OngoingWorlds blog

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

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Hidden secrets about your character

Sexy Admiral Ackbar

Some of the best characters are not be who they appear to be. I found these writing tips about characters, and character’s secret backgrounds by Karen Lazinger (see the original here). Read More

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5 horrible scenarios to heighten drama in your story

game of thrones stark crying

Enjoy it or not, grizzly tense drama can be exciting, and you might want to create some exciting drama to put your character through. Here’s some ideas, feel free to add your own ideas in the comments at the bottom. Read More

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10 Ways To Create A Near-Future World That Won’t Look Too Dated

scifi city

I saw this great article on io9 that had some great points about creating a near-future world. Read More

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Angel Summoner & BMX Bandit – unbalanced characters

The above video is a sketch from a comedy show which perfectly sums up a problem in many roleplaying games. Read More

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13 articles about creating a brilliant, flawed & interesting character

 I always feel that when I'm making a character, it's the flaws they have that really makes them who they are.

On this blog we’ve posted many articles about creating characters, but over time they’ve been pushed back in the archive, so here’s some handy links to ones that you might be interested in reading if you’re creating a new character, or to show to one of your newer members who’s struggling creating a new character. Read More

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More opinions about downsides when casting magic

character powers with penalties

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

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5 ways to make your audience empathise with your character

Data from TNG crying

Everyone wants to read about a character they can empathize with. Here’s a few tips written by Sal Taybrim from Starbase 118 from the article Compelling Characterization (read it in full here).  Read More

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Limitation & Penalty vs Complication and Consequence

This post was written by Alexander Williams (@squidlord).

truth

An Exchange of Tweets

Last week this question was floated on Twitter.

Pentagram

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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11 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your Character’s History

I found this great article on Jesse Cohoon’s blog, & thought it would be really useful for you guys.

make the most of your character's history

 

Player backgrounds are important. They tell where characters have been, what their goals are, and who their friends and enemies are. Read More

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Your character is lost in the wilderness. 120 ideas for what happens next

lost in wilderness

So… yeah… your character is lost in the wilderness. You might be stuck for ideas for what happens next, so below is a list of ideas.

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