OngoingWorlds blog

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

Jan
7

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Roleplaying Focus – What would you do?

Category: Character Development Tags: , 1 Comment

Hello there!

Leon Archer

Leon Archer, GM of Spellbound

I hope everyone has had a grand Christmas  Personally have been introduced and discovered the wonders of Sodastreams. Equally, I hope New Year was great – my latest ambition is to move into a new four bedroom house come March, which will be nice and a MASSIVE improvement over where I am now, although the train journey may or may not be a welcome change. Sorry I’ve not been able to post recently, my excuse is that I may of had a digit severed and reattached recently – kinda makes typing a little on the difficult side! I certainly didn’t do what most of the heroes I’ve written about would have done, namely shrug it off and continue on like nothing had happened. No, it was a case of wincing in pain and feeling a bit ill at the sight of my bone. Which brings me to my topic for this time.

What would you do?

This time, I’d like to discuss roleplaying in character.It is an important aspect to roleplaying, be it play-by-post, tabletop, or humble literature. Read More

Sep
14

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Impressing the Moderators – Character creation 101

Category: Character Development, Writing tips Tags: Leave a Comment

DavidThis article was written by Andy from Blue Dwarf, a roleplaying game I’ve been running for over 11 years. Andy’s been a moderator for many of those years, and knows what to look for in the application of a new character. On OngoingWorlds, creating a character is the 1st part of an application to join a game, so it’s got to get the Moderators attention, and be well written. It’s the only way you can prove your skills as a writer and if it’s not up to the Moderator’s expectations, they might not allow you to join the game.

 

lego men

Stand out from the crowd

As a moderator of a sim on Ongoing Worlds, I tend to see a lot of character submissions. It’s always great to see interest in a sim, for people to have a genuine desire to join the story that you’ve been building for several months or even years, which makes the disappointment of a poor character submission so frustrating. The character that you submit to the moderators is what the first impression they will have of you will be made up of. They don’t know anything about you, other than what you put in the form, so it’s important that you get it right.

Imagine, that you’re applying for that job you really want. Would you send a CV that’s lazy, and unimaginative? Of course not, so why do it here?

The profile that you compile will tell moderators what you’re going to be like as a contributing member of their group. Moderators care about their sims, and are usually protective toward them and will only want to accept members who will create interesting posts, and they’re not going to be convinced of that if you send them a profile that doesn’t even live up to that expectation. Read More

Feb
28

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Matching Your Character Up For A Game

Category: Character Development, OngoingWorlds site news, Play-by-post discussion Tags: , Leave a Comment

DavidWhen you join a game do you create a character to match the world, or do you start the other way around – create a character and find a game to match them to? This article is written by Ellen, (aka TotallyAwesome from RoleplayHub). Ellen has been roleplaying for over 15 years and is a regular member on Harry Potter RP ‘Vault 713’.

Ellen

Ellen has been roleplaying for over 15 years

So, you’ve got your favorite character and you can’t imagine ever *not* playing him or her, but your RP site starts to get a little lack-luster, or maybe goes in a direction you’re not liking. What do you do? You’ve got this sixteen-year-old, shy, gay, Jewish Ravenclaw, who’s dad is a professional broom designer, and you want to take him to a site where Neverland is real, or Rita Repulsa is back with a vengence, or there’s a sudden dyer need to get to the fountain of youth. I think I have your solution.

Bringing characters from site to site is easy, once you know how to do it. You can take any character from any site and change certain things about them so that they fit into the new surroundings. Read More

Aug
19

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Why we love flashbacks

Category: Character Development, Inspiration for writing Tags: , , Leave a Comment

Flashback week write and roleplay about your character's pastIf you’ve not heard about Flashback week, see the details here and remember to enter the competition here.

In my last article I explained that flashbacks are great ways to help build your character, and they’re also really great fun to write because it gives you a totally open canvas to put your character anywhere and in any situation. If you’re writing about them with others as part of a roleplaying game, this can sometimes be quite a difficult thing to do, because you’ll have to get everyone else to agree that the story is taking a turn in the direction you want it to. But as anyone who’s ever done collaborative writing knows, the story won’t always go in that direction!

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Aug
11

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Flashbacks help character building

Category: Character Development, OngoingWorlds site news, Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , 3 Comments

someone sleeping on bench

Only a few days to go now until the start of Flashback week, and already the response has been positive! I’ve chatted to a few GMs of roleplaying games, who’ve told me they’ve spread word to their members about the Flashback week competition, and even planned their own smaller, in-game competitions. A great way to do this is if your game is on OngoingWorlds is to use the awards, that’s what they were created for!

But Flashback week isn’t just about winning the competition, there’s also a decent reason for using flashbacks in your story; it helps develop your character.

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May
25

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Give your characters flaws

Category: Character Development Tags: , 3 Comments

The weakest link

Most of us want the character that we roleplay to be badass. It’s our childhood fantasy to be the hero of the story, to be the person who helps rescue everyone else from danger, to defeat the badguys, and for everyone else to look up to. But be careful you’re not making your character too perfect, or they might turn into a Mary Sue.

I’ve been creating a Rolemaster character recently, and they have a great system that allows you to pick special abilities for your character (they call them ‘talents’), and you have a limited number of points to spend on these talents. To gain more talents you need more points, and to get these you have to choose the equal number of points worth in ‘flaws’. You can choose these talents and flaws from the book, and there’s many of each, and it’s the flaws which really inspired me.

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May
12

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Create a character you're proud of

Category: Character Development Tags: 1 Comment

This post was ritten by Lt. Alleran Tan, Helm Officer of the USS Independence-A in the UFOP: StarBase 118

Character development pyramidCentral to any roleplaying experience is designing a character to play. Essentially, in play-by-email groups there are two main types of roleplaying: roleplaying with games mechanics, or roleplaying without game mechanics (known as ‘freeform’ style). But irrespective of if you have to build your character to rules, or simply so that she fits in the world, it’s important to know a bit about making a character that’s fun for you and everyone who plays with you.

No matter the roleplaying system, the character you play should be interesting. This means that the character should have something that distinguishes them from the ordinary, and this reflects the theme of most roleplaying games. You play a Starfleet Officer, or a were-wolf hunter, or a mutant (or vampire or a space ranger or whatever). Your character should be, well, special! They should have something that makes them a little better than most people, even if that’s just a skill, or a talent, or a special gift.

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Apr
21

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9 Reasons why Baby Doll from Sucker Punch is a Mary Sue

Category: Character Development Tags: , 2 Comments

Poster for the film Sucker Punch

The film Sucker Punch is a fantasy feast for your eyes. A girl is locked away in a mental asylum by her abusive stepfather where she repeatedly retreats to a fantastical world in her imagination where she and four other female inmates battle monsters, soldiers, dragons, and robots. I couldn’t help watch the film without thinking of the main character (called ‘Baby Doll’) of a Mary Sue character. Here’s my reasons why.

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Apr
10

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The many different types of Mary Sue

Category: Character Development, Play-by-post discussion Tags: 6 Comments

Mary Sues in multiple genres

Mary Sue characters are common in roleplaying and fanfiction, especially if the writer is an amateur and doesn’t yet know the error of their ways. Mary Sue characters are perfect in every way, they’re written so that everyone likes them, they’re smart, incredibly beautiful, incredibly useful, and can do just about anything. They don’t have any character flaws so can tackle any situation in their stride. After a while this behaviour becomes very boring and we’re reminded why decent stories have characters with just the right amount of interesting traits to add realism.

We call these types of characters “Mary Sue” after a Star Trek parody of a fanfiction story (see here for the origins of Mary Sue), but it’s not just females that make Mary Sues, the same annoying qualities can be given to males.

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Apr
5

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Make sure your character acts their age

Category: Character Development, Play-by-post discussion Tags: , , Leave a Comment

Child Trekkies

When you’re creating a new character you need to think about their age. Are they young or old? There are many different ways characters will act depending on their age, so it’s crucial you get it right for your character to be realistic.

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