9 places to advertise your PBEM game
Update – There’s a much newer version of this article here, updated for 2014
Sometimes it can be difficult to get new members, especially if you’ve only just created your game. People won’t join your game if they don’t know about it, so you’ll have to promote it as much as you can. Here is some puzzle challenges for you to solve the puzzle games and you will love it.
There are many websites where you can fill in a form to advertise your PBEM/play by post game. Some of these will be websites dedicated to advertising role playing games, and some will be forums where members can play games, but have a separate thread for GMs to advertise their games. Dota 2 mmr boost service works in 2 ways. We either play on your account, or we party with you while you play on your account until we get you to your desired MMR. Both ways work just as well, so we’ll leave it up to you how you want to get things done!
I’ve collected a list of 10 websites where you can advertise your game.
PBEM players
This site allows you to create articles, questions or post a link about your PBEM game. You have to register to become a member, but after that you are trusted to contribute worthwhile content to the site.
To create a link to your game, register and then click “Create Content”. Select “Link” to add a link to your game. Your game will then be shown in a list which gets displayed on the website’s homepage and then you can start using the Uberboost to boost your game.
Once your link has been added it will remain on the site for a long time, and you can keep the entry up to date by posting comments to it.
PBEM2
This is an automated listing service which allows you to add your game into one of the pre-set categories. Your game will also be tweeted under the @pbem2 twitter account and promoted on their RSS feed. There’s also a banner exchange where they promise to put one of your banners on their homepage in exchange for putting one of theirs on your site.
To add your game click “Add” and then select “I’m running a game and looking for players”. Games do get removed from this site regularly so remember to keep checking back and re-adding if you’re still looking for members. There’s a guide for how to add to PBEM2 here, including video walkthrough!
RPG Gateway
This is a directory of many types of role playing games, as well as links to resources. The homepage shows you the major categories. Click “Internet Play” to see the types of text based RPG types they have on the site already. Play-by-email and play-by-post are split up here, meaning that they are taking the meaning literally so make sure you put your game in the correct category (see my article PBEM or play-by-post). The games are split up into further categories, this time by genre.
To add your game to this site, click “Add your RPG site” in the right-hand column.
Once your entry has been added it will remain on the site for a long time, and you can modify it by clicking “Modify your listing”.
PBM List
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbm_list
When you first visit this site you might think it’s one of the oldest-looking websites you’ve ever seen, and you’d be forgiven for assuming it’s not been updated in a decade. But it’s actually updated regularly and is a great place to advertise your game. It does look like it’s only partially built, but actually this adds to the simplicity of the site.
Many different types of roleplaying games can be advertised here, so make sure you navigate to the “Email” section for PBEM games, but there are also games organised by category so check out a few of the other links too. The website is quite old fashioned, and lacks important functionality which you might want (like a search box), and there’s no way to edit your existing entry apart from emailing the webmaster to change it. You can add a new announcement for your game however, which is good to keep your entry up to date.
To add your game, click “Add new game” at the bottom of the homepage.
Roleplay Online
A forum which has many old abandoned threads mixed in with some very current ones asking for players. This can be a bit frustrating. From the homepage browse down to “Wanted – Players” to see many new threads where other GMs are advertising their games. You will have to create an account to post your advert.
The RPG Directory
A popular forum with threads dedicated to advertising your RPG. There are many topics for you to post inside, allowing you to post your advert in the appropriate thread. This directory seems to be well managed, with some strict rules which seems to help because a lot of the outdated adverts seem to be removed pretty quickly, so you don’t have to trawl through the really old adverts for games that are no longer running (see my article about deleting abandoned games). There seems to be a lot of adverts here for fantasy games, high school drama, Harry Potter spin-offs and games based on Anime series, but there’s also a lot more genres catered for.
To add an advert listing, register as a new user and post in the dedicated section for advertising games. Choose the category which is most appropriate for your game.
Caution to the Wind
http://z10.invisionfree.com/CAUTIONTOTHEWIND
A forum with an alternative, bohemian style. While this looks good, it can be quite distracting as the text is tiny and hard to read (there is an option to change to a larger font size but this just makes it look more of a mess), and there is just so much going on visually that you have to force your eye to the content on the forum. The categories here are very tailored towards fantasy, gothic and other worldly, with dedicated sections for Harry Potter and Twilight.
To add an advert listing, register as a new user and post in the dedicated section for advertising games. Choose the category which is most appropriate for your game.
Star Trek Freedom’s Topsites list
http://www.startrekfreedom.com/toplist
This is a vertical list of Star Trek games. Games will get higher up the list depending on the amount of click-throughs that they have. You can add your own game to the list which will start at the very bottom, and watch it climb to the top if you’re lucky! The interface is a bit clumsy and it’s not very intuitive if you’ve never encountered a list like this before.
RPG library
http://www.rpglibrary.org/news/
The RPG library website has a forum section where GMs can advertise for players and lurkers. This site isn’t the most active on this list, with only a few posts per thread, and some game categories empty. It does cater for a wide range of games however, and the rules for advertising are not strict. To add an advert listing, register as a new user and post in the dedicated section for advertising games. Choose the category which is most appropriate for your game.
Conclusion
There are of course many more websites that allow you to advertise your game. Make sure you’re advertising in the correct place, where you’ll be able to advertise to people who are interested in roleplaying games of your genre. Also, Check that the site has been updated recently or you might just be wasting your time.
