OngoingWorlds blog

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

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Let them Eat Cake

This article was written by Jay Peg from the game Run!

this guy talks about cake

I know you came here to read about role playing games, but I want to talk about cake. If you’re like me you like to breathe, eat cake, and (when you can) play games. There is other stuff, but I’m just listing the important ones here. See, we have a lot in common already. What is the best part of the cake? The icing! The rest is good, but the frosting is awesome, is mind-blowing, is stupefyingly great.  In the traditional slice of cake though, the ratio of icing-to-not-icing is counter intuitive then isn’t it? Read More

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Sitcoms and Roleplaying Games

Big Bang Theory cast w logoIn today’s entertainment world, it seems we are flooded with a plethora of shows that seem to just run into each other via plots or ideas. These shows tend to be very unsuccessful and usually end within the pilot or the first or second season if they’re lucky. But then, there are those shows that seem to triumph over the rest, the ones that stick out, the ones you might have thought you would hate but would come to love. Situation Comedies or “Sitcoms” go best with this pattern, in a way, roleplaying games can follow suit, since there are games like the baccarat online which is really popular these days. How does it relate? How do you make roleplaying games like sitcoms? Well there’s only one way to find out.  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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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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Thank You For The Year!

o-beer-cheers-facebook

Here’s to another year!

Today, June 22nd, 2014. Marks one year for me as an Ongoing Worlds member. The reason I’m making this is to thank the members of Ongoing Worlds and the countless number of the other big faces in role playing. Read More

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Improvisation Challenge

improv-o

Improv!

I just recently experienced something truly fun and thought provoking at the same time on Facebook. It started off with the phrase “He walked into the bar, he found a seat and ate from the bowl of stale pub pretzels as he waited for the bartender to come his way.” and ended up being a random story about a man named Major Major and a woman with blue hair and time traveling to rebuild something called the Consulate. It was truly comedic yet it also kind of opened my eyes to a true challenge for a writer. Improvisation.

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How To Properly End A Game

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This might be even tougher then losing members. We hate to see our games go, but if we’ve finished the story, gone as far as we could go, and hit the limit. It’s time to pack it up and call it a day, we did our job and by god we did it damn well. But how do you do that? How can you end a game? Do we just delete it like a bad character? No! That is never an option! A game isn’t like a character, it’s something more. Imagine it a home. Imagine if Back To The Future had no ending, if Star Wars had no ending, if Breaking Bad just suddenly stopped, or you ended like the Sopranos and just cut to straight black. That’s not exciting, that’s boring. And ending a game like that, to be honest, it might tick off a few people. If you can’t think of a way to end your game, that’s ok. But if you can but don’t want to, that’s a little unprofessional. With this you can find ways and examples on how to either save or end a game. Read More

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The missing WBWW story

DavidWeeks after the end of WBWW, and the winner has been announced, I found this exciting gem in my email spam folder. My heart sank as I realised what had happened, this had been submitted by email but for some unknown reason was treated like spam. Usually I trust Gmail, as it usually does a decent job of distinguishing actual spam, but for some reason it hide this away from me. The story was submitted by Wes from OtherSpace. We’ve featured several articles by Wes about his MUSH.

I can’t apologise enough to Wes, this is a great story but unfortunately it was never passed to the judges. So the best thing I can do is post it here so you can read, and wonder how well it would have done in the WBWW competition.  Read More

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1882 – WBWW runner-up

Here’s the story that came third place in our WBWW competition. It’s the tale of a cowboy called Alex Solvay in the American old west, being told to his great grandson, also called Alex. Alex is a character in the game Blue Dwarf played on OngoingWorlds.

The story is written by Jack Tennant, who has even recorded this story to audio, which you can listen to through the YouTube video below, or read the story underneath.

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Empty Skies Over Tokyo – WBWW runner-up

Here’s the story that came 2nd place in our WBWW competition. Empty Skies Over Tokyo written by Marissa Jeffrey from USS Victory, part of UFOP: Starbase 118.

This story got a lot of praise from one of our judges, Aimee the winner of this year’s First Person Fortnight competition.

aimee-mug-60x60The strengths of the story that spoke to me most, aside from the expected “good grammar/punctuation/understanding of storytelling”:

1) Great demonstration of “Show, don’t tell.” It’s probably the only story that didn’t do this to a fault. It was narrating but it was describing what the characters were doing and how they were interacting with their environment and thus communicating “this is good/exciting/something I’m proud of” to the reader.

2) A clear format made to show the intended style; well-chosen names of places and dates. Very striking in their military/future origin, but not over-explained.

3) It comes full circle and leaves this reader with a simple feeling of family identity and pride in one’s place in the world, but doesn’t get more complicated than that. Vocabulary is tight and story feels focused.

4) Mature and sophisticated world outlook and a writing style to match it.

I also liked the detail that the “ancestor” was from 2003. 🙂 That makes great sci-fi.

Here’s the story in full.

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