OngoingWorlds blog

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

Jul
21

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Advertise your PBEM game to get new members

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: 15 Comments

Man looking into washign machine

Where to look to recruit new members?

If you’re a GM of a PBEM/play by post game then you’ll appreciate how hard it can be to get new members to your game. If you’re a brand new GM and have only recently created your game then you’ve got the challenge of recruiting new members.

It’s hard work to get new members initially

If you’ve just created your PBEM/play by post game then you might struggle to get members straight away. For many people they find this struggle too hard and give up, but don’t worry once you have a few core members it will get much easier. People like to join something that’s already established so that they don’t think they’re wasting their time.

It’s best to start with a few friends, even if there’s only two of you, it will be enough to inspire other people to join.

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Jul
17

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New feature: Character tagging in posts

Category: OngoingWorlds site news, Website Improvements Tags: , , 2 Comments

I want to let you know about a new update to the OngoingWorlds website that I’m quite excited about! Now, when you write your post, you can select which characters are in the post. This will show the characters names and thumbnail photos down the right-hand side of the page when you’re reading the post.

I’ve been talking about this feature for months on Twitter and to any interested people who I’ve talked to directly. I even did a blog post back in December, about why this feature is so cool. It’s part of what I want the site to be about, making it easier to see information at a glance. Being able to see a quick snapshot of the characters involved, you’ll quicker be able to see what the post is about.

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Jul
16

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Make your character fail a few times before succeeding

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , 2 Comments

Superman vs Batman

Even the mighty Superman has weaknesses and obstacles to overcome

In this article we’ll talk about why things shouldn’t ever be too easy for your character, and how you can do to make things more interesting by putting obstacles in their way.

Your character should be realistic

So you’re playing a PBEM game and you want your character to be as believable as possible. The reason why you want this is so that other members of the game will read your posts and really feel like your character is a real person.

In reality, good things don’t happen all of the time. For total realism, sometimes bad things happen to good people. If you want to do something in real life, there will be things standing in your way. Similarly if your character wants to do something, there should be obstacles that they should overcome before they achieve their goal.

If characters on TV or films achieved what they wanted to straight away, we’d cut out the story, and that’s the interesting bit!

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Jul
12

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Using OOC to instruct other members

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , , 6 Comments

Punch and Judy

Sometimes it's time to put your characters down and speak as yourself

OOC is an acronym for “out of character”. It is usually used in a PBP or PBEM game to indicate that the following text is written by the author, and not intended as speech from the point of view of the writer’s character.

If you see this in a post, it usually means that the following paragraph has been written by the member as something intended to communicate to other members, like an instruction or comment. The member is making it clear that this is something they are saying, and not the character they are writing about.

When is it used?

Use an OOC comment at the start of your post, or at the end to either comment on the post, or at the end to give a suggestion or instruction about what the reader should do next.

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Jul
1

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Delete your abandoned games

Category: OngoingWorlds site news 9 Comments

There are many websites where you can advertise your PBEM/PBP game. It’s unfortunate though that so many of these types of site aren’t updated regularly enough. In today’s world of social media, Twitter, Facebook, etc, many of us check websites regularly, and if we see that nothing has been updated we’ll check back less frequently, and eventually we’ll not check back at all.

There are many websites where you can create a PBEM/PBP game. Often these will be on forums, or Yahoo! Groups, or other such hosted solutions. It’s also pretty easy to setup a PBEM game using each of these ideas, all you need is something to type with and an imagination. The choice of places to host the game also means that if the game isn’t working, it’s not hard to setup somewhere else, and because all of these solutions are free – it doesn’t matter to users if they abandon a game without even making clear that it’s closed.

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Jun
7

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Tagging at the end of your post

Category: PBEM games, Play-by-post discussion Tags: 7 Comments

Children playing tag

Children playing tag

There might be many different words for what I’m writing this article about, but I’ve always known it as “tagging”. The word presumably comes from the game you play as a kid called “tag” where one person has to chase everyone else, and “tags” them (or we also used to say “tig”). The other person would then be “it” and responsible for catching and tagging someone else. The person who was “it” was the sole person who could move the game on.

So it’s this thinking why we use the word “tag” on the end of our posts, to signify that it’s another person’s turn to continue the game.

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May
21

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Interview with Mike Bullen, GM of Wizards Inc PBEM

Category: OngoingWorlds site news, Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , 1 Comment

Wizards Inc office building

Wizards Inc is about Wizards in a modern day office block

Many many role playing games are set in a fantasy world, each with their differences in how you use magic. Fantasy is a staple of Play-by-post games too, and it allows the member’s characters to live their lives in a rich and exciting world where the only limits are our own imaginations.

Mike Bullen has created his own play-by-post game where the characters are Wizards. What is most unusual is that instead of being set in a typical Dungeons and Dragons type world, this one is set in our own world. Wizards Inc is a game about some Wizards who work in an office block in England. They solve problems for clients using their magic, but try to keep their wizardry secret from normal people.

I’ve known Mike since he joined up for my Blue Dwarf play-by-post game, and is a fun writer. I’ve asked him a few questions about his Wizards Inc game.

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May
4

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PBEM terminology: "Post"

Category: Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , 3 Comments

I wanted to do an article explaining the basic terminology used in a PBEM/PBP game, as it might not always be clear. This article starts right from the basics with the word:

Post

A post is an item of the story that a member submits. A post will continue the story that has been told so far, usually from the point of view of the character of the member who has written the post.

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May
3

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Interview with Anthony Keen from the Star Trek Freedom PBEM

Category: PBEM games, Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , 1 Comment

Star Trek Freedom

Star Trek Freedom

Star Trek PBEM games on the web

Star Trek makes up a vast amount of PBEM games, mainly due massive scifi universe in which it is set, giving the chance to have an unlimited number of possibilities for different starships, and an infinite amount of locations your characters can explore.

Star Trek Freedom

Star Trek Freedom , a network of PBEM games which all take place in the Star Trek universe.

There are many Star Trek PBEM games around, but Star Trek Freedom stands out for two reasons, it has a very detailed website (http://www.startrekfreedom.com) which is always kept up to date, and a strict training process before you’re even allowed to join a ship.

Star Trek Freedom has five ships, with an average of ten people onboard each. The ships make up the “52nd Fleet”

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Apr
26

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You can now add character photos

Category: OngoingWorlds site news, Website Improvements Tags: , , 20 Comments

The OngoingWorlds website has now been updated so that you can add photos to your character profiles. The photos will show when you view the individual character pages, as well as on the “Characters” page for each game.

All games have been upgraded, and any new games which are created will have this functionality as standard.

Add a photo for your character

To add a photo for your character, view the character’s profile, and click “Edit Character” (note: you can only edit characters that you own, or if you’re a Moderator in the game you can edit all characters in your game).

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