OngoingWorlds blog

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

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8 articles that’ll improve your writing by Bang2Write

Characters

As a roleplayer it can sometimes be easy to forget you’re a writer. But… you spend a lot of time writing about characters and scenareos, so… you’re a writer! Here’s some links to articles from a great website called Bang2Write: Read More

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Is the term “Mary Sue” sexist & belittling?

Peggy carter is a strong female character, but that doesn't make her a mary sue
There’s an ongoing debate about the term Mary Sue, and what it means in the literary world. In roleplaying, we know that Mary Sue characters can ruin a game for others, but in a novel surely it’s okay for a protagonist to hog the limelight and display all the characteristics of a typical Mary Sue, right? Read More

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I’ve always been fascinated by Star Trek’s vision of the future

This article was written for us by A.S. Williamson, about the new Star Trek Victory game which launches soon. We don’t normally post articles that are adverts for games, but I thought this showed an insight on roleplaying which was quite interesting. – Onion

USS Victory miranda class

I’ve always been fascinated by Star Trek’s vision of the future

It’s not just the spaceships and the aliens, the technology and wonder – it’s this really unique look at the way that humanity evolves over the universe’s run. Read More

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Heroes & villains – Omnicompetent characters

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. 

Eddie Morra from Limitless

When we create heroes or villains, indeed main characters, in many cases we’re dealing with highly competent people. Read More

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The Toughest Skill for a Role Player to Have

the toughest skill for a roleplayer

There are a lot of good skills for a roleplayer to have, good grammar is one of them, the ability to keep writing through a dry spell, getting past writer’s block. But if there is one skill that I think is the toughest to have it’s not the ability to create narratives, come up with plots, nor to come up with names (I suck at that last one). It’s selflessness. Read More

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Top 10 overused plot devices that you definitely SHOULD use in your game

halo4_02

This week I found a great article of 10 overused plot devices (read it here), the author says NOT to use these in fiction, but I think we definitely SHOULD use them in roleplaying games! Read More

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Most popular articles on the blog in 2014

tardis deloreanAs 2014 comes to a close, and we approach 2015 (accurately depicted of course in the 1989 documentary Back to the Future II), lets look at the most popular articles from this blog over the last year. Read More

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StatCat – The year in review

statcat3

StatCat, our clever moggie is back with some interesting stats from throughout the year of 2014. Read More

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Still time to enter your game for the Simulation Cup!

Simulation Cup

2014 Simulation Cup

About a week and a half ago, we announced the 2014 Simulation Cup (historically known as the Tournament of Simulations).  Thus far we’ve received nominations for 18 outstanding games.  And what a group it is!  Everyone who entered a sim into the competition should have already received a confirmation email.  If you have NOT received your confirmation email, please forward your entry form to me at star [dot] idf [at] gmail [dot] com.  Just want to make sure we don’t miss anyone.

I also want to let everyone know that we’ve extended the deadline to submit your game(s) to 24 hours after the publishing of this post.  So there’s still time if you missed the last window… Read More

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A character does not breathe until that first post

many individual roleplay characters

A few weeks ago I posted an article about creating believable characters, and using the 2:1 rule for flaws vs awesome. Read More