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So there's plenty of genres that include characters with powers of some kind, but what is your favorite power-set that you've created and/or played? Is it your favorite because it's interesting and different, or because it's just fun to play? I just created an OC with Nightmare Manipulation powers, and he feeds on the fear his nightmares cause. He hates his ability, but literally can't live without using it and I'm super excited to play with this power-set.

Alright, so this is technically from both a membership and adminship point of view. HOW IN THE WORLD CAN YOU STAND IT!? Mind you I'm a member on a site that has Jcink but these down times are driving me nuts. How do you do it?

Are IC rewards useful, or a waste of time? I was thinking of a basic advertising reward system where you can earn an in-game reward for your character, that is otherwise unobtainable: things like access to a part of the game world that is inaccessible by normal means, as maybe early access or as a random event. Other rewards could be a lottery ticket of sorts, a voucher that 'automatically' grants the winner a shiny unique weapon, spell, artefact, or a curse. A randomiser might be utilised, might not. yay or nay? I'm the only staff member on this wip game, and I'd like occasional help with adverts- if there's an incentive for players, of course! I was thinking that tangible rewards would work best, as it would generate more threads, yeah?

What fandom forums do really well? Why do you think they do well? To be entirely honest, I can't say I really pay close enough attention to know. But there seem to be a lot of Pokemon forums, and the ones that I do look in on tend to be fairly lively- for a time, anyway. I think part of their success has to do with the nostalgia of the game series for a lot of roleplayers. Many of us are of the age that it was a fairly popular part of our childhood. That, and there is a pretty consistent stream of Pokemon content coming out- new games every couple of years or so. Fandoms tend to kick up around then, so it's almost like the Pokemon fandom is always in swing.

Currently my board is on proboards, but after looking through the directory and reading through some of the posts, it looks like people like jcink better and I was wondering if moving hosts to there would be better. It's not a big deal membership wise as there's only myself and another member who have even posted, but I don't like having to do the work again. (I didn't know about jcink when I made the board, I chose proboards because I'd used it in the past.) I don't like moving hosts either as I've done it in the past and seems to take something away from the site. One problem I've had with proboards is that I have to use outside image hosts store images and I recently found out that the image host I'm using doesn't like users hotlinking (this seems odd, for an image hosting site, because why else would you use them?). If I decide to do this, are there any support forums for skins, etc?

So I have come across this a few times in my roleplaying time and recently it came up again and I'm looking to get advise on how you would deal with it. So someone has a character that your on a site with and you put up a wanted ad or two. That person becomes interested in one of your new wanted ads and they tell you. "It looks interesting, what are you looking for?" etc. You give them the details and they choose to deny moving forward with it. Not that there is "possibly" hope. Straight up, there is no hope. That's fine right? So you continue to try to get the advertisement filled and a new person comes along and expresses interest in the same wanted ad in which you or they reach out and start to talk about the role and how you're looking to get it filled. In fact you go so far as to start planning things with them, deciding on mutual history points etc. Well Person 1 comes back to you after they see Person 2 has expressed interest in the same ad that they had expressed interest in and subsequently denied. Person 1 says "well I thought I was filling that role for you". Of course you explain that the person hadn't committed to it and the new person has already committed to it and that you were plotting for it already. To me that should have been the end of it. Of course it wasn't the end, never is. Person 1 gets offended taking back anything that they said before, of course they were interested. I have felt that Person 1 is looking to get you to take the character away from Person 2 even though Person 2 already started to develop it. Finally they go about saying "well it's fine, I didn't start anything on the character anyways. At least you told me before I did" which sounds perfectly amicable and this is where it ends right? Nope! Next up, you complete your complimentary character to Person 2's character that you've been working on with them since they committed to the role and Person 1 comes back (because Person 2 is still working on putting together their profile). Person 1 noticed you created the character that you had originally explained you wanted to pair with this character, they want to know if Person 2 was still making the character. Of course you advise them that the other Person 2 is still making the character. Instead of it being left at that, because you've been clear that Person 2 committed to the character, they were developing it with you, you made plans, Person 1 makes a snide comment about how "they asked about it first" like a comment like that would make you suddenly change your mind and magically give them the character. Overall I feel it's flattering that Person 1 is so adamant about wanting to play with me but I feel that they are a child with "that's mine" toy syndrome. Where, when someone else is playing with the toy they now think that is the best toy in the world even if they haven't played with it since it was put in the toy box. I also feel it's a little rude and disrespectful. Not only to the player that did actually commit to the role but to me. It feels like they are pouting and trying to manipulate me into giving them what they want. I'm dead serious that my children perform the same tactics however they have the pouty boo boo lip down, problem for anyone else in the world, the pouty boo boo lip is an automatic "hell no" in my house. Now that I've described the scenario, and I know I'm not the only one that has been in this situation (as I've had it happen multiple times to me) lets ask some questions: Am I correct to assume that the character is still available, that Person 1 isn't intent on making the character when they said no thanks and never provided information to the contrary before Person 2 shows up? Should I have told Person 2 that someone else was interested and now they wanted it for sure after actually discussing things with them and plotting? Should the "I saw it first!" or "Dibs" scenario take precedent? How would you go about explaining to Person 1 that you are offended by their behavior without making them upset and make them no longer want to play with you? How have you handled something like this? Anonymous poster hash: dafd2...0c5

Do you ever write "behind the scenes" of a roleplay? And by that I mean do you ever write something for the roleplay- but never actually post it on the site? This could even be with another partner! If so, why? For example, I do do this. On Google Docs, usually. There are two main reasons why I do it: 1) what's being written isn't at all pertinent to the story and so it doesn't need to be included on the forum, or 2) literally the exact opposite. But if it's important to the story, then why wouldn't I post about it on the forum? Well, technically I do and I don't. I give hints about what's going on, but I do not like to flat out tell people most of the time and enjoy surprising others. As an example, a friend and I once wrote a thread in secret about two characters plotting out specifically how they were going to make a grab for power within the castle. It wasn't a secret that they were going to do this if you had read their posts previously- there had been some dialogue already alluding to this fact. But we wanted the exact method to come as a surprise, so we let them talk about it "in secret" and only posted the thread to the public after they had done the deed. It was fun!

This is such a delicate sort of topic because I have found that I've been on sites where staff will take an original character and place them up for 'adoption' by another member and essentially allow the history to be copied which I personally don't like but, it's hard because I've definitely been on the 'abandoned' side of the spectrum before where you are really involved with a writing partner and their character is entirely intricate to your character's life and plot and then they suddenly up and vanish without any warning and your character is stuck married to and having children with this non-existent person and you're kind of left in the lurch. I'm curious to know how other people approach this because on my site, I will only place a character up for 'adoption' if they were a Wanted Ad of a member to begin with. Otherwise I encourage members to create an plot reason for that persons absence. i.e I put up a ad for my character 'Jill seeking John Smith, age 29, PB this, backstory this.' A person takes them, creates their own history and app around my character and my backstory, plays them for months and then vanishes and has no intentions to come back. What I do then is clear that app put a wanted ad up for the same character indicate the brief past encounters that might be relevant but ask the to re-create their own version of the character/history and their own whole new app. I do the same for all members who have lost a wanted, I'll allow them to place a version of the character they requested back up for adoption so long as the new member creates a whole new history. ...The issue is I've had members come back and ask for their applications only to be enraged to see someone else is playing a version of that character because they were planning to play that character somewhere else and accuse you of plagiarism. (Some of the members apologize after they realize the histories are completely brand new but some of them don't care and then go on to spread malicious word about you and the site because they feel slighted.) I usually have gone out of my way for these members to e-mail them their old histories since I view those writings as 'their property' when I easily could have just said I deleted them. (I always just archive old apps) I honestly don't know how to even respond to these sorts of things because who is in the wrong? If I created this character and you played him does that automatically make them your character? Are we not allowed to request that someone take up this crucial plot role? If certainly wouldn't be that way with a Site Canon, so where is the line? I'm curious to see if other sites have had these problems or if I'm just being too accommodating with members/past members.

Fandoms are easy in the sense that the material of the board comes at its core from a world already developed - Sure there's still the question of plot or theme, but the background is already set up. Some historical periods probably fall under this too. So my question focuses specifically for boards that are promoting "all original content" in their genres. As a member, what's the middle sweet spot between no detailed lore and a world "too" fleshed out (possibly making it intimidating to join under a feeling of stuffiness)? I personally like the "skeletal" setup where the boundaries are there, with detail, but open to interpretation. When I see like 20 pages of various nuances I start to feel a little overwhelmed and afraid of being "that Newbie" that steps on everyone's toes and assumed not to have read anything. On the flip side, a well-detailed world is more fascinating then just another "xyz genre rp".

A very common problem I've observed in my years running RPG's. How often do you have people ignoring or refusing to follow set rules for your game? One in particular is that A/ all character must have a face claim and B/ they must use a sig pic when posting for OC characters (we wave that rule for NPC's). So I've been told I'm a softie for allowing this to continue, I guess the only reason I do is because the players in particular are good writers and do keep up. So do we become totalitarian dictators enforcing our enshrined rules, or do we allow some leverage?

I know this must plague many of you, it does me no end. While I can accept it from Non English speakers, I do find it painful as well as tedious to be constantly telling the same member/s to use a spell check before posting. One member in particular, who has been with us since 2012, simply cannot get the most basic words correct. Seam for seem; theres for theirs and so on: the list is endless. This from someone who had managed to graduate from high school, then gaining entry into University to study Modern History?

So I'm not sure I like it or hate it. It's really a whatever sort of thing, if I want to say hello to a site I will pop into their cBox. I love doing that when I'm interested in a site. I, as a long time site administrator, know that a lot of guest traffic is spoofed.from search engines so it won't necessarily be an actual person that upped that guest number. So to me I think it's pointless but I can see it actually bringing someone out too, but it could also run them away. How does it make you feel as the guest? How do people feel about members of the site greeting guests? Whether it be Staff or members.

So something that has come and gone throughout the years is "text theming" by this, I mean where your site premise influences what you use for text around the site. Things like naming "guests" something that isn't guests like for a pirate site it could be "landlubbers" and for a Sci-Fi site it can be "Outlaw" or "Unregistered" or something like that. Now I'm not talking theming the whole thing like the applications form being named something insane and hard to determine. What I'm asking is how you feel about sites that go this far into their entire forum schema. Is it off putting specifically when you may not understand the theme fully? Is it easier or better to just leave things as they are when you create the forum?

So, more questions about things as I develop a site that was spurned by "Least favorite trends" and @Honorem. Playbys aka Faceclaims. With my new site I've been waffling over having them as they will have duplicates for androids and similar people. This means that I don't necessarily want the playbys to be exclusive since there is all sorts of potential there for copied faces and whatnot. Now I know that some people like to have a level of exclusivity to certain playbys because they are attached to them or something which may be a possibility depending on rank of the official (basically certain ranks can have exclusive faces unless they agree to let someone else duplicate it). The question here becomes, how do you, as a member, feel about non-exclusive playbys? Would that be something that is off putting? Would you want the same control over the use of your playby as a higher ranking official? Would you be willing to earn through in game play an exclusivity or be able to donate to the game to get an exclusive playby? (By this I mean you use an in game currency or donate real money to gain the exclusive playby that you can then choose who else is able to use it.)

Continuing on my questions about roleplay development. This one is more specific to forum roleplaying but my question here is, what do you prefer as far as forum viewing. The options are relatively clear and I want to know your preference as a staff member and a perspective member (I figure they may be even but you never know). For me I have no preference. If I understand the setting then the image will hopefully give me a feel for the location I'm going to post in. Descriptions are nice but can be too lengthy on the board index (sometimes I feel that a topic would be better). Otherwise I really have no preference. Note that I'm an avid advocate for subforum-less forums for easier browsing.

So I've come across a few of these types of sites, namely ones that are more "mature" then others as they say and despite paying for the Jcink or being self hosted they keep their IC forums hidden. How do you feel about that? Would you join a site that does this? For me I don't think I care either way as long as I get to see them before I app a character.

This poll may be restarted every once in a while so look for new polls but the question is exact how did you find your most recent site? If there is an option missing please feel free to let me know and I'll add it. My most recent site was from going through the directory here.

So a pet peeve of mine with newer skins is that read/unread indicators are disappearing. For the most part post people keep them in the topic list but you lose them in the main forum site which has always been my way to know to go check a forum that I posted in to see if I have a post. Yes, I know there are about a dozen other ways to check for new posts, included the "View new posts" (or activity stream here) but I hate having to do that. It feels inconvenient then an easy little icon that indicates new posts. Am I alone in this? It's almost as big of a pet peeve as not seeing the last post date on the forum index.

So another thing that this site does, in order to both encourage members to donate to the monthly costs of the site they offer things for donations. From a plot prompt to powerful in game items to a special super powerful being that is created for you are just some of the things you can buy with actual money. How does that sort of thing make you feel? Do you think it's enough incentive to get people donating? Would you donate if you got one of those things as the item? So far I think it's great. It's an incentive to help out your community and gets you something fun to play with in game that could help you in future plot.

So I've been on a site that you have to earn currency and with that currency you can purchase things on the site. Be it items, special abilities, you name it. And it's a very interesting concept, it's something I've wanted to implement in a survival horror game if I ever find some interested parties. Now my curiosity is, how do people feel about this? Do you feel like it's too much effort to earn special things and you just want to start off the baddest of the bad? Would you play on a site that you had to earn things through playing? I know that most people may think it "stifles your creativity" when in reality I believe that it gives you plot opportunities. I mean if you don't start off with the nuclear switch in your head but you earn it through posting actively then apply for it. Now the kicker here is that you can either outright pay for it with this in game currency or you can earn it through active posting. With the active posting you get a prompt in order to start off getting the thing that you applied for so that you can act out getting it in character.

As a staff members and member I like fluid real time. Basically to the point that if it's August 3rd and a post is made on that day then it's happening on that day unless otherwise stated. Now that doesn't mean that if it would fit better elsewhere in your characters timeline then you can't move it but I like the real time forward movement of life. I hate to be stuck in summer when it's freezing outside. I would rather be in winter in the game. For some people this doesn't work as they don't post as often or something but I was curious as a member, as a staff member what are your preferences?

I'm sure we all know the cycle. You start a forum with maybe one or two interested parties and you start advertising your site. Meanwhile, you and your buddies are RPing and hoping that your site gathers at least a few other people to play with you! But as folks visit your site, and they see that you have only a few people playing, they say, "You don't have enough members. I'm not joining a site that doesn't have lots of members!" and they leave -- even if you and your friends are RPing daily, and in many different places! So no one will join your site because it only has a few members - and yet it can't get more members because no one joins! Aside from advertising your site everywhere you possibly can, I'm hoping we can share some ideas on how we've managed to encourage those members to consider joining even if your current member base is small. I'm wondering: 1. For those of you whose RPs have several members, how did you break that cycle? 2. What are your thoughts on individual members creating multiple OOC accounts with active IC sub-accounts, just to artificially inflate the members list? 3. If you've tried holding "Grand Opening" events or large group plots, what did you find worked best for you? 4. Do you have other suggestions to break that cycle?

So I was looking at my characters and other characters and I noticed I tend to primarily play extroverts but I do play a few introverts. Now mind you the definition varies but for the most part what I mean is someone that outgoing or someone that is not outgoing. I personally prefer extroverts as they give more reasons to meet other people. I do know there is a place for introverts but I often find them difficult to get plot going with without forcing the player to push them outside of their comfort zone. Thoughts opinions?

A couple of weeks ago I signed up to a local MeetUp group for tabletop rps, something I have always wanted to try out but have never gotten around to actually doing. With me getting a new job and finally leaving the nightmare behind me that is called my thesis I figured why not try it now. I got in touch with one of the leaders of the group and they got me in touch with a GM who has been running a group for sometime now. He was very willing to help me get into the game and join the group. All of them have been very kind and helpful when I expressed that I wanted to get into it. I was a little afraid at first that because I didn't have so much knowledge. It turned out that fear was unjustified, they were very excited to introduce a newbie to the game and help me out to the best of their abilities. The first session was a private session so that the GM could set it up so that I could join the group, as the group had been playing for quite some time already. After discussing some more details of my characters background we started. At first I was a little uncertain as to what to do. Soon I started to get into it and was looking forward to came next. Apparently my character didn't respond the way the GM expected, so he had to improvise himself which was fun. Are there any others that are doing tabletop rps? And would anyone be willing to try an online tabletop rp, because I would love to try something online.

A random question posted at... eh, almost 2am. Do you listen to music while you're posting? And do you have certain songs that remind you of certain characters, that inspire you to write for them - a playlist for posting? I have several. Presently my favorite for a certain character is: