OngoingWorlds blog

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

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Some useful articles for writing about characters

many individual roleplay characters
SEE ALSO: A character doesn’t breathe until that first post

There’s quite a few articles on this website with advice for creating & writing characters that you might have missed. Here’s a list of some useful ones:

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Things All Ongoing Worlds Members Should Know

The Ongoing Worlds community is about as open as you get. Anybody who can access the internet and understands English can join. There are no rules nor protocols listed anywhere except in the game information sections and descriptions of some of the games on the site, and those vary per game. Yet despite that, really becoming a comfortable member of the Ongoing Worlds community and getting the most out of the Ongoing Worlds experience is not quite as simple as it may first appear. Ongoing Worlds offers a substantial number of tools whose value and utility may not immediately be recognizable, and the Ongoing Worlds community itself has a unique microculture, with a lot of values and beliefs that may not be readily apparent either.

In an attempt to help newcomers and veterans better understand the tools at our disposal, how we use those tools, and understand the beliefs of the Ongoing Worlds community, I have worked with the people of the Ongoing Worlds Community Platform to put together a list of ten things that we would like everyone to know and understand about Ongoing Worlds. Many of these are lessons that I have learned through making mistakes, resulting in hurt feelings for me or those that I have interacted with. Hopefully, by sharing this information, others can learn what I have learned less painfully than I did.

Tools

1. Email is Ongoing Worlds’ method for Private Messaging. You can find the email address of any given member by clicking the links to their profile page. Email communication is extremely valuable here on Ongoing Worlds, as it is the primary means through which different OW members can discuss things that don’t need to be publicly displayed for everyone to see. The Ongoing Worlds experience is not meant to be enjoyed alone, and email is the primary means of bridging the physical distance between you and other OW members. Keep in mind that you cannot see another member’s email address until you are an accepted member of a game that they are also in. A quick way to be able to see the email addresses of a lot of other members is to join the Ongoing Worlds Community Platform. Read More

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Using a Personality Test to Flesh Out Your Characters

This article was written by Nim, creator of the OW Community Platform & Engines of Chaos.

After a substantial amount of peer pressure, I finally took a personality test called the Enneagram. I didn’t really expect anything to come out of it, but the results actually surprised me with how true they rang. I then proceeded to read the descriptions of the other eight personality types (called enneas) and I realized just how much a person’s personality has the potential to affect their worldview. Read More

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THE BEACONS ARE LIT! TIBERIUS CALLS FOR AID!

beacons1

DID YAH MISS ME? WELL I MISSED YOU!

Hey-o Ongoing Worlds! It’s been a while hasn’t it? Don’t answer that, we’re not actually talking and you talking to a screen with no reply really isn’t flattering. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. The beacons are lit and I do call for aid! YOUR AID! Why? BECAUSE THE CHAT BOX NEEDS OUR HELP! Read More

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12 tips for writing Star Trek fanfiction & roleplaying

Star trek characters comic

Star Trek fanfiction is as old as Star Trek itself, and heavily dominates the world of online roleplaying. There’s many giant Star Trek roleplay clubs, like Starbase 118 and Star Trek: Borderlands. We’ve even got Star Trek games running on OngoingWorlds (see here). Here’s some tips for anyone who wants to write fiction in the Star Trek universe: Read More

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Inner Child: Young Characters

hey arnold

Have you ever wanted to go back in time and make things better in your childhood? Do things differently? Tell the bully on the playground to shove off? Luckily, you are a roleplayer! Even better, you’re on OW! But simply putting a young age on your character and a cute picture of a kid as the character profile picture does not a child make. It’s all in their mannerisms and speech patterns. Read More

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Characters v. Worlds

Superman

When mods create games, they think of two things: the setting and the character. Without a good setting, the world lacks substance enough to hold interest for players. Without good chapters, the story can’t progress in an interesting way. But what do we do to insure a good story? Read More

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Adding details to secondary characters (aka NPCs)

Police chief Wiggam from the simpsons

I found this good article with advice for creating characters by Lori L. Lake, and there’s a great section about creating secondary/minor characters (in roleplay we normally call these NPCs because nobody specifically controls them). Read More

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5 tips for creating your next character

Create an interesting character– you can easily get bored of writing about a character who doesn’t interest you. Others only like reading about interesting characters also. Read More

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Creating a good character

This article was originally written by me for the Blue Dwarf website, but most of this applies to most other roleplaying games where you need to create a character. 

player 1

The character you play is probably the most crucial part of your role-playing experience. Your character will be your outlook onto the crazy world of Blue Dwarf, and how you interact with it. It is your character’s actions that you will write about, so they should be interesting! Read More