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I really like the group that I'm a part of, and I want it to grow. I've tried advertising it on all the sites I can think of to attract more members. Anyone have any ideas on what more I can do? Or some good sites to advertise on?

Ever feel like that girl/guy who is waiting by the phone (keep looking at mobile) waiting for that person to call you? Either you just gave them your number or it's time to arrange the next date? You thought it all went well! They were into you, they asked for YOUR number, and then.... nothing. Do you call them? Do you text? Does it look too needy/clingy? Right so I am comparing this to new RP buddies, of course! Ever been on IM, plotted and sorted out this awesome plot and characters and then.... tumbleweeds? If so, wtf do you do? Do you poke them, or do you wanna seem chill and just leave it, or be like "Hey man, I am totes chill here just wanna say poke me when you wanna continue this". I tend to try and reach for chill, but I think I come across as crazy stalker RPer THINGER!

Hey guys! Some of you may notice that I have been recently working on a site. BEaconRock has been officially in my back burner for...probably a month now, and is slowly being built by myself (with a bit of help from a friend here and there). I recently came to the conclusion of a few things I'd like to feature for the site, and I'd love advice, and to bounce ideas, off of fellow RPers, and forum owners. Here are a few of the things going on that I'd love to hear from you about: 001. I've decided that I'd like to add the ability to decide between forum RP and chat based roleplay. For this reason I've created TWO discord servers for BeaconRock. One is just for OOC/non-canon interaction. The other is the literal IC ChatRP option. This being said, I know that I will want to have the option to buy powers, upgrades, maybe additional character slots, utilizing the points for the website. My question is: How do I translate this to the Discord ChatRP. I'd hate for some people to prefer chat based roleplay in general, only to be left out of all of the point advantages of writing on the site. That being said all events and contests and such would still happen on site. So it's not as if there WONT be opportunities for them to gather points there. I'd still require all characters to follow site rules, be applied for on the forum, and approved by staff, in order to be played even in the chat. On my Discord RP server I have included a channel that will only be for a list of rules, and useful links, like an invite code to the regular chat server, and site things. Any advice here? 002. I'm in search of bots! BUT I don't want some weird fancy bot with tons of weird options like "meme" and "money" and all that. Basically I am looking for one I can program to announce when a "thread" has been posted in certain forums on the site, right into Discord. I know it's possible because I've seen it done, but I'm so new to this I don't even know where to begin. I'd like one I can program to "say" something ever two hours or so, like announcing 'vote' links, or reminding about 'contests', basically whatever I program it to say. It'd be ideal I wouldn't have to trigger the announcement, I'd like for it to automatically post 'new threads' in all RP forums into a specific channel, or maybe 'new character threads' into the staff channel. As well as pulling 'new threads' when posted in an announcement forum so that I don't have to manually post it everywhere. So, what are some of your favorite bots? Why is this? Do you have a suggestion for ones I could use for this? Do you have suggestions you think I could use and haven't considered? 003. I want to implement a store! What kind of things do you think are practical for an RP store to have? My site will have three species. Wolves, witches, humans. As well as being a modern-day-character-driven plot line. What sort of things to you like having the option to buy? Do you prefer to earn new character slots through posting, or points? Do you believe characters should be up-gradable in powers? How so? Should they buy items, or is this over kill and hard to keep up with? I don't know how much I like the idea of buying items...it seems a bit much. What about buying plots, or staff written goodies, or the ability to hold your own site events? Anything you would suggest store wise? 004. Stepping into owning a forum by myself is daunting. I've tried staff searches, and while there seemed to be hype and interest in the concept, there just weren't any bites in actual helping me out. That being said, I was considering a soft opening relatively soon-ish, once I figure out how to utilize the chat-RP correctly, and probably once I have a store in place for the point system. Anyone have any pointers for me? I'm dedicated to the idea of this forum. I've put time and effort into writing these things, and I'm determined to open. My dedication isn't in question...just staring ahead knowing I'll be on my own is a bit....you know XD

Alright, alright, alright... So, I have a question: What IS a sandbox site? I've heard Phoenix called that, but we've always just called it a multi-genre.

Sooooooooo guys and gals… this is going to be a bit long winded. This was a delicate situation that happened recently. I’m looking for feedback. I literally just dealt with as best as I could, and tried to take all of my own personal emotions out of the equation…. Here it goes. I use to role play on a Site A with two other people that now currently role play on my site. I’m going to call them Phoebe and Stella. I role played a lot with Phoebe. She and I had a major canon ship and lots of plots and it was pretty smutty so it was very popular. I also had a rarely used canon plot going with another player. Phoebe ended up picking up a second character- even though the site was canon- she created her own concept and put details into the character that aren’t normally used at all (I’ve never seen- but that’s not saying much as I’m still a newbie). Stella loved our stuff. Which was flattering, but would often try to recreate our plots- with me. I would constantly remind Stella that I was already doing something like that with Phoebe and didn’t want to do the same plot over and over again. I felt it was plot stealing, but I never said anything. Stella also tried to steal my rare canon plot too. I was feeling the heat, but again, I said nothing and moved on. Eventually, I moved on from the original site and made my own. Both Phoebe and Stella joined. I was weary of Stella at first, due to the attempts at plot snatching, but they seemed to have changed and were doing pretty good. Stella asked to be staff. I’ll be honest. Logically, I knew better from past experience with this person, but I really needed the help, so I just ignored the red flags. (Majorly dumb mistake). Stella ended up causes a lot of drama as a staff member with members on the site. When stuff was going on, they would insert themselves and make matters worse. I ended up spending more time cleaning up messes with members than I did anything else. Finally, Stella and I came to a point, either stop making issues, or you’re off staff. I’m not even joking- the next morning, I wake up to a message from Phoebe. (Remember that canon character she did back on Site A- with a unique and interesting concept all her own? Yea that one.) Well, Phoebe had been on lurking on Site B and saw that Stella was playing that same character- exactly how she was. I took a look at both Phoebe's application on Site A and Stella's on Site B. To me it was blatant, but I also role play extensively with her character. Phoebe was understandably upset. It should be noted that Stella did not copy and paste, but she took Phoebe’s application and reworded it -now if it was some Wikipedia version, then it could be kind of understandable as it’s canon, but this was not strictly canon. Also, Stella never writes apps in first person, but this was was in first person just like Phoebe's original app. This one mimicked Phoebe’s on so many levels, from Face Claim (I know it’s common for people to use the same face), the outline of the history and all the original concepts that Phoebe had put into the character, even some of the original IC quotes Phoebe had made up for the history. NOW the fun part. The original app was on an old site. The ‘reworded’ app was on a different site. Both members are on my site. I felt put in the middle. Because the plagiarism didn’t happen on my site, but I also felt like I had to protect my members. Instantly, Stella was kicked off staff. I took to issue to staff only, and asked them to help me decide. It was half and half, full out ban and the others were undecided. I compromised, 7 day ban and no new character for awhile.The other reason behind this, is we didn’t want to force the admins on the other site to make their decision, but still wanted to protect our members. We informed Stella of the issue, but kept it vague, though we told them it was due to plagiarism. While Stella was banned, she reached out to other members and told them what was going on. Which backfired for them, because these members got worried that Stella was stealing their stuff. Then Stella threaten to leave all together and a bunch of other stuff. (I refused to engage, cause I knew there was no winning for me.) Whew… I promise not much longer. The other site, decided that it was not plagiarism and did nothing. Which I’m not her to judge them on their decision, cause hell it was hard enough for me to figure out what I was doing. Stella sent me a long apology PM and then a few days later, asked a staff member to get me to apologize to them because the other site decided it wasn’t plagiarism. However, I told Stella, what the other site does or decides is up to them. On my site, we concluded that she had stolen Phoebe’s concept. And we dealt with it accordingly, as well as I could of. So, the dust has kind of settled now. Most of the members didn’t seem to notice the change or even know there was an issue (except for the members Stella reached out to). Phoebe has been cool about it, and just won’t thread with Stella anymore. The question is… was this an overreaction? How could I deal with a member informing me of plagiarism going on? I get that it happened on another site, but this person was a staff member (somehow I think it makes it different… I think. But should I treat staff different than if it was a regular member? What do I do if this happens again and it’s a regular member? Should Stella have been banned in the first place? Thanks for reading. I know- really long story. I appreciate any feedback and constructive criticism! Thanks guys and gals! ❤❤❤❤❤

Salutations! I'm a very new Admin. Although I'm not a fan of Activity Checks (AC), i have seen them as a necessary evil. On our site we have an soft AC and a hard AC. Soft ACs consistent of the members simply tagging the characters they wish to keep and those they wish to drop. Hard ACs give a time frame in which a post needs to be made by each character, a link to the thread and who they are threading with. Of course all of this is time consuming for staff and members. I'm looking for alternatives, that will still yield the same results. Any ideas, suggestions or feedback would be greatly appreciated! <3<3<3 Bamf

As roleplayers we are often inspired by multiple sources. This can be a tv show,book, movie, something we saw online, and even other roleplayers. For some of us we walk a fine line between playing our own original creations and literally taking something someone else made and playing them. This is something I've seen all over the place, an argument for or against using other people characters as their own roleplay characters. My opinions vary on this particular topic. For instance, I believe if you're RPing on an actual fandom site playing a premade character from another location isn't actually a bad thing. You're obviously not the creator of said character, everyone is aware of it, and you're not claiming to be. However, in my opinion, when RPing in a completely original verse, or one even inspired by another verse, playing a character that has been torn from the pages of someone elses book is just plain wrong. For instance if I joined a zombie RP site, and made Machone, but gave her a weird name, and a different playby, it's still the same character, and not my own creation. This would be different if I was RPing INSIDE the TWD verse, where Machone was created, and everyone is aware I didn't write her. What is your opinion? How close can you get to inspiration before you toe the line of ripping someones hard work off? I had one person tell me they found using a playby who played a character that happened to be a ballerina, and making my character a ballerina as well, we ripping and plagiarism. I don't quite agree with this, I find it to be more smarter playby searching since they'd have the same pictures I would need to depict my character, but what is your opinion? If someone puts all of the credits from the inspiration sources, how close can a site come to using other locations information before it becomes their verse and they can no longer claim creation? How close can a character come to your inspiration before it actually becomes that character?

Here's another thread on chats. This one is about OUTSIDE the forum. Something a lot of RP forums are picking up now is actively holding a Discord server outside of the forum. This is for many reasons. For one they allow multiple channels for different things. For another it allows the cbox to be used for guest questions without a ton of members drowning out the voice of the guest with their own personal chat and banter. On another hand there is FULL security, banning, roles, moderation, and endless possibilities with bots. With all of these options Discord has become pretty popular, or maybe it was popular before and I'm late to the party. A huge plus of Discord is having the option to log in from a web browser, or download it to your computer. It's WAY less intrusive than skype is, and has never slowed my computer down, no matter which way I use it...I have it downloaded on my phone and my computer for ease of access. However I've heard mention of Slack, and alternative to Discord. Which made me realize there must be many other options out there for chat services that are OUTSIDE of your forum and allow for a wider range of discussions and options for your member base. What do you use, if any? If you don't use any, why is that? Why do you prefer one over the other?

I have recently been around to a few new forums and seen things I'm just jealous of. Lol. I'd like to include some of these things on my forum that I'm working on, but I legit have no clue where to even start with these things. Some of them include: Rotating Member of the Moment spot <-- This is just badass, self rotates when you refresh the page, and I have NO CLUE HOW TO DO IT. There was also a site that had a weather widget on their site, and I'd definitely like that, though I think I can accomplish that by picking a small town somewhere int he vicinity of the fictional one I'm using and just embedding a weather thing for that area...so I'll probably just do that. I also saw on one site where randomly plot prompts would popup at the top of the forum. Just quick few words would rotate like "There's a sudden growl from somewhere nearby, it doesn't exactly sound friendly does it?" which is kind of like offering a built in thread prompt system just to help people along. Lol. I haven't the foggiest how to do this either. I did find one answer that was put up in early 2014 for that last one, but the links in it weren't good anymore, I has a sad. XD What are some of the add-ons you have on your forum, or have spotted on others forums that you're jealous of/would love to learn how to do yourself?

Hey guys! I've seen a few option for this in different locations. Cbox is the most popular, even though they require you to pay for their premium service for really any kind of protection, security, or true personalization. I've also seen SmartChatBox used, and I've used this myself. SmartchatBox is actually pretty nice, they allow for more options without paying for the premium. With premium you get more options, like personal messaging system through the chat box, but that's hardly needed on a forum. It also allows for a lot more security, plus admin and mod positions without paying for it first. So far it's the option I've found with the MOST versatility for someone on a budget. What chat do you use, or have you seen used? Which one offers the MOST options, or is the cheapest alternative chat to be implanted on your forum? Once they give me the ability to embed Discord I'll never use another chat. lmfao.

My staff and I have been toying with the idea of reintroducing the idea of sister sites for our site. I would think that sites that are sisters would vote for each other on the topsites and review each other's sites. Anyone have an opinion as to what that involve other than standard link sharing?

I've played in scripted plot games (scripted to various degrees) but I've never played in a sandbox game. The benefit to a scripted plot is an easy to follow storyline and everyone follows the dots to the end. In my opinion, the bad thing about a scripted plot is the feeling that the story is moving along on rails and I don't need to post because nothing my character does makes a difference. From reading the mention of sandbox games other places, I get that liking or disliking sandbox games is a matter of personal preference, but what are some benefits and pitfalls to this type of game?

I started RPing on a Marvel site and didn't look at any other game sites for several years but eventually I looked around and joined another site, an original game. But I always thought it was weird and stifling to the flow of the game that the admins had a half-dozen or so canon characters. They had setup a game narrative/script of two rival criminal bosses trying to control the city. I was there about two years and during that time we rarely had anyone playing either boss. We had about 3 or so characters on each side as lieutenants to the bosses but no one directing us. And for some reason none of the three admins stepped in to play either of the bosses. It was frustrating playing a henchman with no leader calling the shots. And yet, through that whole 2 years the admins kept trying to push the script of two rival bosses fighting for control of the city, which never really gelled. My question, it seemed to me that the admins should've scrapped the site narrative they had in mind after it was clear that we'd never have two people consistently playing those roles and should've focused on the characters we had. In an original game, is this iron-fisted grip on a set story usual? In a fandom, some characters and storylines are a given, such as in an X-Men game having a Scott Summers, Jean Grey, and prof. X and fighting against Magneto with his different ideology. But in an original game, how scripted is too scripted? Is it common for admins to be that set on the story they want as the tentpole for their site? Which sites tend to survive more: scripted or more freeform ones?

I could really use some advice from other admins out there on this issue I'm having with a few members. We have two members who are literally trying to change how we run our board. We have them posting docs on the site that we never approved of, things that would confuse a new member, and trying to push us into making changes to our setting to fit their very particular characters. One of the more recent issues is them comparing us to what they have seen on some other boards. "This and that site do A,B and C and so you should do it too." I'm all for feedback and suggestions but when they keep pushing it when we've said no and have explained why we don't run our game that way, it seems to fall on deaf ears. On top of that, when have someone literally trying to skirt around our rules and rewrite our lure, so much so that they lied saying we approved it. When asked by the staffer they changed their story. Again, to fit their particular character. I'm trying to be fair and run a game that I can be proud to be a part of and I could use some advice on how to handle these types of things, I feel like I'm over my head Anonymous poster hash: 6509f...b6d

The problem with using celebrity PBs is that celebrities are, well, pretty. You're not going to find an ugly character because there aren't really any 'ugly' celebrities out there. You're in a tough spot to find an overweight or pudgy character because plus-size models are still made up to be pretty and aren't really that 'plus size' to begin with, and you're not going to find people who look like folks you meet on the street. Wrinkles on 40-year-old women are nonexistent, pot bellies on middle aged men don't exist, and the dorky girl who wears glasses and doesn't do her makeup is secretly cute because you'll never find a PB that matches the actual description. That is all. For now.

This is an ongoing debate among the staff of the site that I'm on, and I thought it would be wise to pose it here: in an rp, how long should a site-wide event last? While I'm of the mind that an event should last as long as it needs to, there's also the question of how long is too long before members lose interest? If you participate in an event, how long do you expect it to go on for? And if you're on a site that revolves around site-wide plot development to move along the story, do you get frustrated if a single event is going on for several months? My staff and I are finally wrapping up an event that has lasted roughly 3 months, and I've personally been feeling some frustration with how long it's been going (which is not a secret, I've been equally excited and complaining about the event the whole time). It couldn't be helped, due to the current system we have in place and real life obligations, but it leads me to wonder what others have experienced in plot-heavy games. While we're currently brainstorming ways to move things along faster, I'm interested to know what it's like in other games. Our game in particular relies on these events to reveal certain story elements (i.e. magic, hierarchy, reincarnations, evil, etc.), so there's currently little to do in plot development outside events, relying instead on non-event threads for character development. While I realize that, in itself, presents some problems, it's not something that will last forever. Once we get through this event and get the ball rolling, things will begin to snowball and everyone will be able to build on what's revealed. But getting to that point is proving difficult and time consuming. Maybe it's just that I'm being impatient? It might be that I want to jump into the meat of it without building up the proper suspense. So, maybe if you're not involved with a plot-heavy site, how do you deal with that as a storyteller? Do you want to jump right into the action in a roleplay? Or is building up that necessary background with your fellow writers frustrating for you, too? Would you rather be a part of that initial story building suspense yourself or have that as part of the site premise and jump into the action immediately?

I've thought about this topic in the past, and knowing it's probably common amongst roleplayers, I looked through three pages on here to make sure it wasn't already touched upon. Seeing as how this thread was created - you now witness my poor research results. Anyway, Open Threads. For something so inviting it sure is hard to drag people into them. Seriously, you'd think they'd lap up the opportunity to get their new or half-used character some fresh interaction, but no. They gotta be snobs about it. Okay, that last part was a bad joke, but really - has it always been so hard. I've only been writing for a short amount of time, so I'm really unaware if this is singular to some communities or just forum-wide. So far, I've only experienced the prior. If you don't go out of your way to come up with the idea, explicitly state the thread is private and then make the most extra post - nobody and I mean, nobody, puts in a lick of effort. But why not? To me, an open thread means limitless opportunity. Well, less limited to a private and static one. Your character could stumble upon valuable allies and travel into other - possibly also open - threads, which would make an already interesting interaction that much better. Plotting would be ten times easier too due to all the connections they could have made. In just two or three threads no less!! So, dear members, I ask you: 1. Do you like or dislike open threads? Why? 2. Do you go out of your way to find them or just jump in when you see one? Or do you just outright avoid them? 3. Do you feel open threads limit you? Why or why not? And finally, 4. Are people in your community (s) willing to join in on open threads? Is it not a forum wide thing like I initially thought? Note: using a tablet, will fix spelling errors later.

Not so long ago, I had someone sign up on my forum, and I noticed something very peculiar about their character application. It was mainly due to the style they wrote it in the history section and I noticed that the character descriptions for personality and appearance seemed a little off, too, like the descriptions didn't quite fit the character. After some rudeness from them in which they refused to make changes I'd asked them to, I banned them from the site. Still feeling like something was suspicious about the app, I ran the description through a plagiarism analyzer and discovered that they'd not written the personality and appearance descriptions at all as it had been lifted from a fandom wiki. The same person joined a site I am just a member of, and started making an application on there. I ran part of their app through the plagiarism analyzer again and found that most of it had been lifted from fandom wiki entries again. (If I was staff on the site, I'd bring it up in staff board, but I'm not, so I don't know if I should say anything to one of the admins because I don't want to look like I'm causing trouble.) I know that sometimes there is a problem with plagiarism where people have stolen characters, especially OCs, fortunately, it's not a situation I've seen/experienced myself, but it's the first instance I've known of where people have stolen things from fandom wikis. Is this a widespread problem? Would you ban a member if you found that they had been stealing content from fandom wikis? Anonymous poster hash: 808e4...f1d

In the affiliate friendship thread, the topic of poaching was touched on, and I kinda wanted to explore it in a little more detail. First off, how do you define it? I mean, most RPers I know run multiple characters in multiple games, so where's the line between recruitment and poaching? Second, are you worried about people doing it to you/your games? Do you do it to others? If so, what do you do to try to prevent it, or what have others done to try to stop you? My phone is being super cranky for some reason, so I'll answer as a reply. I guess I see poaching as a malicious form of recruitment. Where instead of saying something like 'I think you'd like my game too, you should check it out if you have time' it's more like 'what are you doing with these losers, my site's so much better. Ditch them and join me' sometimes with a side order of bribery with a special promise of power, class/rank, or something unique to the player only. The star trek fleet I used to play in, before going independent, seemed to think that mentioning the existence of another fleet to any of the current fleet players was poaching. While I don't really agree with that, there is a fine line that I've seen crossed, where a player was trying to convince players of one fleet to start helping out with admin stuff in another fleet they weren't part of. This only really crossed the line because fleets are a gathering of many games together to share resources, so most players tend to stick to one fleet, and committing to staff level stuff is usually only done for a fleet the player belongs to. Overall, I don't worry too much about it. If a player is happy in my game, most poaching efforts aren't going to be successful. On the other hand, if someone is unhappy, or I need to go to unusual lengths to recruit them, I'd rather not have them. Chasing unhappy players isn't a good use of my time, I'd rather focus on things that benefit all my players. And if someone is willing to ditch another game in a malicious manner, I can't help but wonder if they'll do the same to my game when they get bored. Overall, I don't worry if my players choose to talk about other games in my chat, and I do on occasion talk about my affiliates. Though if someone showed up in my chat who isn't in my game, and starts talking about their game instead of mine, I might get irked and ask them to stop.

I don't know how common a problem this is but It absolutely drives me insane, and particularly right now. I'm a pretty lenient admin, so if someone misses something then I just shoot them a PM, let them know and wait for them to fix it. I'm probably a little too lenient because I will do this several times. Especially on a new site when I'm trying to build a member base I want to be accommodating and helpful. But what do you do when a member is blatantly either ignoring or not understanding the simplest rules? Example: The number one rule on my sites is 1. Registration. Please register each character an account as Firstname Lastname just like that. NO OCC/ALIAS accounts. Applications must be completed as coded. I had a member who registered with an Alias account. They posted their application under the alias account. They included our 'rules phrase' in their application indicating they'd read the rules so I PMed them quoting the rule. Given them the benefit of the doubt that they just might not understand, I even wrote it out for them indicating Alias accounts weren't allowed, that we had a section in the mini profile for the alias, so could they please correct the user name to their characters full name 'insert me writing example of the character's fullname' (not their nickname) because there was also section in the mini-profile where the nickname can be indicated.So they 'corrected' their name but instead just to the characters one-word nickname. So I had to PMed them again and basically reiterate the same point a second time. Eventually, they got it right, and it was more or less fine (except they're using a different alias than the one they're listed so I'm kind of confused about that) Then, same member asked 'Can we used another site's application template and just post it here' again... I pointed back to rule #1 Fourth time's the charm? Member has now posted a new application, for a canon character for the site. Except they posted the application under their current character's account instead of creating a new account. So this is literally the Fourth time I've had to direct them back to our First rule in a couple weeks. Am I being a total pushover? XD

What are your thoughts on RPing sensitive content? Do these sorts of things need warning tags in all threads? For example, let's say that you're playing a character who had unfortunate childhood experiences. It doesn't come up every post, but it comes up occasionally through narrative and maybe dialogue. But the point is that it's not like woah hey obvious content that needs a warning. It's subtle. And let's assume this is a run-of-the-mill RP. It's not a G-rated fantasy land, but it's not an anything goes, NC-17 RP.

I think this would be a nifty thing to do every month. As the month goes along, chatting about site accomplishments - Boards hitting X amount of posts, successful plots, happy site-family moments, whatever you consider "important" to your board/your members. Post multiple times, drag your members in to post, brag about stupid things! Whatever strikes your fancy. Cry Wolf hit 33k posts this month! We also trapped another one of the "I'm done making characters" members into another character. xD

So, how diverse is your cast? I speak not only of skin color or origin, but also gender (or lack thereof), sexuality, age, religion, occupation, personality, and even species. There's a lot of different kinds of diversity, after all! Do you tend to make characters that share the same set of traits? What can you do to increase the diversity of your characters? Why is diversity in RP important (or not important) to you? I lean strongly towards making male characters in the age range of 30 - 50. I simply prefer males to females, and that's the age range that typically allows for the most flexibility in most of the settings I play in. It's also not uncommon for those characters to be an enforcer of something- either of the law, religion, or even the enforcer for a criminal organization. That all being said, I also REALLY enjoy playing characters that are very young (as in fifteen or younger) and very old characters (seventy or older). On most sites where I play more than one character, they tend to be about the third I make. I like to put these characters in positions that allow for a lot of surprise as they grow and eventually show their cards, because children and the elderly are pretty consistently underestimated. In certain settings, I also really enjoy playing characters whose genders are basically decided for them by their profession. For example, in one game series, anyone of any sex can join the military but they are automatically considered to be men, then. It's fun to play an anatomical female in that position- or one who has left that life, but hasn't known anything different and has the chance to learn about femininity (if they choose). There's not a common ethnicity, religion, or sexuality for my characters. I suppose it can be said that I often play characters of a certain personality "type," but I tend to play what is needed and that's often bad guys- so I play a lot of those. In order to increase the diversity of my cast, I tend to look at what I currently have the most of on a site and then consciously make the polar opposite of that for a new character. If I'm playing all males, for example, I will absolutely make a female as my next character. If I'm playing a bunch of grunts, I'll create someone who's the brain instead of the brawn. If I'm playing too many clever characters, I'll make an airhead. You get the picture. Diversity of characters is important to me not only because I like to see a lot of different kinds of people represented, but also because the more diverse my own characters are, the wider range of plots and stories I get to write with other people. I like to have lots of different kinds of opportunities, and there's no better way to make that happen than by having a very diverse bunch of characters!

Hello everyone. So, I run a Dragonball Z RPG. I use the word RPG because it's actually a game. Maybe more like a freeform RP/tabletop game hybrid. We use a dice rolling plugin on the forum to roll for attacks and deal damage. You have character sheets and can progress by gaining points. The battle system is very much a modified version of the D20 system, made to better suit the feel of Dragonball's intense and ridiculous fights. I notice not a lot of sites out there are games. More just places to write collaborative fiction? How do you feel about sites with game mechanics? Is it a turn of or is it something you've wished to see. Thanks for sharing!

How do you guys feel about Offsite Lore and board related information? I know some boards have facebook pages, or twitters, that pretty much handle newsfeed type stuff and tags. But has anybody tried things like, a "Hype Blog", using a Wikia account to map Original Content (like location information etc), etc. Rather than clogging up a whole board with a ton of lore threads that end up looking kind of overwhelming at a certain point.