Apr
23
Nobody likes inactivity. Inactivity can ruin a whole game, even the best ones, with the best core ideas. So here’s some tips on keeping an active game.
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Apr
21
A few weeks ago we posted an article by Squidlord about why penalties for magical powers is bad. There was a lot of discussion about this (go read the comments). I asked the roleplayers on RPG-Directory what they thought about this too, and got some great answers. Read More
Apr
19
This article was written for us by Brian aka Crimsyn from the USS Portland in Obsidian Fleet.
If you poke around the internet, you’ll see that a lot of the simms out there have something in their rules to the effect of “IC actions have IC consequences,” often putting various degrees of emphasis on this statement, such as “if you write your character jumping out of the airlock, your character is going to be dead.” It is so popular that it has somehow become almost a clichéd truism in the world of simming, commonly cited by players and GMs alike. Read More
Apr
6
This post was written by Alexander Williams (@squidlord).
Last week this question was floated on Twitter.
David Onion Ball (@ongoingworlds)
If you allow characters in your RP to cast magic, do you always make sure there’s a penalty for using it? – Mar 18
To put it mildly, “a conversation ensued.” You can go to the linked Twitter procession if you want to read it in full, but the core conflict is that David espouses a position in which the actions of a character have a “price,” and I believe if you charge a character – or their player – for engaging with the story, you get what you reward: less engagement with the story.
I think that’s bad. Your opinion may differ.
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Apr
4
Written by Andrew Facemire.
After a period where I was in a malaise as a host of my long-running chat-based RPG, Excalibur, I began to realize that, for a variety of reasons, many of the plot-threads I was expecting players to work with were, to them, what many of the “legacy” storylines I inherited were to me when I came aboard almost ten years ago. Read More
Mar
30
I saw an article on Gnome Stew with some ideas of what to do with abandoned characters. See the article here.
It’s inevitable, some people will leave, and their characters will be abandoned. What do you do with them? Keep them forever? Kill them off? Or allow other players to adopt them?
Mar
28
I found this great article on Jesse Cohoon’s blog, & thought it would be really useful for you guys.
Player backgrounds are important. They tell where characters have been, what their goals are, and who their friends and enemies are. Read More
Mar
7
Ever wanted to create a map for your game, to maybe show to other players to indicate where you’re exploring, or what your home base looks like? Read More
Jan
23
I recently saw that the Kepler station roleplay had a downloadable PDF guide for roleplaying, which includes useful information not just for their roleplay, but for everyone. Read More
Jan
3
This article was written for us by A.S. Williamson, about the new Star Trek Victory game which launches soon. We don’t normally post articles that are adverts for games, but I thought this showed an insight on roleplaying which was quite interesting. – Onion
I’ve always been fascinated by Star Trek’s vision of the future
It’s not just the spaceships and the aliens, the technology and wonder – it’s this really unique look at the way that humanity evolves over the universe’s run. Read More
