OngoingWorlds blog

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

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2 week Halloween writing challenge – What’s your character afraid of?

Hey roleplayer dudes. After last month’s image competition I wondered if we should also run a monthly (or twice-monthly) writing competition. – Hey that’s something we all enjoy right? Writing!

This idea was partly inspired by seeing writing prompts on Twitter (like #WritingDare), & especially the writing prompts my brother posts on his ScifiIdeas blog.

Write about…

Weed monster

Your character encounters the most terrifying creature imaginable. It’s the creature of their nightmares. Where are they? What happens? How do they feel?  Read More

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Keeping your players in the loop & developing your community

The guild cast

Roleplaying is great. Characters, story, worldbuilding. Great!

But what also makes it great is roleplaying with friends. People we like and trust, and enjoy chatting with. This is why it’s often important to develop your community outside of the roleplay too. Read More

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Need to write characters with cancer, ADHD, epilepsy or are horses? RPG-D has you covered!

horse

The basic anatomy of a horse for roleplayers. You need this in your life!

I know this is a bit of an edge case, but sometimes you might be writing about a character with an ailment which you don’t have much experience with. I noticed recently that the RPG-Directory forum has a reference section called ‘D-pedia which has the following guides:

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How to write a newsletter for your roleplaying game/site

DavidRecently on our Facebook page I asked what sort of articles you’d like to see on the blog, & several people asked asked for more helpful advice for roleplayers & game owners. Elena (who runs her own roleplaying site “Before the Mast”) volunteered to write us this article. She talks about a game as a “site”, but this is totally relevant if your game is part of a larger site, like games on OngoingWorlds.

Woman with newsletter

How to write a newsletter for your site

The marketing concepts would tell you that newsletters are one of the least expensive – and most effective – public relations tools that exist for drawing attention to a website. I’d say it is very valid for the RPG world too, as it happens on sites. Read More

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This award isn’t really for me, it’s for everyone at OngoingWorlds & who’s contributed to the blog

So yeah. I’ve been awarded a simming prize (see the annoucement here which was sent to me by “the committee” to publish on the blog).

Onion with simming prize certificate Read More

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And the winner of the 2013 Simming Prize is…

DavidA few months ago we posted about the 2013 Simming Prize (Yes 2013 because it’s for LAST year apparently!). I was emailed today with this press release to post immediately. So here’s the results, with a message from the “committee”…

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When does godmodding become godmodding?

Your roleplayed my character. You won't get away with this

I saw a conversation thread on RPG-D recently about godmodding which we’ve talked about so many times before on this blog. And it occurred to me that it means different things to different people. Read More

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Does roleplaying canons ruin them?

hermione granger saying "hello I'm a canon character"I saw this discussion on RPG-D recently about roleplaying turn-offs (no not in a sexual way you pervert!). The discussion was about things in a roleplay game, forum or thread that people don’t like (see the thread here), and I saw a comment about canons that I found really interesting & wanted to share. Read More

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Is godmodding all that bad?

GodmoddingI’m hoping to get a discussion going in the comments here. What are your opinions about godmodding?

I’ve seen games fall apart, and arguments caused because of a player godmodding (if you don’t know what godmodding is, see here). But I’ve also seen plenty of people realise their mistakes and learn from it, making them a better roleplayer and a better storyteller afterwards. Read More

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How many Rainmakers are in your game?

D&D characters

I saw a great article on Gnome Stew recently titled “All hail the Rainmaker” (read it here), and wanted to highlight parts of it here. Read More