This blog has moved

Yes that’s right, this blog has moved location. It’s become so popular and so awesome that we had to put it somewhere else and not on the basic WordPress.com hosting. There’s many reasons for doing this, mainly to make it even better!

Just like the hundred minions carrying the house in this picture, I’ve worked hard at moving all the useful articles across that I and many others have written over the last 4 years (Wow! Has it really been that long?).

The new blog will continue to have useful posts for all PBEM and play-by-post roleplayers.

Why did we move?

To make the blog better. The free account we had (this one you’re looking at right now) only allows us to choose from a few templates, and I have niggles with the presentations of each of them. Like the way the headings don’t quite have enough spacing, and the colours are all drab and dull. Moving to a proper hosted WordPress means I can choose from a million other templates, and make changes that will make it match the OngoingWorlds website so there’s no confusion when you go from there to the blog and go “what the hell is this? It looks all different!”.

Also there’s more options for allowing other users to post to the blog. I’ve had some amazing people contribute articles to the blog, but unless they go through the complicated process of getting a WordPress.com account, the article looks like it was posted by me, and they don’t get the credit they deserve.

Anyway, enough of the boring technical stuff which I’m sure you don’t care about. Check out the new blog here.

Kicking Off Writing Improvement Month!

This weekend kicks off the Starbase 118 Writing Improvement Month with some exciting events. Overall, the entire month is focused on helping creative writers and gamers improve their skills in writing, with each week divided into specific themes. The first week of the event will feature information about using grammar correctly, general writing tips, and using research resources to improve the posts we write.

Be sure to sign up for the mailing list so that you can be kept informed about the many things going on throughout the month!

The schedule for this week will include various email tips and tutorials, helpful links, and some interactive live events that everyone is sure to enjoy.

On February 3rd, join us for our opening ceremonies and meet the people who will be partaking in the event and who are leading the various activities.

10 ways to keep your newest roleplayers

Your Dilemma

This post was written by Wes Davis, founder of Star Army

You’ve worked hard setting up your online roleplaying or simming community, and harder still to spread the word about it.

A stream of new players is joining, but some of them are flaking out and disappearing without a trace. How can you overcome new players’ shyness and make them feel comfortable and included in your community?

UFOP: Starbase 118 – 2013 Writing Improvement Month!

Writing has always been a skilled art form since man scribbled on the walls in the cave. No writer anywhere thinks they are as good as they will ever be. Many of us strive to improve, and end up surprising ourselves with elements in our writing we never thought were possible. In the spirit of this idea, UFOP: StarBase 118 will be hosting month long event to help writers everywhere improve on their writing quality throughout February.

The group will be utilizing the Writing Improvement email list to send out tutorials, examples and schedules upcoming events. They will be hosting many different IRC and Google Hangout events during the month to help many writers with tips to improve their craft. StarBase 118 has lined up many authors to attend and host these chats, and all are welcome to attend.

Announcing the Ongoing Worlds Medal for Superior Online Role Playing

Ongoing Worlds Medal for Superior Online Role Playing

That’s right, we’re now accepting nominations for the Ongoing Worlds Medal for Superior Online Role Playing (also known as the Squiddie Award).  What is this new award, you might ask?  Simply put, it is the pinnacle award presented by our organization.  Each year it will be bestowed upon three different entities: one person, one sim/game, and one club.  They will then be entitled to use the honorific Superior Online Role Playing Laureate (or Squiddie Laureate).

Squiddies will be presented for exemplifying one or more of the following characteristics, primarily during the previous calendar year:

• Excellence in role playing
• Originality and innovation
• Facilitating the community experience

Nominations may be made by anyone (self nominations are permitted).  Each nomination should include a write-up of why the person, sim, or club is deserving.  The write-up should focus on one or more of the three areas mentioned above and not exceed 250 words.

The nominations for this competition closed on the 26th January. We’ll be announcing the winners soon on our new blog.

It’s been a long road, gettin’ from there to here…

This article is written by David Whale from Starbase 118. David also blogs at whalewriter.com.

Yeah, I did it. I invoked the much-maligned theme song from Star Trek: Enterprise.

Hopefully you’re still reading, because I used that line for a reason and that reason was not just to annoy you or to get that song running through your head. Which I expect it is. My real reason for using that line is that I would like to have a chat with you about character arcs and how important they are in story-based role-playing.

Some of you may have heard me discuss character development on the UFOP Starbase 118 podcast in November, so you’ll already be familiar with a few of the points I’m going to make here.

The 3rd Community Honor goes to…

I’m proud to announce that Ongoing Worlds’ third Community Honor (OWCH) is hereby officially presented to Leon Archer of Spellbound for his enthusiastic leadership and outstanding contributions to the Ongoing Worlds Blog.  Congratulations, Leon!

Not only is Leon one of the leaders within the Ongoing Worlds game The Walking Dead, but he’s also the GM of two games that he founded, XCOM and Spellbound.  A quick review of any one of his three games will reveal an infectious enthusiasm for role playing that quickly spreads to the game’s other members and beyond.  His leadership, both in and out of story, is a model for us all to follow in creating and maintaining fresh and dynamic role play games.

Over the past few months, Leon has also written several articles covering an array of different simming and role play topics.  His posts are always interesting and provide greats points for us to think about and apply to our games.  These articles have contributed not only to our network here, but to the collective knowledge of our entire community.  If you haven’t yet read one of his articles, check them out!

You can see some of Leon’s other awards here.

Well done, Leon!

Mary Sue or not Mary Sue

Mary Sue; the name is immortalized in a song and in literature, but they aren’t the same person. So, my friend, you want to write a book, short story, or merely participate in a play by E-mail online roleplaying game and need a character. This article is going to tell you how to avoid a trap even the best authors can fall into called Mary Sue.

It can be seen by some as a wish fulfilment of the author to live vicariously through the character while having no noticeable flaws or having flaws that don’t make sense, either physically or mentally.

Roleplaying Focus – What would you do?

Hello there!

Leon Archer, GM of Spellbound

I hope everyone has had a grand Christmas  Personally have been introduced and discovered the wonders of Sodastreams. Equally, I hope New Year was great – my latest ambition is to move into a new four bedroom house come March, which will be nice and a MASSIVE improvement over where I am now, although the train journey may or may not be a welcome change. Sorry I’ve not been able to post recently, my excuse is that I may of had a digit severed and reattached recently – kinda makes typing a little on the difficult side! I certainly didn’t do what most of the heroes I’ve written about would have done, namely shrug it off and continue on like nothing had happened. No, it was a case of wincing in pain and feeling a bit ill at the sight of my bone. Which brings me to my topic for this time.

What would you do?

This time, I’d like to discuss roleplaying in character.It is an important aspect to roleplaying, be it play-by-post, tabletop, or humble literature.

OtherSpace – Crowd funding a roleplaying game

In the last article about OtherSpace‘s upcoming story arc, I mentioned that the new story was funded by the members. This goes to funding the website’s hosting costs (not to be underestimated! I bet there’s many GMs out there who selfishly foot the bill of their hobby, whilst users get a free service!), marketing costs, player rewards, artwork. I thought it was pretty unusual for a roleplaying community to ask for money for the volunteers, so I asked OtherSpace’s Wes Platt about it.

This article has moved – you can read it here. 

Introducing the 2012 Simulation Cup Winners…

The Simulation Cup

It gives me great pleasure to introduce the winners of the 2012 Simulation Cup!  But before I get into that, I’d like to briefly explain what the Simulation Cup is and how it works.  Filling in this year for the annual Tournament of Simulations, the Sim Cup is a one-time competition allowing role play games of various clubs and genres to compete against each other in a friendly manner for several awards.  Each participating sim first submits one mission/episode/thread/chat session that was completed during 2012.  Next, each sim’s submission is evaluated by two judges on a specific criteria set.  The games receiving the highest marks are then recognized.

Evaluating sims will always be subjective and this is especially true for the Simulation Cup.  We’re not here to identify the best sim or sims as this is impossible.  Instead, we recognize what we think are the best sims in our opinions.  A different set of judges may very well chose a completely different set of winners.  And that’s fine.  As said earlier, each participating game was graded by two different judges.

The missing WBWW story

Weeks after the end of WBWW, and the winner has been announced, I found this exciting gem in my email spam folder. My heart sank as I realised what had happened, this had been submitted by email but for some unknown reason was treated like spam. Usually I trust Gmail, as it usually does a decent job of distinguishing actual spam, but for some reason it hide this away from me. The story was submitted by Wes from OtherSpace. We’ve featured several articles by Wes about his MUSH.

I can’t apologise enough to Wes, this is a great story but unfortunately it was never passed to the judges. So the best thing I can do is post it here so you can read, and wonder how well it would have done in the WBWW competition. 

Life Lessons From the Center Chair

This article is written by Marissa Jeffrey, an active member of the Starbase 118 Star Trek RPG, where she plays Captain Kalianna Nicholotti, commanding officer of the massive Trojan Class Starbase 118 Operations.

Marissa Jeffrey from Starbase 118

Whether you are a Starfleet Captain like I am, are a leader of a fighter squadron, a GM of a game you created yourself, or a member of a sim, there are life lessons we inherently learn as we play. Much like a time we may barely remember, as children, when our most important lessons were learned through the simple act of play, as adults, we can continue to learn and grow through our roleplaying games. Though our sims are ‘just games’, there are hidden nuggets of wisdom around every corner, and if you’re open enough to catch them, you can often find yourself applying them to the real world in much the same way you do in your game. As for myself, it took three years for me and my character to traverse the path to command in the game I play, but it was only when I looked back from the center chair of my starship, that I realized just all I had learned from the process.

Field of dreams got it wrong. If you build it they won’t come, unless you tell them to

I haven’t seen the Kevin Costner film “Field of Dreams” because it sounds terrible. Fortunately I have seen Waynes World which spoofed the film’s main catchphrase “If you build it, they will come”, leading Wayne and Garth to create a rock concert, which goes surprisingly well despite barely any advertising.

The mentality of “If you build it, they will come” is a dangerous one in my opinion.

2012 Simulation Cup

The Simulation Cup

It gives me great pleasure to announce that the Simulation Cup is hereby officially open for entrants!  What is the Simulation Cup you might ask?  It’s a one-time competition where sims and role play games have the opportunity to showcase their excellence and compete against each other in a friendly manner to win various prizes.  And here’s how it works…

How to Enter

The sim’s host (or the host’s representative) will submit the following short entry form along with a sample of their role play activity.  Our judges will then rate that sample in several different areas. Once all sims have been evaluated, we’ll announce winners in various categories across the different genres. Sims that do not place will not be named. So if you’d like to enter your sim, please email Charles Star at star.idf@gmail.com with the following information: