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We've all joined amazing sites in our time. Some of us have seen them rise and fall like great kingdoms among the seat of internet trolls and harvesters of roleplayers. We've all had things we loved, things we liked okay, others that could have been improved upon, and even others we absolutely hated with a passion. So here's the questions: 1) What are some of your most favorite features on some of your most favorite forums? 2)What are some features you've seen used that could be great, if given some work? 3) What are some things you've seen done/used on forums in the past, or currently, that you seriously HATE, did not work, and are destructive? I would like to take this moment to say: DO NOT NAME ANY SITES UNLESS THE SITE BELONGS TO YOU. THIS IS NOT A SITE BASHING THREAD. THIS IS A THREAD ABOUT FEATURES, TO HELP OTHERS SEE THINGS PEOPLE LIKES AND DID NOT LIKE.

So I'm at a crossroads, I think. When I rebooted Tally, one thing that was strong in my mind was that a lot of our core members had started on the board at the ages of 15-17. This was followed by my co-admin's desire to bring her daughter onto the board... a girl that I know well enough to be comfortable with her being part of the community. There was a possibility that she would also bring her friends, so we set up the "Junior Players Policy" which was designed to keep those players safe, and still allow our older, mature players to write what they wanted. So in a sense---we would be open to younger players, without placing too many restrictions on what the older players could do. Junior players would be marked as such, giving older players the knowledge ahead of time to choose whether they wanted to involve themselves in threads/etc with a younger player. Is this still a turn-off? My writing tends toward the darker side of things anyway, so perhaps I as a player should be staying away from younger age groups---I don't know. I started playing before the age of 13 myself (lied on a number of registrations about my age), and I've always been of the opinion that if someone can conceal their numerical age and conduct themselves in a matter that is mature, I have no real ability to stop them. I'm going to talk about it with my co-admin, as to date we've only had one person register that is not 18+. Is it possible that people are seeing our junior player policy and walking away?

I think a lot of sites, if not majority of them, run events. I also think that a lot of admins are always looking for new ideas on how to run events or what kinds of events other admins find work the best. So this is just a question for Admins and members: what are some of the best or most enjoyable events you've run or participated in and how were they run? We're they prompted? Free for all? (For admins) Hiw much preplanning did you do and how much was decided as you went?

As I've mentioned in a couple of other discussions, I am migrating one of my RPGs to forums. I have been away from forum RP for many years and much of the common terminology is lost on me, so please forgive any gaffs on my part. When my site is completely finished, I will be adding it for a site review. Right now, we still have lots to move from the old Nova site and some cosmetic issues to fix. I would like feedback from both points of view: RPer looking over a site for the first time and Admin regarding what they consider must-haves. Upfront, I am a minimalist when it comes to sites. I like a graphically alluring site but there is a point where I feel that less = more. IMHO, a site should be focused on storytelling and character development. Lore (site wikis) need to be easy to find and contain enough information to make creating a character and a plot easy. Since I also love reading everyone else's stories, I also want IC plots easy to find and follow. As an Admin and a Player, what are the bare minimums you require or look for in a site? Site Layout: What do you look for first? Do you prefer the IC forums to be the ones you see at the top? Thanks! Looking forward to the feedback! PS: I searched for similar topics but had no luck. If anyone knows of one, point me in its direction!

As a prefix, I sit firmly in the camp of belief that advertising for a site does nothing for actually recruiting members. HOWEVER, I really don't have any other means of getting my site's name out there (I don't want any 'affiliates' other than sites my members are on/recommed this time around). So, thus begs the question: As MEMBERS, what do you think makes a good advertisement? What would make you say "Eh, lemme click and check and check it out"?

We've had two people join in the past couple months who like to use their own pictures as OOC avatars. We don't have anything specifically banning it in the rules, but it makes me feel a little weird and I'm not sure why. How do you guys feel about people using pictures of themselves as avatars?

Rune's topic about site ages got me thinking about this... While I sometimes look at site ages, I'm more likely to look at the directory and character list for ages to see if I think we're going to be a good fit from a community standpoint. I often will shy away from places where none of the characters are over 30 (in appearance -- immortals don't count), because I assume that -- and usually this is somewhat accurate -- the age range of character appearance is with in 10 years of the players, so if everyone is in high school and college, then most of the characters are likewise younger. Obviously this is not a perfect system; some people who are in their late 40's like to write kids; And I certainly write characters upwards of 30 years my elder. Do other people do this? Does the mean age of characters and/or players affect your interest in a site at all?

I decided to write a guide about how to roleplay traumatic events because my site is kind of based upon a town that's undergoing traumatic events. But as I'm doing research, I'm seeing all this stuff about how it's good that people write about their traumas as part of the healing process. (It took me awhile to slog through these sorts of links before google gave me the sort of stuff I was actually requesting, so there are lots of people who believe in the importance of writing about one's trauma.) As writers, we incorporate the world around us in much that we write about, sometimes without realizing that we're doing so. We base characters off traits of people we've met, or we assume things about the environment, or we incorporate some of our subtle experiences into the things we're writing about. But what about doing it intentionally, and focusing on a specific event or person? I'm not talking about, "I grew up in Buttsville, New Hampshire, so I'm going to make my character from Buttsville, as well." But more of a "Once when I was in Buttsville, I had somebody throw potatoes at me from a moving vehicle while I was walking down the street. I'm going to write about a character who gets potatoes thrown at him." You actually use the specific experience as a major foundation of a plot, event, or character. Another example would be if your parents divorced when you were a kid, and you decide that you're going to give your character divorced parents because you remember the things you went through, and you want to incorporate some of those things into your character. (Rather than just giving your character divorced parents and briefly mentioning it in history but not really having it factor into your character in a major way in the present.) It doesn't have to be traumatic, either. You could want to make your best friend into a character because it would be awesome, or you give your character the same type of car as you and end up incorporating the way the car smelled that very first day you got it. Or you could have your character get a new dog from the shelter just the same way you went to the shelter to pick up your dog 10 years ago. Maybe it's the same dog, even, or you write about the people you've met. So it's more than just "writing from experience" in the sense that we normally talk about it. It's focusing on a specific person or place or thing and then intentionally incorporating that thing into your character's world rather than writing about a violinist because you have experience with the violin and know what you're talking about. Have you done this? Would it be something you'd want to do? Do you think I'm just crazy and this post is confusing?

How would you describe the importance of roleplay in your life? What have your experiences been with this? If roleplaying is just a game, how seriously should one take it? --- From the time I was 18 when I discovered roleplaying until a few years ago, RP was life. I lived and breathed RP, often neglecting IRL duties in order to catch up on things going on with the roleplay world. After running my Hunger Games site for four years and closing it when I realized I wouldn't be able to continue on with staff duties at the level of intensity required (it had become quite a big site, and I had some RL stuff I signed up for that would prohibit me from running it at this exhaustive level), I took a break from roleplaying. I never really disappeared since I opened one site (short-term) and poked around at others, but there were months at a time in which I had nothing to do with the roleplay world, and quite some time passed before I made the commitment to return "seriously" with it. Roleplaying is fun, but it's not as much of a "serious" hobby for me as it used to be. I'm committed to my site, don't get me wrong, and I enjoy it. But if I had move to a place without internet, I wouldn't waste away to nothing as I might have done once. To me, I enjoy the writing and character creation aspects, but a huge component is the social interaction. I want to be in a place where I'm comfortable, so that I can hang out and interact with people whose presence I enjoy. Roleplaying for the sake of roleplaying - going through the motions and making posts and creating characters - isn't something that interests me. I could write by myself and maybe enjoy it just as much. But being a part of something bigger, and creating something together is really neat when you're with people who are engaged and interested and on the same page as you. Roleplaying is "just a hobby" to some degree, but it's one that we should be working to improve, even if the improvements are small over time. I also believe that if someone makes a commitment either to join a site or to run a site, that person should honor the commitment as though it were a real life responsibility: respect other's time, efforts, and interests, and politely bow out if it's not something on which you're willing to follow through. There's more leniency to it than a real life responsibility, of course, but the people on the other sides of the computer are still people regardless. Anyhow, I'm interested to hear your thoughts and experiences.

I'm just reading a debate on another site, on how you shouldn't use a FC of a different heritage for your character just because they superficially look the same. On the one hand I understand not treating minorities as interchangeable, on the other as someone who uses unknown faces I care only for the physical features of my avatar, not for their identity because it's not known. I'd like to know to what extent you care about accuracy when using known celebrities; do you think it's wrong to use, say, a Chinese face for a Korean character, an Indian actor for a Pakistani, etc? Is it worse than using, say, a British actor for an Italian character, or a Spanish for a French, which is usually seen as acceptable? Also, would you find it problematic or uncomfortable if you didn't know a FC's heritage? As I mentioned elsewhere I typically use stock photos, where all you can tell is how one looks, not where they come from or what culture the model belongs to. Would you worry about it, especially when dealing with minorities of some kind?

I am curious to see! As a player, do you enjoy playing the hero or the villain more? And why is that? I know that a lot of well developed characters live in a grey area, but overall there is a general feel to them that swings them one way or the other.

I've been a roleplayer for the better part of my life. I started on forums when I still had to lie about my age on the registration form, and this year I'll be turning 31. Even when I did move away from forum-based RP, I never did stop. I started running forums when I was about fifteen, and at nineteen I opened Tallygarunga. Tally is---and always was---one of the things I am most proud of. The level of work that went into maintaining the game, advertising, community, all that---Tally is part of who I am. Roleplaying is a huge part of who I am. ... and my family is not aware. I don't know what to do about this, or if I should do anything at all. Part of me wants them to know -- I want to scream from the rooftops about how much I love my awesome nerds, share things on Facebook, and talk their heads off about the crazy plots we've got. Part of me is weirdly ashamed of the whole thing. And then, in a way, it's like I've kept a child a secret from my parents all these years. I'm an extremely private person and my poor Mum is always lamenting that I "don't share enough" of my life with her. Here I am, unable to talk about one of the biggest and best parts of my life, it feels like a lie of omission that I've been keeping for over a decade. I am very conflicted. I have a good relationship with my family, and drunkMe managed to tell me sister-in-law ALL ABOUT IT at a family wedding. I just... don't know how to talk about it with my parents? Will they think it ridiculous? Blame Tally for my "internet problem" (yes, I spend a lot of time inside/on computer. I don't like outside. Without the internet, I have a "book problem" or "sitting daydreaming problem" -- deal with it)? Worse: will they get super excited and decide to jump on Tally and READ EVERYTHING? This is less of a concern to me now that we've got a fresh board (young me wrote some pretty weird stuff), but the idea still makes me uncomfortable. Also I had a dream the other night that my family found out about Tally and were so disgusted by everything they saw that Mum wouldn't look at me and Dad disowned me. WHAT DO?

So, I've been thinking a lot about role play samples. On TNI, we really don't do anything with them, aside from having them there. I guess it can be useful to see that the person knows what they're getting into and perhaps getting a feeling for how they write, but I have never used it like that. So, questions: Do you use RP samples? What for? Do you like or dislike joining sites that have RP samples on their app? What requirements do you put on RP samples? What requirements make you roll your eyes? On a site where the characters are animals (cats, wolves, horses, ect), should samples be required to be of that animal, or are human samples okay? On a human RP, would you accept a wolf rp sample? EDIT: I think I've heard plenty of the "against" side, and would love to hear more from people who do use them, if there's anyone else who would like to give input.

My question is a bit connected to this blog post or to this one. Everyone knows that sometimes two writing partners have different interests in what kind of stories to write. If I don't have any interest in some aspects the others want to explore, I am not saying it, accepting to write what the other is interested in, because I am sure that, no matter how much I like it or not, it is a part of the story and therefore worth exploring for character development and/ or plot progression. As long as one of us is interested, the other can go along for the ride. I believe that even in love, in a couple, nobody loves 100% (neither 50% each to make up a whole). Always, in the moment x, there would be someone loving the other more, offering more (70%-30% or so), just for the balance to turn on the other's side next time. It is important only to be a balance - both to want to be together. Nobody counts who offers more in moment x and who offers more in moment y. In writing with a partner it is the same - always one will be more enthusiastic about one thread/ plot point and the other about another thread/ plot point. And I am always offering what I can. If this part is less fun for me, the next one will be breathlessly interesting, so I am doing both. But others aren't like me. They want to have all the fun now, not understanding about build-up and other writing techniques which exist and are used by many writers. They want to skip moments they consider "boring", no matter if they are building something else and they are useful in the story. (I say, instead "do something to make them less boring, instead of avoiding them! It is up to the writers to make a story/ chapter/ thread interesting!") They don't want to write first meeting scenes, with persons who are important in their lives in a way or another, considering them boring. I know that one can't force another to write what they don't want to write. However, there are 2 negative aspects of this approach, both impacting the story: 1) if you never show them meeting, if you never show your character's thoughts and opinions even post-meeting, if you don't want to write the meeting per se, then... not only your character is deprived of character development, but 2-3 characters at least. And is it fair? Can it ground any future relationship in this way? 2) If you never show them meeting, nor your character's thoughts and opinions even post-meeting, then if I assume what happened, it might be called godmodding instead of guesswork. At the same time, since this meeting happened (albeit offscreen), since your character and mine live in the same house for a period of time, it is important for my characters too. How can mine show the impact of the meeting, without godmodding, if you don't want to say anything about it? How are you dealing with these missing parts of your characters' stories?

Good Day, I am in the process of creating an IPB site with an eye to possibly moving my Nova based game to a forum. I love the features, don't mind the fee, and have made good progress setting up the basics. The problem I've run into and just can't think of the best way to handle it is character bios (applications). Our bios (at the Nova site) are rather complex and while I can minimize some of it, I have a reason for needing the longer history timelines. I don't mind formatting the bio for my players onto a nice tabbed template, but am wary of turning on HTML as this invites malicious attacks (so I've heard). I attempted to set up applications via IPB's Pages feature, but was defeated. I understood the gist of creating the database, filters, records, etc., but the actual practice of creating a character record was beyond me. Does anyone use IPB for RP that could help me out? Direct me to a template, etc.? Share their site so I can see how they have apps/bios set up? I'd honestly love to have the bios on the "character" accounts profile page somehow. Any and all help, suggestions, and recommendations is appreciated. Warmest regards and thank you, ~ Stormwolfe

Mostly, I'd like someone to explain this one to me. What is a soft opening? Why do it? What advantages/disadvantages does it have to a "normal" opening and how else does it differ? As always: Opinions? Thoughts?

Hey y'all. What kind of extras do you like to stuff in those 'free for all' places to enhance your character development? I'm coding tabs for our development threads with different sections for people to put things in. So I'm trying to figure out what kind of things people may want to put in there... I've seen development used for playlists, extra photos / mood boards, thread trackers.... EDIT: For context, I'm adding a screen cap of the code so y'all can see what I mean by tabs / sections. I'm making my code into a tutorial so people can customize it and add whatever they want. Still want ideas on what I could add! Thanks guys!

My site The RPG Organization, has had a long standing rule with a 'minimum 200 word count'. This is not an outrageous amount. It is approximately half a page in a word doc program No big deal. Right? The one problem I've seen with it is that some of the members would top out at 200 and post. Maybe they'd go over by 10 or 20 words. It was as if they were thinking "maximum" instead of 'minimum.- even though it's clearly posted as minimum. Fortunately, these players never stayed long. Since being here and at the other directory sites, I've read posts with clear distain for post counts. Some admit that the moment they see the words 'post count' they're gone. My whole objective in being on these sites is to garner new members. I am willing to do what it takes, within reason and legality, to gain them. I've already posted on my site, telling my members that I'm willing to suspend the word count rule. I'm willing to trust people that they will write full / complete scenes when they post as opposed to one, two, or three sentences / 2 paragraph. If all a person can muster is a few sentences we do have a section for the purpose of collaborations. It's there for joint efforts and mass collaborations. This was intended to be a solution to the 1 paragraph posts. It usually works. A few times the length went from counting the words to the pages. The longest ones were between 5 to 10 pages. Now that's a post! LOL

This may seem like a silly question to some but I'm serious. My forum experience is with phpBB, InvisionFree, and Invision Power Board. if these forum programs had 'Post Templates' I would have heard about them before now. As it is- I have never heard of them until today. So, could someone please explain to me what these things are and why people don't like them? I'm curious. If you could show me an example, that'd be great. Thanks Arch

What are some of the best open thread starters you've seen? What is your tried and true blind opening? What suggestions might you have for people struggling to write opens?

You thought I forgot, didn't you? Are you turned off of older sites? Or do they get your engine purring? Is there anything you prefer about a newer/older site in particular?

When I was debating what characters I wanted to bring back with Tally, I almost decided not to pick up one of my old favourites. Why? Because I also play his wife. Is that a weird thing? Do you get put off by players who play characters on both sides of a relationship? It was weird when it happened. The characters had some shared backstory, but they were so different. Both were also in relationships with other characters, and one even had a character made for them. Problem was: none of it would stick. The more scenes I wrote that included these two characters, the more they sort of... moved together. It wasn't a conscious thing on my part it just happened. I was so confused by it. I'm writing both halves here, so shouldn't I have full control? Eventually I gave in, and let them be. But I do wonder what people think when they realise that I write both of them, and whether it raises eyebrows. I don't really do scenes with just them, I tend to write short stories (it flows better) to fill in gaps/provide background on what they're doing. They still have active lives outside each other. But... I don't know. It could be weird. It could be seen as playing with myself. I'm not sure. What are your thoughts?

Came up in another thread, and I'm curious! To clarify: this thread is about romantic/sexual relationships. Not friendships/platonic relationships. Do you plot relationships? How do you do it? Do you plot characters as being Meant For Each Other, despite not having met before? Do you make characters specifically to end up with each other? Or do you prefer to play them off each other first before deciding? Do you Decide, or do you just let the story take its course? Do you have relationships that aren't healthy or that aren't intended to be Forever?

I've been thinking about this because I wandered onto a site with a specific Canon in mind. I noticed that said canon had a wanted ad attached. So I looked at the wanted ad and it had ideas and plots I wasn't interested in. So I guess my question is as an admin: do you restrict characters to match wanted ads? As a member: Do wanted ads for characters make you want to play? Do you like when they have plot ideas, or just when it's like "I'd love to see __". How do you feel/react when someone clearly doesn't want to run your plot idea (i.e. you ship stony, they ship stucky), but takes a character you love. (I'm gonna just toss out that for the sake of this thread, you can assume the player is a good writer, plotter,etc. They just don't want the plot you mentioned.)

Hey peeps, This is more or less a question of curiosity for myself....cause am well bored dammit! What do you guys think the most popular plotline in role play is? I don't just mean "romance", "apocalyptic" . I want specifics like love triangle, best friend turned love interest. Lastly what is your favorite type of plotline to play? Some of my personal favorites are complicated romances with a lot of build up or darker plotlines with a heavy power struggle.