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Last year I scratched an itch and created an entire RPG - designed the premise, wrote the rules, built out a forum, scrungled over code and customizations, and ... didn't open it. 😄 I showed it to a couple friends, but the point was, it was just fun to make something. The actual RPG I run now, I made with a team of people after the site we were writers on went down. We wanted to keep writing with each other.

Other than being scared of being the one to "lose the farm", it's stressing about the possibility of getting yelled at by rp directory/advertising mods for posting ads wrong. I seriously sweat over this.

My biggest fear is putting a lot of work into yet another site, and it dying all over again. i love writing lore and developing things within the rp. but i always seem to get two members who post a lot, and plot with one another, then leave and its like the site dies when they leave. i try to push activity and give things to do, but no matter how much i push and pull nothing happens. it makes me feel like i made everything for nothing, only for it to just sit offline and collect dust.

I'd like to get my community members involved in more OOC activities! Posting as our characters isn't everything! It's nice to be able to connect with other players outside of threads! I've put up a few challenges and even started a new "bingo" game for OOC fun on my primary site. So new goals are going well! I'd like to also learn more about coding where it concerns site skins. I know enough to manipulate and create from scratch some things, but not others. And scripting is lost on me except for VERY basic stuff, so I may try to pick up some knowledge there as well as time permits!

I've lost a few roleplay buddies through the years but the one that stuck with the most that I'm still sad about is one that just... disappeared one day. They were active in the community, and they had gotten the news that they were going to have a child. And further into the pregnancy they just... disappeared and didn't come back. Obviously having a child is way more important but they removed me on all socials we shared, everything. It sucked to not be able to even keep in contact as I considered us friends and I still wonder to this day how they're doing.

I met some of my closest friends and soulmates in my rp years of 2015-2016 and since then - no matter how long we may go without talking sometimes - we still talk like we've never missed a beat. One of them still rps with me to this day, but almost all of the rest have fallen out of the rp scene and have moved on to mostly video gaming and doing different hobbies. But we still keep in contact, share memes and everything. If it weren't for them, they wouldn't have shaped who I am today as a person, and they helped me through tough times through the many years I've known them < 3

The primary limitation was 'vaguely humanoid'. Could be an anthro, a human, a mech, an elf, a centaur, a ghost, a faun, made-up aliens... They got mad they couldn't be a sentient tire. Yeah.

I try to just put myself out there. As someone wisely said up above if the conversation isn't flowing offgame, it will probably be a ingame problem too. With advertising I honestly convince myself (it's not as easy, I know) that my board is effin' amazing and that people ought to love it, so I have to spread it everywhere, obviously. Sometimes it works. 🤫

I roleplay on my work laptop because I am a terrible employee, so too many gifs = extremely suspicious. For this reason I will avoid sites with an abundance of gifs (or images, period).

We've all done it, especially as we're just getting our feet wet. What are some of the mistakes that you've made as an admin. For me, its been not trusting my instincts about people. I've messed up something fierce by allowing the wrong people to join and make my sites unenjoyable.

Heya, just shouting into the ether here on the off chance that I manage to find an old RP partner of mine again. Miscanthus and I met on Oasis in 2019, my username was Wilderness and we were both in the nature faction on the forum. Very into nature, plants, gardening, grain meats, fantasy and worldbuilding. Just dearly, dearly, dearly hoping to find him again.

That the site will die with me. I have had a fairly long tenure on MRO, going on 7 years. It is a long running site having started back in 2005. I want to be able to pass it on to a crop of younger RPers and have it grow and evolve.

When I go into a site and staff show interest in your plot idea, but get upset when their friend cannot have the character you reseved. Then bully you using their characters. Like seriously guys... I am glad you're closed because you cannot bully your guests now.

Oh man, there have been some many over the last fifteen years! I mean, I am 35 years old and still make Admin mistakes but I hope my members can give me grace. Allowing bad people back onto my sites Allowing manipulators manipulate me into letting them do something I'm uncomfortable with Not allowing my site time to thrieve because other staff have said we need to do xyz to be active Catering to certain people who didn't deserve it Putting guests above my members... nobody is supposed to be above anyone!!! These are just a few!

Honestly, I am keeping it to... I want to maintain a site for six months. Everything past that will be a bonus! ❤️

For the site admins -- How do you manage the flow of time in your RP? Does your in-character timeline line up with the real timeline? How do you all row together? Do you date threads? What works for you?

I try to balance both though the tendency to focus on relationships (platonic, familial, or otherwise) too much is something I'm guilty of. When you do slice-of-life RP, that seems to be the norm. But I'd like to have a visible story arc for my characters in an ideal world!

First ever RP site had a very tough behind-the-scenes argument that caused half the site to leave almost out of nowhere. The remaining members tried to push forward, in vain. Silver lining was that my closest RP partner on site dragged me to another site, which I've been on for a year with great happiness! 🙂

I've come back after a dry spell as well!

when staff members have half the canon list and i try to join as a new member, but cannot wiggle my way to get a character and or even meet new people because staff has everyone....

Clicky click for the Spotify playlist link! <3 Heya, so I don't know how this will go - and I'm posting this in several places - but I had the idea to make a playlist for everyone to add songs to! Songs that remind you of roleplaying in general, perhaps you have theme songs, or songs that summarise any roleplaying experiences you've had so far, any songs you listen to while roleplaying, etc. and I do mean specifically play-by-post roleplaying. The sky's your limit, and beyond, literally whatever songs you'd like to add to this! ❤ The only rule is no explicit (songs Spotify would mark as explicit) or discriminatory songs. Just comment songs below or DM me, as many as you like. The goal is just to have a nice wholesome playlist to reflect the melodies, soundtracks and ambience of the whole roleplaying community (or, well, those that participate). A way to connect via music even if we're not all roleplaying with each other, since it can be hard to get a community feel on the internet with everybody so interspersed. Please feel free to tell your friends that might not have seen this post and pass along their songs as well, ideally stating that some songs come from another person, as I want to keep a statistic (anonymously/sans usernames) on how many people submit for the fun of it. Feel free to follow/save it on Spotify - the followers of a playlist are strictly private even to me, no one will know that you've followed it/have knowledge of or access to your Spotify account, so your identity will be safe. At least as far as I understand it - this article says so: "Can you see who follows your Spotify playlist? No. Unfortunately, Spotify doesn't allow you to see individual followers on your playlists." I also have the visibility of account followers set to private and will always keep it that way, so if you follow the account, it won't be visible on my profile. Just know that even while it's hidden from my profile, I think I might be able to see who follows the account. The account name is "Crowdsourced: PBP Roleplay". As of 6 December 2023, we have 62 songs with a play time of 4h 22m. 😄 My plan is to keep it open to new songs for eternity/until I die, leave the roleplay zone or run out of energy, so who knows how big it will become...

Definitely in the "collaborative writing" and "collaborative storytelling" camp, haha. It's a very friendly way of putting it. People read stories, and so describing it as "stories but you develop it gradually back and forth" is easy to parse. The bigger problem I have is people associating "roleplay" automatically with "ERP" lol.

I think too, something important to consider is the evolving meaning of the word in the context of being RP jargon. To be a "literate" person means you can read and write, and so all roleplayers are "literate" by the definition. But roleplayers coined the term "literate" to typically classify a specific type of roleplay style they enjoy. While I think the term's root is judgmental, it's one of those things where "literate" in the roleplaying sphere has taken on a connotation of a genre. Kind of the issue that "indie" as a genre runs into, where "indie" was sourced from "independent" developer, but its definition expands and comes under contention as time goes on. I tend to use the term "long-form" more recently, but it's less about length and more about depth. I've read a lot of posts that have a whole lot of words but contain no content, which you describe with "fluffing". I definitely enjoy the length that most of the roleplays I'm in have settled in now -- where value is placed on quality over quantity, and vocabulary and word count isn't conflated with quality. More and more, I really enjoy good character building and interactions so much more, and that's what I associate with "literate" nowadays.

Like most of everyone here, I generally call it 'collaborative writing' too. However when my now hubby and I were just a year or two into our relationship, he mentioned something about dabbling in forum writing 'with friends' and I was shocked. Fast forward a bit and we roleplay together on the same board all the time.

I've always found this conversation awkward, not becuase I'm ashamed, but because people have such a skewed/warped idea of what "online roleplaying" means. Because the group I play with is so active OOC as much as they are IC, I tend to call it my online writing group. That together we create pieces of writing from the perspective of multiple characters set in a specific world. For those familiar with D&D/tabletop gaming, I tend to equate it to something along the lines of that but not necessarily as structured.

I would like to say I'm more story focused but I feel like lately it's been more relationship centered (platonic and romantic). I was just conversing with a RP partner today about how I'd like to focus more on developing stories for my characters so they're not so dependent on the relationships. Of course, this also impacts your RP partners, so if they're focused more on one thing, it's more likely I will be focused on the same.

My character names tend to have something in there that is a nod or a joke. My current cast of characters are: -Michael "Ranger" Hunter (Ranger and Hunter are vaguely related. Not the best connection) -William Maxwell "Ion" Faraday (electric powers and named after William Whewell, James Clark Maxwell, and Michael Faraday. All old school playerss in the electricty game) -Rhiannon Dee Curtis (Body swap powers so her middle name and last name reference the cast of 2003's Freaky Friday) I also once had a character named Roger "White Noise" Smith. His powers were radio broadcasting. His birthday was 10-4 and he came from Williamson County, Texas which is also known as WilCo.

Having participated in and staffed multiple Hunger Games AUs, one of my favorites is: Hunger Games Rule (paraphrasing here): Only one can win. Odds are, your tribute will die. It's not personal. Please don't contact staff when you die and ask to be revived or Games rules to be changed. Player: I can't believe YOU killed ME! It's still the bloodbath! I didn't even get a chance to play! Can't something be worked out? Also want to second (or third or fourth) the comments about age requirements (yes, we require 18+, no we won't back off that just because you are a stellar writer. Come back when 18.) and the ones about "would know the answer if you read the rules." Happens way too often, unfortunately.

I have definitely made the mistake of trusting people and letting them do things that my instincts told me I shouldn't let them do. I ran a site a few years ago that I had started with a friend, and she immediately began to change rules and give leniency to people she was close to. For example, she was allowing members to get started writing before their characters had been approved and allowing others to set up accounts and start writing without providing a character profile, even though it was clearly in our rules that all characters needed an approved profile before they could start writing on the forum. Unfortunately, I was too anxious a person to speak up very much — I'd mentioned a few times that I would prefer if they could follow the rules, and she always brushed it off and said that she would tell them, but never did. Eventually, she invited some of those people onto the site as staff and they began flouting the rules even more. This upset me, and I ended up calling them out for their behaviour one day and saying that they needed to follow the rules just like everybody else did because it was important for the overall site organisation and to make sure that no characters were made that blatantly broke the rules (as it turned out, they were making characters that did break the rules and hiding them by not filling in profiles and simply approving themselves). This resulted in a huge blowout between myself and the other three admins, and I decided to leave the site because I wasn't happy with the way they were acting. I learned a few things from that experience. Firstly, that I should trust my instincts when I thought people were doing things they shouldn't, and that I should call them out on their behaviour earlier on and not be afraid to assert the rules clearly, especially with my fellow staff. I also learned the importance of making sure that members that get put into leadership positions are ones that have the site's best interests at heart, rather than those who simply want to abuse their power to adjust the rules to their liking.

I have a few friends who have become some of my closest friends as a result of writing with them. The first one I was really lucky to end up staying friends with her, because I very briefly crossed paths with her on a site as I was joining and she was about to leave. By some coincidence, we both ended up being from a very similar place IRL, so we starting chatting as a result of that one day, and we ended up continuing to chat even when she left the site a few days later. It's been almost five years since then, and she's still someone that I talk to almost daily. She's really been there for me in a lot of moments when I wasn't at my best, and we've been on a lot of wild adventures together too, so she became a really significant friend to me. My best friend in the world I also met as a result of writing. We were both on a site together and first reached out to one another to talk about a plot that ended up never happening, but because we were talking about that plot so much, we ended up writing it for ourselves quietly on Google Docs just to see what would happen. From there, things devolved and we started writing more and more on Docs, so that we ended up having tens of Docs of just our random ideas and pairings. And, I guess, the friendship just got stronger and stronger as a result of how much we were talking, because we started talking every day and sharing personal things and even ended up meeting IRL a few times and becoming really close friends not just online but in person. She just became one of the best friends I've ever had and someone that I always knew I could come to when I was in a bad situation or stressed out, and we've always been there for each other since and supported one another. It's the best interaction I've ever had out of RP. There's a few people too that I got to know through RP that I didn't stay friends with but who taught me a lot about writing. One girl, who I ended up falling out with and haven't spoken to in years, actually taught me one of the most important things I've learned in RP and which I've applied to all my writing since she mentioned it, which was always to keep the plot moving forward. It's really helped me improve my writing as a skill, and even though we don't talk anymore, I've always been really appreciative of that advice.

Hiya, Honestly I'm mainly here to be able to advertise for my new board, but now that I've stumbled in here anyway, I do like the initiative a great deal and I feel like the discussions have a twist to them, that I haven't seen before, so I'm pretty happy I found it. Other hosting sites have been known to me for years upon years and I've never taken that much part unless I was looking for something myself as a player. Now, as I have good reason to keep coming, I might return, even when I don't actively need to. It's nice. I like it. Also I'm Finn - Scandinavian who's had the mad idea of trying to be an admin on an international board. Wish me luck!

I am honestly a bit naive about this, and tend to have good faith in everyone until a site has already exploded (or imploded, as the case may be), but I'm definitely taking lots of notes from this thread on things to avoid, both in attempting to run a site myself and when scouting somewhere to join.

Man this hits home a lot right now for me -- learning to adapt to the fact that no, the site can't be what it was 10 years ago and still thrive. I've always been a very strict admin and I'm learning to let go of that for the sake of the rest of the site, what little is left of it, in hopes it can be brought back from the brink.

It's taken me years to get to this point, but I'm mostly of a solid "eff it" any more when it comes to actively approaching other people. Same reason I will advertise the heck out of a site; like, no one's going to rp with me if I don't talk to them, and no one's gonna know my site exists if I don't tell them, eh?

For almost two decades, I embarked on a quest to find a new Medieval High Fantasy roleplay community, longing for a place where I could immerse myself in a sandboxy world without fear of sudden closures. With each new landing, hope was mingled with trepidation, as I yearned for a haven free from random deletions, staff conflicts, and ego-driven chaos that tore communities apart. Alas, my search was a bittersweet one. Time and again, I found myself in places that mirrored the past: a few egocentric staff wielded power, punishing and isolating those who dared to question. Communication faltered, and the hunger for an authentic Medieval High Fantasy experience remained unfulfilled. Heartache followed as sites I tried to call home imploded, leaving me adrift. The pain of losing my formative roleplay community lingered, leaving an ache in my heart that time couldn't heal. Only years later did I come to recognize the gaslighting, DARVO tactics, and cronyism that had shattered my youthful refuge. Each new encounter with echoes of the past deepened the sorrow, and I yearned for a place that would understand my longing, respect my voice, and embrace my passion for Medieval High Fantasy. My quest continues, hopeful that one day, I'll find a true home to rekindle the magic of my cherished memories. During my time online, I went to places like RPG-Directory where some people acted in a mean way, pretending to support marginalized groups, but really they were causing trouble. When I tried to speak up and challenge these bad actions, things didn't go well for me at all and I was gaslit when I took the time to write thoughtful correspondence to the administration about their decisions. It made me sad and hurt that I couldn't handle those disingenuous people and their fake support. I'm still looking for a safe place where everyone can talk openly and support each other without fear.

Ours has a minimum of just 100 words but honestly we're not super strict on it. One should write what they feel like writing at the moment, whether it's heavily padded or not, so long as it's a fun time and everyone's happy with what they're getting. Enforcing word counts for the sake of appearing "literate" is something I don't really like, though. Literacy doesn't mean writing huge posts. If anything, it kind of just turns into work instead of a hobby 😕

Spanish. It's my native language but I've always done sites in English because it's... easier somehow? I find written Spanish to be very pretty, but considering that different Spanish-speaking places use different words than what I'm used to it's a little intimidating. Also, the fact that I might have to switch from using "Dialogue" as dialogue to — Dialogue, is kind of jarring to me, even though a lot of our books use an em dash for dialogue.

Certain characters flow more easily than others, but I'm always the one in the driver's seat.

I ran into a particular creator in a niche fandom who would open boards, get a bunch of members, and then just... disappear after about 2 weeks. Never any public OOC drama that I saw, there was always plenty of activity but people were still getting into their characters, and she (playing one of the main canons of course) would simply fall off the face of the earth and the site would die. Then she'd wait until after people left to finally put the board in offline mode. She changed her OOC alias a couple of times, so she got me with this routine more than once...

I totally agree on that! If it does not bother you, there should not be a problem tbh

I honestly don't really bring it up, but when I do, I basically just explain it as 'writing character stories online with other people'. Which yeah, the long and short of it I guess that is what we're doing. There ofc is more to it than just that, but that description usually covers it well enough for people to understand.

As an aspiring linguist, I can’t stand the roleplay terms “literate” and “illiterate”… they just feel so condescending and off-putting. Everyone who roleplays is literate. Being literate is the base entry fee to this hobby. To me, a good, competent roleplayer is one who has good reading comprehension, who has a collaborative spirit, and who puts clear effort into their writing and characterization. Their technical skill level doesn’t matter at all in my eyes, let alone the length of their posts. Like, yes, don’t be a lazy replier and give people a flaccid one-liner in response to multipara writing, but aside from that? Seriously, effort trumps everything else. I’ve seen more “literate” writers than I can count who are great at writing huge volumes of pretty-looking text that does absolutely nothing to move the plot forward or evoke anything thought-provoking… purple prose is a killer, man. I’d take a second language learner or a novice RPer who has clear passion for their character and the plot over someone who judges others over arbitrary things like post length or aesthetics any day.

I'm from a background of a word count of like.. 150-200 words per post, usually, but most people exceeded it voluntarily. I'd say posts averaged 500-800 words, sometimes running up to 2k if somebody had a lot of internal stuff to process. These days I try to have no guilt about making shorter posts, and I've seen beautiful threads where each post is relatively short. Typically on the sites I were on it was obvious if somebody didn't "fit" the roleplay type (usually marketed as beginner-friendly intermediate). Their posts would be just a few sentences (below word count), and since all new characters had to pass through a certain area it was easy to catch and discuss it with the player. Over the years I've seen a fair few roleplayers grow from that into something a bit more wordy without becoming purple or long-winded - most retained a relatively succinct writing style but they fit with the rest of the site's writing culture. Overall I'm a fan of a low word count limit. It gives freedom and relieves pressure if you're just not feeling like waxing poetic about something.

A good ol' "fuck it" suites me. Then I lean into it full tilt, most times I am absolutely sure I am being ridiculous in the event that I put myself out there. I try to forget about it after doing it, stepping away and disconnecting. If I don't give myself that breather moment of, 'okay you did it, now relax', it will spiral into the sort of conversation you think about five years from now. Like that one time I pulled into the Starbucks drive-through and the conversation went something like this: "Welcome to Starbucks! I am Becky, what's your name?" "I'm good how are you?" ... She had to ask for my name twice and we both pretended it didn't happen. I've come to realize, acknowledging the awkwardness helps let a lot of things go.

Oh yes, when I do RL settings, I also choose names that fit in with their family background. For example, a jewish character with a jewish surname, taiwanese-american with an appropriate name. Naming characters is one of the most enjoyable parts of creating characters for me!

It wasn't terrible in the "how rude" sense. But it was bad nonetheless. I used to play frequently with a woman I met on a forum we were both a part of. We just kinda clicked and our characters were always fun to have play off one another. We went this way for a couple of years until she had a pair of deaths in her immediate family that rendered her unable to bring herself to write, and understandably so. We parted ways as amicably as I think people can, although we still chat from time to time. She still hasn't made her way back to RP, and doesn't know that she ever will, and that's alright. In the meantime I fully intend to be available to talk when she needs it.

She was a very proud [professed] lesbian; I am a dude. I get along with lesbians more often than not because, when your lesbianism is properly firing on all cylinders, you do not see me as a viable romantic/sexual target. From the start, she was very emotional. Shared all her plights of overcoming persecution (often with large crowds of supporting cast cheering her on) with me. They seemed daily, but at the time it didn't stick out to me. I just wrote it off as "some people are just more ... emotionally open" and "she has a thriving social circle - no way she's fishing for something!". We talked every day. It seems more accurate to say she talked every day. The roleplay was ... eh. I'd wanted to drop one, since she'd wanted two ongoing 1x1 roleplays with me and both her characters were not especially distinct from each other (and it was hard to write as much as she'd have liked while she was constantly talking at me). Don't get me wrong: you can be a great, extroverted person and have poor character portrayal. This was not the case. I think she might have even [said she] had a girlfriend at the time, and certainly a few sexual partners. At first I thought the relentless hitting on was just an uncomfortable joke. It was not. I'd trusted her implicitly as someone with shared experiences, and tried that much harder to keep her in my life for it. I think that's what turned the knife the hardest. I don't remember precisely how I noped out, but the time she said "my estrogen needs your testosterone" is what's carved into our friendship's gravestone.

I cant write without music! And I do the same; playlists of songs that match my characters or at least their moods.

My characters do have pets! My OC Leo is a potterverse character and he has an owl and a dog.

Beautiful lovely wonderful site has clear rules about metagaming. Admin has an insane roster of people.... who all know, like, and support each other. Some even delegate to each other or finance each other's living expenses. At this point, it's not head-incest, it's a head orgy. Of course, none of the crazy shit these people do ever has any consequence in-game, because they cover for each other. Anonymous poster hash: b3db5...a85