Some nice words about the Squiddies nominations
I probably should have posted this weeks ago, but time has unfortunately got the better of me lately. As you know we announced the Squiddies a couple of weeks ago, these were the best of the games nominated to us by roleplayers like you, who lovingly let us know about their favourite roleplaying games, clubs and people. As most of these were so well written and reflect genuine enthusiasm, I thought it’d be nice to publish these here.
The following quotes are nominations from real roleplayers in no particular order:
Roleplaying games
Game – USS Victory from Independence Fleet roleplay club:
On the surface a crew of misfits and cast-offs of the fleet, assigned to the most dangerous sector of the galaxy and set to fail, the experiment of which Starfleet is mostly unaware is slowly becoming something amazing… and it is all due to the dedication of the high-calibre hard-working writers of the USS Victory. Month after month they produce amazing stories that are engaging, soulful and brilliant. Taut storytelling, beautiful illustrative graphics and a close-knit crew with high morale produce amazing results… and here’s the proof.
Game – YSS Eucharis from the Star Army roleplay club:
The Eucharis is, in my opinion, one of the bests plots within SARP. It almost always has a full player base which allows for a more in depth role playing experience. The GM is always quick to throw in more things for the characters to do, combat for them to get involved in, and daring missions for them to complete. The tasks given to the crew are some of the most unique that are seen on the site. Recent missions have been to infiltrate an enemy “Nest” via its waste storage unit (that got interesting), to locate and rescue a duplicate of the ships’ Captain because when the Captain was thought to have died they made a new copy from a memory backup however the previous wasn’t actually dead, and to deliver political refugees to a faction that had rebelled from the Lorath and seceded only to find that the rebel separatists had been ethnically cleansed by the Lorath. Lastly, the plot facilitates lots of character development through spouts of downtime, usually occurring around the Christmas/New Year’s season. This allows the characters to do whatever they please without fear of an incoming mission. This year’s activities by the crew include such things as shopping sprees to the mall, courting between two of the crew members, visiting home and family, technologies designing, personal ship building, etc.
Game – Blue Dwarf from the OngoingWorlds roleplay club:
It’s the longest running PBEM that I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in. (It is going to turn 13 years old this April). Now, if that’s not excellence in role playing, your not looking at it right.
A game can not survive that long without the right mix of good players, good plot, and good action. The Blue Dwarf has all of these attributes, and three more that is very important in my mind – Free form open role playing, comedy and camaraderie.
That’s what makes it a standout in my mind, I’ve been in many games where they are turn by turn and strict regulation of the action by the moderator/referee (like several D&D games), and I’ve been in a few PBEMs where there is no real ‘director’ so to speak, and the players function autonomously, but very few PBEMs in my experience hit the right balance of moderator drive action posts to help direct the plot and be free form enough to allow players to do essentially whatever they want. And that’s the Blue Dwarf in a nut shell.
The great thing about this game is that you are forced to play a smeghead once in a while and no matter how serious you like to game silly humor and antics keep the players from taking the game to seriously.
Game – Starbase 118 Operations from the Starbase 118 roleplaying club:
The writers aboard this Trojan class spacedock are beyond stellar; never afraid to create and design something new, or throw the unexpected into the mix, they go beyond simple reactions to GM set situations and develop a basic plot into an epic storyline. The characters are ‘real’ in so many ways, and they are quick to welcome new members with open arms. Their sense of community is astounding, but it is their originality and innovation, will to design and create something new, and their ability to work as a team towards the unknown that really makes them shine. From Doctors who are working with DNA to ‘grow’ organs, to engineers who develop new concepts based on real world science, to security officers and Marines who find new ways to do a job we think we understand, but really don’t, this crew is well deserving of a nomination for this award.
Game: USS Chirikov from the Independence Fleet roleplay club:
The USS Chirikov, which began as an independent sim in 2007 and joined IDF just over two years ago, was the recent winner of the 2012 Simulation Cup for Outstanding (highest scoring) Trek Sim, being recognized for character development, creativity, originality, prolificness, and readability. The Chirikov CO has trained and encouraged four COs to create their own Trek sims (Alamo Station, USS Asimov, USS Challenger, and USS Spyglass) and is currently training a fifth for a Romulan sim).
Roleplaying clubs
Club – Valucre roleplaying forum:
With an extensive lore and great moderation to keep relations between players fair, it serves as a very flexible, inventive, and creative place for roleplayers to call home. I moved to Valucre after spending nearly seven years exclusively on Gaiaonline, and I can honestly say that I will never be returning there in favor of Valucre. The quality of the writers is fantastic, and everyone is welcome and polite.
Club – Star Army roleplay:
I have RPed on multiple sites and none compare to the depth, community, and possibility of SARP. Through the years the setting has grown to include over a dozen factions and over 500 registered users. In order to increase the realism of the setting everything that exists must have an in-depth wiki article to go along with it. Every weapon, engine type, starship, faction, etc, must have an article (or 50) explaining as much as possible about it.
SARP, in fact, has over 9000 articles and over 7000 media files! The website is functioned off of a peer-approval format so every article must go through an approval process overseen by a group of peers. This means that SARP only moves in the direction that it’s community wishes and that players have the ability to create setting elements, which allows for a better experience. What this also allows for is originality. Copied technologies are not permitted to pass the approval process, and the process also insures that every piece of technology is properly fleshed out. Everything from the largest nation’s economy, military, senate, cities, planets, etc. all the way down to the water purification device found in the survival kit on board escape pods has an article containing at least half a dozen paragraphs (most have dozens of sub-articles). All of this together creates easily the most in-depth original plot that exists on the web, facilitating community participation, community development, and creative role playing.
Club – OngoingWorlds roleplay:
In attempting to foster a sense of community by constantly holding contests, be they for writing excellence or simply submitting ideas for writers to stretch and develop outside their normal milleu, Ongoing Worlds is working hard to expose many different groups to writers and groups that otherwise might not encounter one another… and by breaking down those boundaries, they help forge a larger nation of creative neighbourhoods that otherwise might never peek over their individual ‘fences’.
Club – Phoenix roleplaying:
Since its creation in August 2010, Phoenix Roleplaying has demonstrated continuous excellence and creativity in the world of online role playing. The 29 sims not only cover established works such as Firefly (with a total of nine sims), Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, but also include original works such as AW75 and Beyond the Veil of Truth – all of them contain superb characters, concepts and writing, with the site winning five prizes at the recent Simulation Cup. Among recent plots has been the bombing of a Skyplex and a boiler explosion, creating dramatic moments and keeping players on their toes.
Phoenix also provides for a strong community, with its democratic structure allowing for direct involvement in the creation of policies for the site and holding the elected executive to account. In addition, it has excellent social media support, with a newsletter, blog, Facebook group and Twitter feed among others.
Finally, the membership of the site is universally welcoming and well-behaved, with no need for extensive banning or punishments because there are simply not the problems that require them. New members quickly get accustomed to procedures and one of our most active sims, AW75, is run by a relatively new member.
Phoenix Roleplaying is simply the best RP site that I have ever been involved and I am privileged to be its General Coordinator.
Club – Starbase 118:
For almost 20 years, Starbase 118 has been a force within the RPG community. The fact that they’ve been around that long is proof that they offer something special. Over the years, they’ve shown that they not only can provide fun – as there are some original members still in the Fleet – but that they can adapt to the ever changing realm of the online world. By implementing best practices for their website, they’ve taken some of the top slots in the search engines, and by offering an easy to navigate site and application process, they continue to draw some of the best and brightest creative writers to their group.
With the dedication of their command officers, players not only flourish, but find something unique among the proverbial stars. They grant the freedom to discover and develop writing, characters, and even ideas that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. It is for all of this, along with their immense wiki, all inclusive and easy to read website, and strong sense of community, that I nominate this ‘club’ for this award.
Club – RP Repository:
The RPR is a very cool community for a number of reasons. Its tools are fantastic, its community is positive, encouraging, and creative, its administrator and moderators are very, very involved, and the website is constantly improving.
The Role Play Repository’s tools are unique, intuitive, fun, and overall easy to use. The website’s primary use is to have a way easily create detailed character sheets however you want them. There are all sorts of widgets to add to your profile, and there are many different ways to customize the page’s look! On top of that, you can embed a character sheet into a webpage or even print it out for tabletop RP. This method of creating RP characters has evolved into Group creating as well, where whole entire RP Websites are being created under the umbrella of RPR’s main website. (Using the same formula of drag-and-drop widgets, and customizable pages.) I remember once seeing a group that never once posted to the main forums, yet had the most members I had ever seen in a group! All in all, very cool RP tools. I don’t think I could find another club that boasts something this customizable.
The RPR’s community is also terrific. There are constantly discussions about how to improve the art of RP, and there is no lack of maturity.
Everyone is polite, courteous, and welcoming of new players! RPing with others is always a blast as well, due to the constant state of improvement and development. Every character is unique in some way, and there is no lack of unique, creative, and fun groups and RPs to join. Many, many players are experienced RP veterans, and they pass on their wisdom to newer RPers. I have never seen such maturity exhibited in any other RP site. (To give you an example of how awesome the website is, there is an annual holiday called the Festival of Being Excellent to Each Other, or FBEEO. It is focused on how we can treat others better and how to improve RP!)
Club – Independence Fleet:
Independence Fleet boasts 25 sims (17 of which are currently active) and 150 writers. The admiralty foster a community feel, and have expanded from simple simming to a book club, a host of chat seminars, a sponsor of contests with fun prizes, and a representative of the simming community in non-traditional markets. Hard working FADM A.J. Wheeler and his right and left hands (Robert Aaron and Joseph Carroll, respectively) work tirelessly to improve the fleet, providing their full involvement at every level of the simming experience.
IDF has deservedly won many awards in simming competitions, from OngoingWorlds and elsewhere.
The quotes above are all anonymous of course, as that’s how we asked for the nominations to be.
I think this page is long enough so I’ll post the nominations for best roleplayers on a separate page 🙂
