Useful links from a convention I attended in my pyjamas

You can do a surprising amount of things in your pyjamas

Last night I attended an online chat convention called SciWorld. The great thing about online conventions is that you can wear whatever you want, including your pyjamas, and no-one bats an eyelid. The talk I hosted was titled “Advertise or die. Letting people know about your roleplay” where I discussed ways to let other roleplayers know about your game, to get more players. It’s obvious stuff to some, but tbh many people don’t think about it and resort to the “if you build it they’ll come” strategy which doesn’t work.

As well as discussing how social media can help, I posted a few links which I’ll share here again in case you missed them. Also the last one I forgot to mention, but it’s just as useful.

• RPG-Directory.com – This is a social network for roleplayers. There’s a directory section where you can place an advertisement for your game, which will slip down the list over time, so it’s worth coming back once a month to bump it back up to the top. You can do this by simply writing “bump” or anything tbh, but I find this a bit tacky, so what I do is write a short summary of events that’s happened since the last time I posted, which is much more interesting to read, and useful for any users reading the advert. What I usually do is copy the summary from my game’s featured story summary.RPG-D also has a popular discussion forum where you can discuss all aspects of roleplaying with other interested roleplayers. There’s plenty of smart and cool people there, and it’s crazy popular! There’s also a blog area where you can write updates about your roleplay.
• Roleplayhub.com – This is a discussion forum mostly about tabletop roleplay games, but don’t be scared off by that. There is a section on the forums for play-by-post games here. But compared to the frantic RPG-D above, this moves at a snails pace, which is a bit easier to manage tbh, and there’s some cool people there to talk to.Roleplayhub also has a directory submissions section here if you can find an appropriate submission section, which can be tricky tbh.
• PBEMPlayers.com – This is a site you can submit pretty much anything. You can submit a game listing here, or a link (tbh these get a bit muddled IMO, but I think I “link” is intended for a portal or site with many games). Or if you have an event you want to promote, you can do this here.
• RPRepository.com – This is a close-knit community of roleplayers, but the site can be used to advertise your game by creating a profile to showcase your character. There’s a how-to guide here.

Also in the talk I briefly mentioned SEO, and that a great way to increase your website’s rank on a google search is to get links from relevant websites to yours (relevance is very important, don’t indiscriminately post links anywhere, that just annoys people and doesn’t help anyone!). The link has to of course be accompanied by decent well-written content. That’s why it’s great to provide articles for our OngoingWorlds blog (what you’re reading right now) because we try and post decent informative stuff, but also link to relevant websites. You can also look for Victorious to learn more about link building.

Another place to post content and get a link to your website is a wiki. Find a wiki related to the fandom of your game, or use either of these:

• SimEnc – This is a wiki where you can write informative articles about your game, and create a link back to your game.
• Roleplay.wikia.com – A free to edit wiki which tbh looks a bit messy, but is ranked massively high if you google for “roleplay wiki”. It’s a really good place to place info about your game, and get a link to your game’s homepage.

BTW I didn’t actually attend SciWorld in my pyjamas, that was a lie. Although it was tempting to dress as something weird just for the novelty. Here’s some outfits I also DIDN’T wear:

• Spiderman costume
• French maid costume
• Poncho
• Tinker Bell Costume
• Clown outfit
• Tom Baker as the 4th Doctor
• Thong & body paint