OngoingWorlds blog

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

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Using a Personality Test to Flesh Out Your Characters

This article was written by Nim, creator of the OW Community Platform & Engines of Chaos.

After a substantial amount of peer pressure, I finally took a personality test called the Enneagram. I didn’t really expect anything to come out of it, but the results actually surprised me with how true they rang. I then proceeded to read the descriptions of the other eight personality types (called enneas) and I realized just how much a person’s personality has the potential to affect their worldview. Read More

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Child’s Play – Back to School

The back-to-school shopping season, second only to the holiday season in terms of consumer spending, has been thrown into uncertainty bordering on chaos as parents and retailers do their best to plan for what school will look like in the coming weeks. Most of the time office quality products are the best, for example this mohawk superfine paper.

Set against the backdrop of a highly contagious viral pandemic and the devastation it has woven across the U.S. economy, 2020’s back-to-school season is unlike any other.

“It’s the most challenging time in history for back to school,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a consumer consulting firm in New York City.

The back-to-school season is “a critical catalyst that the country needs for an economic comeback whether it’s Wisconsin, the Great Lakes region or anywhere across America,” Flickinger added.

Whether back to school ultimately serves as a jump-start to a pandemic-ravaged economy remains to be seen.

“What retailers have to do is understand the downdraft of back to school and catch the updraft of selling more goods related to living, learning and working from home,” Flickinger added.

“Most parents don’t know whether their children will be sitting in a classroom or in front of a computer in the dining room, or a combination of the two,” Matthew Shay, president and chief executive of the National Retail Federation, said in a statement.

It’s unlike anything anyone has ever seen. 

“How do you forecast who needs new jeans or sneakers to wear to school and who doesn’t because they are going to be staying at home?” said Dick Seesel, principal at the Mequon consulting firm Retailing in Focus and a former retail industry executive. “Do they still need school supplies if they are studying at home? Maybe. But do they need backpacks? Maybe not.”Get the Coronavirus Watch newsletter in your inbox.

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If you’re in a school system where the students wear uniforms and your school may or may not reconvene, parents and the retailers who sell school uniforms also have to deal with the uncertainties involved in that part of back-to-school shopping, Seesel said.

“The other thing you don’t know, for the schools that are reopening, how long are they going to manage to stay open?” he added. “Nobody’s had to deal with anything like this.”

Toss in high unemployment and overall uncertainty as COVID-19 cases continue to spike and, “Consumers are very cautious right now,” Seesel said. “They don’t know what the next six months are going to look like.

“I’ve never seen anything that has put a dent in consumer demand quite like this,” he added.

Parents left to make choices amid uncertainty

If you think retail forecasters have a tough job, try being a parent who is trying to  plan for kids going back to school without knowing whether classes will be in person, online or both.

A recent survey of parents shows there will be plenty of penny-pinching, foot-dragging and angst.

About 64% of 18,000 parents surveyed said they were not excited about back-to-school shopping this year because of health risks going into stores or risks to their children going back into classrooms, according to Piplsay, a crowdsourcing research firm. 

More than half (52%) of the respondents in its late July survey said they will spend less this school year than last year. 

 Brad Wright, a dad of three teens — twin daughters and a son — said his approach to back-to-school spending is the opposite of the panic buying and hoarding seen in the early days of the pandemic.

“You buy a little bit, wait to see what happens, then you buy a little bit more if necessary,” said Wright, of Bellevue, Nebraska.

“You slow play this one,” Wright added. “One pair of Lululemons might make it through the year.”  

Lululemon is a pricey active clothing line that teens crave. A pair of pants runs $88 to $118.   

Appleton mom and early childhood teacher Amy Nogar is also on the wait-and-see side. 

“We haven’t done any back to school shopping yet,” she said. “Before we do any shopping, we’ll see what can be reused from last year.”

One son, a high school junior, “will be doing online learning first semester for sure, so he won’t need much,” she said. His school-issued laptops to every student. 

Her eighth grader “will be in-person, so we’ll have to get him some things.” He has a hand-me-down laptop if he needs to do remote classwork. 

“We’d definitely spend less if both boys were remote learning because we already have the technology,” Nogar said. “We’re fortunate. I can see how it could be a challenge for some families.” 

Focus shifts to technology

If remote learning takes over, some parents might be forced to spend more for back to school this year because kids will need laptop computers, headphones and things such as flash drives, printers and new routers for home Wi-Fi connections.

Retailers have pivoted to meet that demand should it occur.

“Toward the end of the spring semester, we saw a huge uptick in electronic items, like headphones and chargers and headphone sets with microphones attached,” said Phil Kelley, store director at the Meijer in Oak Creek.

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THE BEACONS ARE LIT! TIBERIUS CALLS FOR AID!

beacons1

DID YAH MISS ME? WELL I MISSED YOU!

Hey-o Ongoing Worlds! It’s been a while hasn’t it? Don’t answer that, we’re not actually talking and you talking to a screen with no reply really isn’t flattering. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. The beacons are lit and I do call for aid! YOUR AID! Why? BECAUSE THE CHAT BOX NEEDS OUR HELP! Read More

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Down with the term ‘Mary Sue’!

This article was written for us by Marian Brock Andersen.

dawn with the name mary sue

So it’s a pet peeve of mine, the whole Mary Sue / Gary Stue classifications that people throw around like its some horrible disease.

“Did you see the game.. yeah… totally they got the Mary Sue.”

We see it all the time, no “Mary Sue / Gary Stue” allowed, splashed all over everything, but what does it really mean to the Moderator or the other players? Read More

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Original Characters AKA, YOUR Trademark

220px-RegisteredTM.svgOne surefire way to stay on track and expand your creative skills is to make a trademark for yourself, something you use a lot and it carries with you from place to place. This can range from something such as a signature, a saying, something personal. But, in the case of a roleplaying site i.e. Ongoing Worlds, an easy way to make a trademark is to have an original character. Why are they important and how can they make you feel more comfortable in a rp setting? Read More

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Make sure your plot has something for everyone to do. Yes, EVERYONE!

child in corner

This is a post for GMs of games. GM is a term from tabletop roleplaying, in OngoingWorlds we normally use the term “owner”, or whomever created the game to start with. Anyway, if you created the game – you’re the GM – the one responsable for everyone else to enjoy it!  Read More

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13 articles about creating a brilliant, flawed & interesting character

 I always feel that when I'm making a character, it's the flaws they have that really makes them who they are.

On this blog we’ve posted many articles about creating characters, but over time they’ve been pushed back in the archive, so here’s some handy links to ones that you might be interested in reading if you’re creating a new character, or to show to one of your newer members who’s struggling creating a new character. Read More

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Ask the Admins Q&A

Raised-handsWonder how we do our jobs? Wonder who we actually are? Whether we’re robots,human hybrids, or aliens? What we like to do in our spare time or just general boring questions? Is Dave really a tea powered robot? Well! Now you can!  Read More

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Characters must have goals & ways of achieving them

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Every character should want something, even if it's only a glass of water

Stories, games, and all fiction is about people, about characters, about what they do and why. They may not be like us, we may not like them, but that’s what’s going on. We’re watching people (even if not human) do stuff to get results, though we may put it in more colorful ways. Read More

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Try these Heroes & Villains

The following is an extract from an article by Steven Savage from his Way with Worlds series of articles. It’s really intended for writing a book, but I thought it was interesting for creating heroes & villains in your roleplaying game. 

Heroes and Villains by Screwbald

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