OngoingWorlds blog

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

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

Oct
10

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The importance of community in Star Trek Freedom

Category: PBEM games, Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , 5 Comments

Star Trek FreedomSome roleplaying games have the staying power to stay around for many years, while some lose their members and close just after a few weeks. A roleplaying game isn’t just about roleplaying, it’s also a community. To find out how important a sense of community is to a roleplaying group I asked Anthony Keen, CO of roleplaying community Star Trek Freedom. When I last interviewed Anthony Keen, it was clear that they’re taking it very seriously and put a lot of effort into both the game and the community. Star Trek Freedom has been around for over 13 years, so they’re definitely doing something right to make their players stick around. They’re really active as a community and socialise together using email, forums, Twitter and Facebook.

PR (Public Relations) is very important to us as its the sense of community and family that holds our game together.

Anthony Keen, Star Trek Freedom

Many roleplaying games focus on the characters in the game, and not so much about their players. It’s common to see a character biography on many roleplaying websites, but Star Trek Freedom also has a personal biography for all players too. You can also see a gallery of player photos here.

Read More

Oct
5

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Welcoming Blue Dwarf to OngoingWorlds

Category: OngoingWorlds site news, PBEM games Tags: 5 Comments

Blue Dwarf

Last week a new game was created on OngoingWorlds that is a big deal for me. It’s technically not a new game at all, it’s a game that’s over 11 years old, a game I created and have been running for over 11 years.

The Blue Dwarf is a game based on a comedy scifi TV show called Red Dwarf which has been a favourite of mine since I was a teenager. I wanted to extend the world of the show, but knew I didn’t want to involve the small number of original characters because we’d never be able to write them as well as the original writers. There was a lot of scope in Red Dwarf’s universe, mostly because it was hardly explored which meant that anything we wrote couldn’t be proved wrong. Mainly it was the spirit of Red Dwarf that I wanted to continue, even if it wasn’t about the original characters.

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