Facebook. Here you will get a best kicksta review to generate a traffic to your social media platform.

You might hate social media, but you’ve got to admit it’s damn useful! Using Twitter or Facebook is a way that you can easily talk to people, and that’s great, but the most obvious value to your roleplaying game is that it makes it easier for people to find and talk to YOU!

Recruiting new members to your roleplaying game is difficult, and you want to make sure you’re doing everything you can to help people to join. Think about how someone will find out about your roleplaying game. If you’re using a forum website, or OngoingWorlds, think about how someone will find you. Many people believe that if you create a website, you’ll automatically be seen by hundreds of visitors – but this is like building a shop in the middle of the desert – who will go there, unless they know it exists? Read More

Nov
1

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Halloween story competition 2011: Winner

Category: Competition Tags: , 1 Comment

PumpkinsWe ran a competition in October where we asked you to send us your scary Halloween stories. The winning entry is a short story called A Dream so Real it leaves Scars by Addriey Jones. Thanks very much to Addriey Jones for entering.

We’ve included her story here for you to read: Read More

Oct
21

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USS Providence, a chat-based sim

Category: non-PBP roleplaying, PBEM games, Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , 3 Comments

USS ProvidenceContinuing our theme of Star Trek sims (we’ll stop and cover a different genre soon, I promise!) here’s an interview with Josh from USS Providence, part of the FSF (Federation Sim Fleet). Fleets seem very popular with Star Trek sims, it’s easy to unite games when they stare the same theme and same universe. Like I’ve already mentioned in the article about Star Trek Freedom, the sense of community in fleets can make it a great experience, which is probably why many Star Trek sims seem to have existed for a very long time.

The USS Providence sim began February 22nd, 2003. It has run continuously since then. I chatted with Josh Hrach, who is the GM for the USS Providence. Read More

Oct
14

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Starbase 118 – serious Star Trek simming

Category: Interviews, non-PBP roleplaying Tags: , 1 Comment

Federation Starbase

Star Trek is one of the most popular genres of play-by-post games, some having been played way back since the 80’s when PBEM games really started. If you want to roleplay in the same universe as Captain Kirk, and Captain Picard, you’ve got plenty of choice of games to join. Many of these Star Trek games have organised themselves together over the last few decades into fleets, allowing many games to be run in parallel sharing the same resources, members and sometimes sharing the same stories.

One of these fleets is UFOP: Starbase 118, which is a fleet of 7 games, each game set aboard a different starship or starbase, and one set on a planet.

I interviewed Miles Unum from Starbase 118, asking him about the fleet. Read More

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