OngoingWorlds blog

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

Apr
5

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How To Properly End A Game

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Inspiration for writing, PBEM games, Roleplaying community, Writing tips Tags: , , , 6 Comments

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This might be even tougher then losing members. We hate to see our games go, but if we’ve finished the story, gone as far as we could go, and hit the limit. It’s time to pack it up and call it a day, we did our job and by god we did it damn well. But how do you do that? How can you end a game? Do we just delete it like a bad character? No! That is never an option! A game isn’t like a character, it’s something more. Imagine it a home. Imagine if Back To The Future had no ending, if Star Wars had no ending, if Breaking Bad just suddenly stopped, or you ended like the Sopranos and just cut to straight black. That’s not exciting, that’s boring. And ending a game like that, to be honest, it might tick off a few people. If you can’t think of a way to end your game, that’s ok. But if you can but don’t want to, that’s a little unprofessional. With this you can find ways and examples on how to either save or end a game. Read More

Apr
3

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How To Properly Leave A Game

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Inspiration for writing, Writing tips Tags: , , 6 Comments

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It’s a sad but true fact. Sometimes a game we might be a part of just may seem like it’s not the same or we’re just not interested in it anymore. This happens with most games and if for some reason it seems you can’t make peace with the problem at hand, you may feel like you want to leave. It’s a sad fact but it’s a true fact that some members just may not feel interested in the gameplay anymore and they want to leave. But how do you leave? Do you just unsubscribe? Do you delete your character and then subscribe? If you’ve answered yes to any of those questions, you’re wrong.

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Apr
1

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Grand Master Tib’s Corner – Interview with Chas Hammer, Creator of SciWorld #PraiseTheTurnip

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Interviews, PBEM games, Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: , , , 1 Comment

perpetual-universesHail those of Perpetual Universes! Grand Master Tiberius here, recently I had the opportunity to talk to the creator of SciWorld, [which is coming up soon] Chas Hammer! So let’s see what Mr. Hammer had to say shall we?

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Mar
24

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Way With Worlds: Intelligent Life

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Inspiration for writing, Writing tips Tags: , 2 Comments

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Portrait against starting a sandstorm Fantasy Author: mvn78

I’m going to start by assuming the setting of your story has intelligent life in it. If not, well that sounds like a challenging write, and feel free to skip this part until you need it.  Or don’t because hey, you never know. Read More

Mar
16

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Way With Worlds: Ecology and Ecologies

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Inspiration for writing, Website Improvements Tags: , 1 Comment

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Futuristic city

So you’ve got the origin of your universe (or perhaps you used our universe as a template, which does save a lot of effort). So now that you know how it all began, it’s time to move things to the next level. Read More

Mar
14

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Way With Worlds: Origins. In The Beginning

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Inspiration for writing, Writing tips Tags: , Leave a Comment

This is a segment of an article written by Steven Savage from his blog. Worldbuilding is really important to us in roleplaying, and planning out your world’s history is a great way to make it feel authentic. Here’s Steven’s article about the origin of your world. 

An airplane flying inside a huge O'Neill Cylinder World, a self-contained fully sustainable environment

Image credit: Adam Benton

Where It All Begins

Worldbuilding starts with the beginning – sort of. We may not always spend time on the beginning when we start, we may be following a rush of creativity as inspirations form, but in the end good world building always comes back to the question “where did it all come from?” Read More

Mar
14

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10 things that annoy other roleplayers

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Play-by-post discussion, Roleplaying community, Writing tips Tags: , 3 Comments

Misty Wilson from Phoenix roleplaying

Written by Misty from Phoenix Roleplaying

This article was written by Misty from Phoenix Roleplaying where she’s the Advertising and Community Officer. Misty also roleplays as Kateri in The Dark Cometh. 

We all have those things in life that aggravate us. Just like there are things in Roleplay that annoy us. And on the occasion, tremendously….Some, more than others and some people more than others. No, I am not saying some folks are annoying, even if the fact is sometimes true. I’m saying that some people tend to get annoyed more easily than others might. And some things are just plain more annoying than others. Read More

Mar
11

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Way With Worlds: Views, Lenses, and Your True Main Character

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Inspiration for writing, Writing tips Tags: , 2 Comments

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Fantasy World

Writing your world up is one thing. You can take notes, document everything, draw up timelines, and so forth. That’s a matter of technique, imagination and, frankly, your ability to write everything down. Getting yourself to use all those notes? That’s another challenge. Read More

Mar
8

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What is Open Role Playing?

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Character Development, Play-by-post discussion, Roleplay Systems, Roleplaying community Tags: , , , , , , , 28 Comments

Captain Dick Sprague, Commanding Officer of the USS Chuck Norris

That’s a question I get a lot when people read or hear about my game, the USS Chuck Norris, as it’s quite different from most other sims out there.  But before I answer that question, I should first explain what the Chuck Norris is to set up the proper context.

The USS Chuck Norris is a play-by-email sim, but we use the NOVA system from Anodyne Productions that came out a few years ago.  Play-by-post seems to be the most popular term today for this type of game.  We launched on January 2nd, 2012, and are a member of Independence Fleet.  There are currently 16 active players on the Chuck Norris, and many have been with us for more than a year.  Although, we also have quite a few players that have been simming for less than six months.

With that out of the way, I’ll finally answer the question! Read More

Mar
4

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Way With Worlds: Culture And Civilization

Category: Behind the scenes - running RPGs, Inspiration for writing, Writing tips Tags: , 2 Comments

This was originally posted by Steven Savage on his blog, but has allowed me to republish it here as I think it’s useful for roleplayers! This is part of Steven’s Way With Worlds series of articles. -David

Civilisation

Thanks to heavy worldbuilding you’ve got your setting, and in that setting you’ve got intelligent life (probably). Now that you’ve got sentient species in your universe,it’s time to work on their Culture and probably Civilization. Read More

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