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There are many instances when a character gets drama in his story life. As we are talking about RPGs, which are collaborative, sometimes this drama is actually sought by the writer, but other times it is: - either the result of negotiations between writers, so that all of them find something enjoyable in the story (ie a necessary give and take, when one accepts a twist he isn’t so fond of, but the partner is, receiving in exchange another plot twist, probably with another character, that he is looking forward to) - or the result of unilateral decisions of other writers (vanishing writers, dropped/ killed characters they had got bored with, etc.) which hadn’t taken into consideration at all the impact of their character’s disappearing on the characters theirs was related to. Which are the literary techniques/ plot devices you have used in order to heal your characters after such an event and use the experience as character development? (I know there are people who are so shocked by losing a writing partner that they retire the related character too. I am not interested in the answer “retiring the character”, but in techniques of making them cope with the loss.) I confess it had happened to me too, to retire a character at a certain moment, after most people they had plots with had left, and he had no more connections on the site at all. In those conditions, it didn't make sense for his story to get continued in those circumstances, so he had to step into the background and continue his life offscreen. But for most characters, it isn't the case. They still have a role to accomplish in the story, other connexions, etc. I have found, in any case possible, a plot twist to get them able to continue, even if they had to recover after a trauma. Some of my characters have found solace in religion, a pilgrimage or two being the solution to heal and go forward. Others had found new friends for support, or rallied all the remaining connexions around them, sooner or later, like in life. Or the new plot twists gave them other more immediate things to solve and think about...

How do you use journals and why do you think them useful? Do you think they are a place for only random thoughts, fun stuff and things that do not tie in with the storyline, or a place to enhance the storyline from the personal perspective of said character, to build on it, to bridge gaps and to tie loose ends? I think they can be used creatively for lots of things. I have bridged gaps, tied loose ends, showing things which were partially written in the storyline, and partially implied only, deepened stories by showing a character's (flawed, but meaningful) perspective, foreshadowed some things by setting the ground in the information comprised in the journal, which would become important/ more interesting later on, tying with events which haven't happened yet. In one case, the journals were a sideplot of the story - if the main story was action-focused, the love story was reflected by journals only (with intentions to further become half journals, half letters, but those were to be reflected also in the journal thread). His point of view vs hers. And it worked perfectly. Looking forward to hearing your creative experience with journals, diaries, letters!

I know many RPGs where the characters advance in the story. They make their mark upon the story, progress and get promoted for their achievements and reliability. Some people love this. It is a way to reward fidelity, creativity, involvement in the story, and at the same time to show the fact that no story can remain static. Others don't like it. They want their character to remain the same way as it was initially designed, and for them a promotion, no matter how much it makes sense in the story, means their character turns into someone they aren't interested in writing about anymore (no matter that the promotions always do show new paths to explore, and the characters have further potential for development in their new positions). What about you? Do you like promotions or not? And why?

Are they the world's specific holidays, or the seasonal holidays of real time? I had seen both. On mine, If the holidays are in real life, but they are far away in the story time (e.g. almost never Christmas or Easter or others align in real time with the story calendar), we have in character song dedications, in character gift offering, traditions discussions, greetings. We had contests too sometimes. We have celebrated Christmas, New Year, Easter but also local holidays like Thanksgiving, Halloween, March amulets, St. Valentine's day. If the holidays are in the story, our characters celebrate them. We have celebrated both the ones which exist now too (Christmas, Easter, New Year, St. Valentine's) but also the Medieval ones which now are less known (Twelfth Night/ Kings' Day, Mardi Gras, May Day, St. John's summer fires, Michaelmas), with threads happening during the holidays and sometimes with graphics derived from them.

Granted, this one is probably more for the Original Characters than the Canon characters.... but how often do you like to "revamp" and modify the characters you create, if at all. Do you change the character around a little bit for each site you use them on, throwing away quirks that didn't work in one in order to try different takes? Do you leave the character itself alone and only change what's needed to match them to the setting? Or are you known to completely re-invent the same character 10 times over the last decade?

So when I had first started getting into RPG I noticed that sandbox RPGs were the most popular. Everyone seemed to want to do their own thing without an overarching plot to hold them back. These sites had plots to set up the settings, but their plots weren't stories that would be carried out. Then it seemed that recently site-wide plots gained popularity again. So what are your thoughts on overarching plots? How does your site progress the plot and how often? I personally think it is pretty awesome to have an overarching site plot so that your members can shape the site a bit. I've seen some sites be very strict on how the site plots progress, and I am not sure how I feel about those quite yet. I'd love to hear some thoughts on the subject though!

Back when I first started RPing, members would utilize NPC characters for just about everything. Fighting opponents in a thread starter; filling in members of that fearsome bandit band your character leads; family members; quest givers and plot McGuffins; you name it. If an NPC (or 10) were needed in the thread, the members themselves would attend to this by, well, controlling the NPCs themselves in their posts. Then, somewhere, I don't know if it was because of games where staff controlled all aspects of the story progression or too many arguments over control of the NPCs per thread, things changed. I noticed that people just....stopped playing NPCs. Anything that wasn't a player character ceased to exist. On an old site, I once found myself as a staff member pulling "double duty" when it came to posts because not only did I have to keep up with my actual characters, but I also had to do 100% of the NPC legwork for the rest of the memberbase. So, my question is, what are your feelings on utilizing NPCs on a site? And whose "job" is it to manage the RPing of said non-characters? Are staff supposed to treat them like running a tabletop story and control 100% of the encounters? Or should members be pulling a little bit more of their own weight in controlling what happens in their character's stories?

What's your opinion on sites having IM's like discord and whatnot that are off-site? I personally don't care for them because in my experience they just cause trouble off-site between members and then they come and complain to me about, and it causes the cbox on the site to be neglected (and I can't afford to pay to customize the widget and the default widget is funky looking on most themes lmao) but lately the RPing community seems to be very fond of them so I have a discord for my site because I get constantly asked "Do you guys have a discord?"

Hello, it’s been a while since I’ve been here. I thought it would be fun to start a YouTube channel about roleplaying: what it is, how to start, character creation, etc. It’s still very much in its early stages. What I need now is are screenshots from various roleplays and the different parts of them (front pages, characters, rules, etc.), depending on the video topic. I’m asking about those interested in allowing me to do this. If I use a screenshot of your roleplay, I’ll provide a link back to it, of course. If you only want certain parts of your roleplay used, then let me know the restrictions. You’ll get a bit of free advertisement, and I’ll get what I need to make better videos. If you have ideas for video topics, let me know. Thank you. 🙃

So, when I started roleplaying at the tender age of 15, I started on Gaia Online. Now, I don't know about you guys, but over there, almost every GM put romantic alignment on the character sheets - even in stories that aren't necessarily romantic. So my question to y'all today is: is it important? Is it important to you as a player? As a game master? How critical is it that we know whether a character is single or taken, gay or straight, transgendered or not? Are there genres in which it's important to denote whether a character is aromantic or asexual? Does having this information add or detract from your roleplay experience? Be honest! I'm not gonna judge you for needing this info for trashy romance RPs! That shit can be fun! Me, personally, I don't typically enjoy romance stories, so I don't join them, so I never really consider the romantic or sexual alignment of my characters.... Except for the one arranged marriage RP I ran because that was fucking hilarious.

This is market research as I have never joined a multigenre for reasons I wont share because I don't want to influence responses 😄 What assumptions do you make about any site that is advertised as multigenre? Like, what set up do you expect to see? How structured is it? Have you joined a multigenre and encountered some limitations (what were they)? What hurdles do you think members of multigenres need to jump and how have you seen people address them? What assumptions do you make that are turn offs?

What are the things every RPer must go through? They aren't always fun (though, sometimes they are!) but everyone experiences them at one time or another! What are the things every site/staff must go through? Some examples: Everyone is ghosted at some point. And every site has to have that person that wants a rank and only a rank... Then vanishes, never to be seen again.

Not everyone knows or understands every genre. Maybe you don't get why people would play in a post apocalyptic setting, or you have no idea what a panfandom is. Ask questions! And if you can answer them, do so!

I was recently informed that it is strange that on my board, we allow people to share PBs as long as everyone with a "stake" in the face is fine with it. From my perspective, grown-ass adults should be allowed to make basic-level decisions about their perceived "property" xD We tag accounts that allow it and leave unformatted those that don't, and don't penalize or reward people either way. Some people are protective of faces and that's totally cool, some PBs have lots of different looks to choose from, and some people don't even claim a face anyways! Just curious to see what others thought on the matter 🙂

I was following a few discussions on chats, discord, and related issues, and I noticed how more than a few people don't like being reachable OOC off site, and sometimes not even by PM. Of course I don't mean "at their personal address with their real name", because that'd be crazy, but, say, on any address or social media that you actually check, even if you're not visiting the specific RP site for a while. I don't mean to discuss what make others uncomfortable, because that's totally up to them. What I want to talk about is where I find myself not knowing what to do. I mean. Most sites that are targeted to adults have lax activity checks or not at all. Also, people post at variable paces. This is 100% fine. However, if you're not replying to my thread for, say, a month, and I may like to use my character in other scenes that don't happen in the consequenceless void, I might like to hear from you, not to "pester for a quick reply", but to know if you're still interested or if the thread should be archived so I can move on. And if you're still interested but have no time now, I'd like to arrange a vague outcome to keep in mind so I can play something else. Or if you don't want to preplot and you'll be there in three months, okay, I'll wait, but at least I know I'm not waiting for a ghost. Now if we have no way to communicate I can only wait indefinitely, knowing that statistically speaking I've been almost definitely ghosted, but still being supposed to wait because I can't godmod you into uselessness and you're breaking no rule. So I'd like to know what reasonable solutions people have for this. I'm only talking about RPs where a scene can influence others, if everything happens at once and independently it's a different case. Also for people who don't want to be contacted, what would you like your RP partners to do? Start other plots that potentially make your reactions moot, as long as they don't bother you? Assume you left if you're not around for x time (that's potentially shorter than the lengthy activity requirement)? Wait until the Staff archives your character? I hope it doesn't come across the wrong way, because I understand communication can induce anxiety, however cooperative writing requires people to arrange things somehow.

I'm just curious. What do you guys prefer in both roleplay sites, and in your own character-making? Do you prefer to rp as a canon character from animes, mangas, shows/movies, etc? Or, do you favor making your own character from scratch? My personal opinions is that I steer clear of canon, only because I don't want to feel that I am changing someone else's character, or I am not able to stay 100% true to said character because they aren't mine. If I can make my own from scratch, I can make them in my own image, and roleplay them any way I want, so I guess the creative freedom attracts my interest more. However, I don't judge those who love canon, more power to them! How about you guys? I'd really love to see what you all think! 🙂

Y'all, I need help! If this is the wrong forum for this, just move me! I have two sites on IPS forums which I love. It's easy enough that even I can do some basic changes. However, I have a 3rd site languishing away and in need of a new home. It is currently on Nova (which I also love), but it seems that their next major update could be a very long way off. Bottom line: I cannot currently afford a 3rd IPS site. Once I can save up and start buying licenses for the other two so I don't have a monthly layout in fees, I'll be able to move yet again. I'd also kill to be able to have a test site so I could see what I was breaking before live installing it. Next, I am not a coder. I can maintain the basics of a self-hosted site, but it helps to have good support. I need things spelled out (adding themes, mods, etc.). I have tried JCINK - right now it's a no for me although I am committed to trying and help a friend get her site customized. So - list of questions below! JCINK (Friend's Site) Best sites for requesting a custom theme with out-of-the-box features. I am even willing to look at paid options. I have found and looked through numerous resource sites, but most are simply impossible to find things on or everything is very outdated. Add to that, most have an unfortunate tendency to disregard the visually impaired by using light themes with pale colored text or very tiny fonts. Browser zoom only helps up to a certain point. I can make minor changes and updates (color tweaks, font tweaks), but I really need to be able to copy the code to the appropriate place and go. Theme support would be awesome. FOR ME (phpBB, myBB, SMF) I need recommendations for an easy to use free forum platform. Ease of use means reasonable well-documented and easy to manage when it comes to adding themes, mods, etc. Having access to simple, clean, well-managed resource sites is a must (preferably ones that stay current with the software). Features Good documentation. This is a must. I need to have directions stated in Village Idiot terminology. Account Switching: Built-in or easy to add mod. Sub-accounts: Guess this goes hand-in-hand with #2. It would be preferred that we be able to set up multiple accounts on one email. Customizable: site, main profile, mini-profiles, etc. Support for a wiki (yes, I can set one up on a 2nd site, Wordpress works great, but that's a pain to maintain). Some form of alert or mentions system for ease of tagging folks. I loathe BBCode, but if it can be customized, I can live with it. A gallery would be nice, but not mandatory. I can find alternatives or maybe try out some of the gallery software on Softaculous. Easy to install and update...bears repeating. Support, support, support (I'm really nice when asking) Mobile friendly is a huge plus. Any and all help, recommendations, suggestions, letters, hate mail, etc. are greatly appreciated. Thanks ahead of time everyone!

Hello Initiative! I've come to you regarding a trend I've noticed is very common now in roleplays and I'm curious to get opinions on it. First a little background: I am an old lady who's been around the RP scene for 20 or so years (we're talking the beginning of chat rooms, folks). Forums have always been my platform of choice and I've gone through the transition from PB > IF > JC. I've recently come back after a few years' hiatus and everything is different than what I remember from before! So now the real topic: I've noticed that many sites are doing a point system or a site shop where you accumulate points based on posting, events, etc. that allow you to "purchase" items in the site's store. I've seen things like "X many points and you can upgrade a character" or "X many points and you can buy a restricted character race/breed". etc. Back in the day this was never something I saw but it is extremely common now, and I feel like I am in the minority when I say I'm immediately a little turned off by a site that has a system like this in place. I am also a grown-ass woman with a full-time job, a mortgage, and a real life outside of RP so maybe I'm turned off by them because I prefer sites with a little more lax activity requirements (and therefore don't count on high volume post counts to gain enough "points" to do something)? What are your thoughts? Do you like the idea of point systems? Do you think this is just another trend that will eventually disappear, or do you think that all RP's will be using these in the future? I'm curious from a member perspective if these are good motivators for people to post, or if they just cause anxiety. From and admin perspective, is it worth the effort to set the system up and do members use it effectively? There are no wrong answers here, I'm just trying to test the waters! 🙂

Call me the poll master, because I've returned again with another question! When you look at a roleplay's index/home page, what makes more sense/what do you prefer to see? The forums, or some sort of splash page? And for further discussion - when you're browsing a new RP site or group, what information do you personally look for? What are some trends in home pages that bother you, or that you like?

On some forums I've notices a kind of fear of open threads lately. Members gravitate towards pre-plotted situations which they play out in private threads. When a thread is open it ends up becoming as good as PAFP (private after first post) where one other player and no one else joins regardless of the fact that the thread might have been designed with the possible participation of multiple players in mind. In fact, aside from events per-arranged by staff, many open threads I've seen never get a chance to become much of anything. They sit on the board gathering dust while all other threads go at full speed. I can't help but raise my eyebrows at this apparent trend. When I make open threads, they are meant to be open to any group of players who wishes to join them. What's causing open threads to be treated as not-open, or end up as overlooked compared to more per-arranged stuff, and are there solutions or tricks to see more love and participation for this style of rp? To me its kind of discouraging to observe these threads falling by the wayside, and players myself included just sort of stop trying, or rarely make open threads any more as a result. Anonymous poster hash: 718bb...809

So, I've been looking through the forums, and, I was wondering what people found works best for finding inspiration for characters. I personally find that music, beyond all other things, helps me to find and define a character. I often end up with a particular sound or even band or singer that when I hear, I can't help but think about and want to write for that character. I think music impacting mood is a common enough occurrence, but I've found that the song I pick to listen to changes the post. So like, if I were to write two replies to the same post, and I listened to song a for post a and song b (even by the same artist) for post b, they will be two very different posts. Perhaps not in actions, but perhaps in dialogue, and most certainly in tone. And I know that on the board I'm on right now, music gets tossed around a lot. We have a few OOC threads dealing with finding music and looking at what people are listening to, and it isn't uncommon to find youtube links in our Discord gen chat. I know some people can write without music, but, I don't think I could. And when I'm having muse issues, it is usually because I can't settle on what to listen to, or the song doesn't feel right. It just seems integral to me for finding that in to the character and the post. Do you guys have other methods that impact your writing so much?

I am looking for some feedback on a situation involving a pair of members. Member #1 joined and was an active poster with everyone then made a romantic wanted ad for themselves. Member #2 took said ad shortly thereafter. Since the ad was taken, there's became an obvious problem of them doing 3-5 posts back and forth with their ship which are all tagged in the shoutbox while ignoring any other posts they owe on the board. We use the tagging system and both members acknowledge they have other threads (even states in the cbox they know this other post is owed), BUT they continue to go back and forth with one another. Member #1 recently made a second character but has made no attempt to plot with anyone except the love interest played by Member #2 and has started a second thread between them that is prioritized. My co-admin suggests that we just ignore it and go about things, let them do their thing, but I feel like ignoring it isn't a good solution and this could become a bigger problem. Any advice? Anonymous poster hash: 6f15f...403

What things in an RP make you curl your toes in anxiety? For me, it would have to be sandbox games. I like things to be orderly and structured. I like rules that are clear and logical. This might just be me being anal, but I get nervous when the dates of threads aren't clearly stated, or even the chronological setting of the forum. How am I supposed to know what to include in my posts as fodder if I don't know when the thread takes place in relation to anything else? And sandbox games are just...too chaotic for my liking. If you like them, that's brilliant. I'm sure I would if they didn't intimidate me so much. They do allow for a great deal of creativity, but I feel like they are pretty quick to fizzle out. It's like when you're getting ice cream, and you're trying to decide on a flavor, but your brain blanks so you're just left sitting there staring at the tubs. It's kind of like that, I think. Anywho, what scares you away from an RP? Discuss.

I've always been curious, in the world of mobile-first web development, how many people actually post from their phones or tablets. Personally, even though I don't post in-character from my phone, I still prefer roleplay websites that are mobile-friendly. I like to be able to participate in OOC conversations from my phone, and read new posts over breakfast. That's part of the reason I prefer XenForo and IPS as forum software - I have never met a mobile-friendly jcink or Proboards forum. So, that's my opinion - responsive design or die. What about you all?

Hello All, I wasn't sure whether to post his here or in RPG Confessions - please move it if it is not appropriate for this forum. I honestly need some advice on the often vague dividing line between having true concerns and just being paranoid. As an RPer and RP manager of many years - I have seen lots of issues arise. Some of them were repeated often enough that they became red flags for me when new people applied to my roleplays. I confess to now being a somewhat paranoid GM - mainly because I loathe confrontation, hate the thought of hurting feelings, etc. Especially since RP is supposed to be interactive and fun! Here's my issue.... A person has joined one of my sites (I have a few), wrote a decent character bio, and then proceeded to ask upward of twenty times how soon the story was starting. They received the same answer all twenty times. When the story launched, they leaped in with enthusiasm - which was majorly awesome! They are a better than fair writer and seems to be really nice. The issue appeared when they repeatedly did a thing that was very unnecessary in forum roleplay. A friendly reminder was sent out to the group at large that this was not necessary. The person asked if they were at fault and I diplomatically told them that yes, they were doing the thing, don't do it. The very next day, I sign on and that person has done the thing again - 3 more times. I have since sent them a private message on Discord asking that they cease and desist doing this thing. This is a very simple thing, not a complicated issue. You do it or you don't do it. Not doing it is the way forum play is designed. Am I being paranoid in that I feel like this person purposely did the thing to push back?