OngoingWorlds blog

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

Jul
26

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Tweet RPG, roleplaying on Twitter

Category: Interviews, non-PBP roleplaying Tags: , Leave a Comment

DavidThe following article was written by Sam Richards, a Creative Writing graduate and geek from Wiltshire, UK. I’ve known about Tweet RPG for a while, always seeing fragments of their story on Twitter, but never truely understanding what they do, so I asked Sam for more detail.

Tweet rpg

Tweet RPG uses Twitter to provide users with an innovative new way of enjoying text-based adventures

If you want to enjoy fun, free, follower-defined adventures on Twitter, then get involved with Tweet RPG! All you need is a Twitter account and an imagination.

Tweet RPG takes the create-your-own-adventure format of roleplaying games and morphs it into a truly social and multiplayer experience. Stories progress through updates posted on Twitter, with a set of options at the end of each update. The players then have a twelve-hour window to cast their vote as to how the adventure should continue, with the majority choice shaping the story. All it takes is one tweet to change the hero’s destiny! Read More

Jul
16

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The Institution – Interview with Emz

Category: Interviews, PBEM games, Story summaries Tags: , Leave a Comment

DavidIt’s hard not to notice a game when it’s almost always on the “recently updated” list on the homepage of OngoingWorlds, or when it gets over 100 posts in its first 4 months. The Institution is a modern drama, and here’s the game’s creator: Emz to tell you more about it!

The Institution

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Jun
24

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Roma – Historic roleplaying

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Interviews, PBEM games, Story summaries Tags: , Leave a Comment

DavidI love history, and especially the Roman period. As a kid I loved visiting ruined Roman forts, which is why I’m really excited to see a Roman-themed roleplay created on OngoingWorlds. This article was written by Edward Willems, the GM of Roma.

RomaThe idea for Roma came gradually, mainly through watching far too many films about ancient Rome and Greece – Come on, what GM hasn’t had a game at least partly derived from a favourite book or film? Anyway, the idea basically solidified when watching the film Troy. The thinking was effectively: “Brilliant, great film, historically accurate, good battle scenes, where are all the gods and monsters I wanted to see?” In the actual myth gods and magic frequently pop in and out, and the story’s pretty flat without them.

It occurred to me that this is true of roleplaying games too – Historical ones are great fun because it’s basically a fantasy setting that’s more believable and comes with its own inbuilt backstory. But the same problem applies: stringently detailed historical accuracy and ruthless realism take the bounce out of any game. Read More

Jun
14

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Wreckage: A survival roleplaying game

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Interviews, OngoingWorlds site news, PBEM games, Story summaries Tags: , 1 Comment

Wreckage

David

I’m always glad when I see a new game created on OngoingWorlds, and I especially like the bespoke games with a very stand-alone story. A story created recently that looks extremely promising is Wreckage, created by Mike, who recently wrote some articles for this blog. Stand-alone games (and I mean games that aren’t based on an existing franchise like Harry Potter, Star Trek etc) are often tough to get started because it can be difficult to attract players, but are great because you’ve got complete freedom over the world and characters, and Mike’s game has made a brilliant start at creating a gripping story.

I asked Mike 3 questions about his game, and here’s what he wrote:

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May
5

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Spellbound: Taking inspiration from fantasy

Category: Interviews, PBEM games Tags: , Leave a Comment

DavidOne of the games I keep noticing pop up on the homepage occasionally is Spellbound, a fantasy game created last November, and had a very popular time over December and January. Spellbound has a good compliment of character,s each with a consistent Japanese anime style image. The game’s pace unfortunately slowed over February- March but made a comeback in April and has been on the homepage (or not far away) ever since.

I spoke to the creator of the game Phantasmagoria and asked him about Spellbound.

Have you played play-by-post games before?

phantasmagoriaI regularly play a few play-by-post games on-line – we usually use special forums such as Myth Weavers to play. Since they are designed to play games this way, and contain a load of features that make a game easy to manage and play for both the game master and the players themselves. Most of the games I play I usually tend to be the game master. I like having that ability to create a world. It’s where my user name comes from. Phantasmagoria could be described as a magical illusion of changing imagery, and considering with each new play-by-post game is a different world and changing story, I think this suits rather well! Read More

Apr
9

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World Wide Sims April Fool’s day joke – interview with Charles Star

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Interviews Tags: Leave a Comment

World wide sims

On April fools day this year, many sims took part in a shared April fools joke that is probably the most widely spread in simming history. You can see the threads about this on Band of Brothers here and Before the Mast in the screenshot below. The joke was orchestrated by Charles Star from Independence Fleet who I’ve interviewed him about the joke. Read More

Mar
23

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What will be… hits 200 posts (and shows no sign of stopping)

Category: Interviews, OngoingWorlds site news, PBEM games Tags: Leave a Comment

DavidOne of the most successful games on OngoingWorlds is What will be, will be… created by Izzy Stuart, it was the first game to reach 200 posts (and as it’s taken me a while to publish this article – it’s now well on its way to 300!), and has been running for 9 months. I asked Izzy the creator and GM, some questions for this article.

Izzy

Izzy created the game 'What will be, will be...' in June 2011

In What will be, will be… there has always been a lot of drama! With the first section introducing us to characters such as Evangeline Turner, the nervous young girl, who finds herself diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, to Natalie Sans, a girl living in a foster home with an abusive carer. The section sees Evangeline’s situation with her aneurysm through, whilst looking into the lives of surrounding teachers and students who find themselves all wound up in it all. The next section expands more on the lives of students from all round the school, with everything from high school dates and dances, troubled students doing crazy things, to illnesses, pregnancies, fires, and much more! The third section was kick-started with the anticipation of the Halloween dance, as well as the two expecting mothers within the school. Read More

Mar
7

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OtherSpace – A Multi-User Shared Hallucination

Category: Interviews, non-PBP roleplaying Tags: , , 2 Comments

DavidEver heard people talking about MUSHs or MUDs in the same breath as PBEM or PBP? They’re actually quite similar, and I was able to interview Wes Platt, the creator of OtherSpace, an original space-opera MUSH. He’s been running OtherSpace for 14 years and has a following of over 200 members. 

So what is a MUSH?

Wes PlattA MUSH – also known by the rather silly name “Multi-User Shared Hallucination” – is a text-based platform that players can go online to connect with from all over the world.

If you like reading and writing stories in real-time, improvisationally, with other people, it’s the sort of thing you’d probably enjoy. It’s a lot of fun if you get a kick of developing characters and crafting dialogue on the fly, reacting to situations, and following chains of action and consequence toward not-always-predictable territory. Read More

Jan
8

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Simming History: In the Beginning

Category: Interviews Tags: 1 Comment

Tigra Tigress has been roleplaying online since the beginning, and has been very influential in the Star Trek communities. She claims she’s one of the longest running Play-by-Email people on the web, and is still simming! The article below was originally discussed in her chat seminar at last year’s SciWorld convention, which she’s continuing in the 2012 convention.

Here’s Tigra’s article:  Read More

Dec
11

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Interview with Tristan Wolf from Starbase 118

Category: Interviews, non-PBP roleplaying, PBEM games, Play-by-post discussion Tags: Leave a Comment

We wrote an article about UFOP: Starbase 118 back in October (you can see it here). I was able to recently ask some questions to the group’s founder Tristan Wolf. Here’s the interview: Read More

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