OngoingWorlds blog

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

Nov
25

By

2023 Tournament of Simulations open for nominations… Finally!

Category: Advertising your game, Awards, Competition, Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: Leave a Comment

It’s long past time for us to hold the next Tournament of Simulations (ToS)… before it’s 2025! Speaking of years, ToS is the oldest and longest-running award in the simming and online role playing community.

For those who might be unfamiliar with ToS, this is where you can enter your role play to potentially win a prize at no cost or risk to you! Judges from across the community go through all of the entries and grade them on story, characters, and readability.

As has been our tradition for several years now, play-by-post games will be graded on 10 consecutive posts while chat games will be graded on a single chat session. All sims will be considered regardless of club or fleet affiliation. We then present awards to the top-scoring games. The sims that don’t place are not announced. That’s right: you’ve got nothing to lose, so why not enter?

Okay, enough on that. How about we get on with the nominations…

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Mar
25

By

Spelling Tips: Part IV

Category: Play-by-post discussion, Roleplaying community, Writing tips Tags: , , Leave a Comment

It’s been nearly three years since our last Spelling Tips article, which is actually the shortest period of time between posts in the series. In fact, technology has advanced so much that you don’t even need a keyboard to write posts these days. However, you still should keep these commonly misused words in mind…

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Mar
16

By

2022 Simulation Cup Results… Finally!

Category: Awards, Competition, Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: , , Leave a Comment

Image by Malkfan

What a tournament! A record of 88 fantastic entrants led to another record of 36 awards to be conferred below. Before we get to those, however, you might remember that we’re running this Tournament of Simulations (ToS) under the Simulation Cup banner to honor the 2012 and 2014 tournaments.

Naming conventions aside, this competition has been one for the ages, easily blowing away last year’s records of 70 entrants with 26 winners. The participation and excellence displayed is a true testament to the ongoing strength of the simming and online role playing community, regardless of what others might say.

As I say every year, evaluating sims is a subjective art, and this is certainly true with ToS.  We’re not here to identify the best games as this is impossible.  Instead, we’re here to identify what we think are outstanding sims that exude excellence.  A different set of judges might very well chose a completely different set of winners.  And that’s okay! If you’re interested, this is how we select the winners. With that on the record once again, here are your 2022 Simulation Cup winners:

Play-by-Post

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Mar
9

By

Top Blog Posts of 2023

Category: Roleplay Systems, Roleplaying community Tags: Leave a Comment

Continuing our annual tradition dating back to 2014, it’s time to announce our top blog posts from the last year. Yes, it’s been a slow year here at the Blog, our slowest ever in fact with only five total articles published all year.

However, 2023 did produce one of our most interesting posts yet, one that I’m not even sure what to make of TBH. If you haven’t read it, take a look below:

Omens

Let’s get back on track in 2024…

If you’re a writer or just passionate about play-by-post, we would love to hear from you and publish your work!

Past summaries: 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022

May
21

By

SciWorld 21 is coming!

Category: Events, Roleplaying community Tags: , , , Leave a Comment

Hello,

So it is the time of year when you see information about another SciWorld; our twenty-first to be exact. As noted previously on Discord, we are happy to have co-hosts this year that hopefully will be able to add their own flair to SciWorld and make this year even more enjoyable than usual for you all. This year SciWorld will be hosted by RPG Writing and Star Army, with Amanda Rose and Wes, respectively, leading the charge as this year’s co-chairs.

When will this year’s event be?
June 24th 2023 at 10 AM Eastern/7 AM Pacific/2 PM UTC ( https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter?t=2pm&tz2=Coordinated-Universal-Time-UTC for help converting time )

What will be happening this year?
There will be a mix of voice presentations, text panels, and hopefully trivia this year. If you are interested in hosting a panel, please reach out to one of the co-chairs or post interest in #panel-signups in Discord.

Where will this year’s SciWorld be?
As with the last couple of events, in the interest of making things simple, all SciWorld’s will be hosted on the unified Discord. Here is an invite link: https://discord.gg/EGBwV54

How can I participate/help out?
We are always looking for people to host panels, advertise, spread the word, and be good community members by following the rules and contributing ideas and conversations before, after, and during SciWorld.

As always, if you have questions or need more information, feel free to join the Discord server at the link listed above, and someone from this year’s host organizations or SimmingHub will gladly help you. Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you at SciWorld 21 on June 24th.

Josh

May
10

By

Omens

Category: Events, Play-by-post discussion, Roleplay Systems, Roleplaying community Tags: , Leave a Comment

While toiling away attempting to come up with a great story. Yes, before you say anything I know it has been over a year since my last article. But I digress… Instead of coming up with a great story I stumbled across a very interesting comment on a previous Ongoing Worlds article:

In the 3rd month of the 33rd year, the Castle collapses
Young and Old collide in combat
Seizing the opportunity, the Brazen Man attacks
The Estate is now his, and They his subjects


On the first read, I didn’t know what to think of it, though someone else replied in the comments section with, “What is this squiddies poetry?” Poetry yes, but not Squiddies, I thought. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my many years of simming, it’s that you never know what to expect next or where it will come from next!

Back to the task at hand of trying to get the creative juices flowing and continuing to work backwards in time through the blog posts, I observed a similarly strange poetry-like comment in the Babel Conference article. I then noticed that both comments were from someone going by the name of Nicholas de Sim with an avatar of simply NdS. My interest was piqued! I clicked on Mr. de Sim’s Disqus profile, which revealed six different four-liners. Seeing them all together, they then reminded me of Nostradamus quatrains. Do we have a Nostradamus in simming? Google search time!

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Mar
31

By

SciWorld and FallFest Applications Update!

Category: Events, Roleplaying community Tags: , , Leave a Comment

Sciworld - celebrate roleplaying

Good evening,

After much consideration by the Selection Committee we have decided that applications will be opened year round for SciWorld and FallFest hosts to make selection and application easier for all involved. These events are about working together and growing our combined knowledge and sphere of people we know in simming so putting any offering of help behind an application timeline isn’t in the best interest of anyone involved. We will also be dropping a formal application. Instead we ask that interested parties explain in their email why they believe they can help, what contributions they can make and how they would improve the process for hosting the event moving forward. We also ask that the person hosting on behalf of their organization reach out that way there is less hands in the jar. Direct communication makes life easier and means there is less email shuffling. Once a host is selected we will notify the contact person as soon as we have reached a decision. Please remember that feedback is the only way to make things better and how we improve so if you have feedback about the application process, how the con’s are run or something about the Discord please share your comments.

E-Mail to apply to host SciWorld or FallFest: conhostapps@tnuproject.org

As a reminder we do intend to run SciWorld between May, June and July. FallFest tentative plans is some time in September, October or November.

Josh

Jan
16

By

2022 Simulation Cup: Enter Today!

Category: Advertising your game, Awards, Competition, Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: , Leave a Comment

Image by Malkfan

With calendar year 2022 in the books, it’s time for us to formally close it out with the annual Simulation Cup. Wait, don’t I mean the annual Tournament of Simulations aka ToS? Yes, they are one at the same!

According to our records, the 2012 tournament was held under the Simulation Cup banner. In honor of that event 10 years ago, we decided to use its name again today. And we think it makes a pretty cool poster too!

The mechanics of the game remain the same: Here are a few tips on how to win. For those who may be unfamiliar, this is where you can enter your role play to potentially win a prize at no cost or risk to you! Judges from across the community go through all of the entries and grade them on story, characters, and readability.

As has been our tradition for several years now, play-by-post games will be graded on 10 consecutive posts while chat games will be graded on a single chat session. All sims will be considered regardless of club or fleet affiliation. We then present awards to the top-scoring games. The sims that don’t place are not announced. That’s right: you’ve got nothing to lose, so why not enter?

Okay, enough on that. How about we get on with the nominations…

Read More

Jan
1

By

Top Blog Posts of 2022

Category: Roleplay Systems, Roleplaying community Tags: Leave a Comment

As we say hello to 2023 today, it’s time to take a look back at yesterday with some of the best blog posts of 2022. This has become somewhat of a tradition around here since we first did it for 2014. These talented writers amaze me every year with their insight and dedication to the community and the sheer creativity!

Enjoy….

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Dec
22

By

The Benefits of Playing Online Role-Playing Games

Category: Roleplay Systems, Roleplay-related projects, Roleplaying community Tags: Leave a Comment

Image source


A lot has been written recently about artificial chatbot ChatGPT. The New York Times describes it as a ‘Code Red’ For Google Search. Other sites talk about its ability to potentially disrupt Hollywood, how it can write essays, and that it can even negotiate your cable bill. More worryingly, in the hands of bad actors, it can be used to generate malicious code. Since it can seemingly do so much, what can it do for role playing? I decided to put it to the test with this request:

Write a blog post to appear on ongoingworlds.com

Here’s what we got in response:

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