Freeform Roleplaying Opportunities Wanted
May 22, 2008 8:40 PM Subscribe
Know of any good freeform roleplaying sites?
I want to find a good chat room or forum where people engage in freeform roleplay. I'm most interested in communities where the emphasis is on the writing, not the stats or whatever, but I also want a place that's pretty nice to newbies... Since that's what I'll be.
I don't care about environment, genre or any other specifics. Just give me what you've got! Pretty much, I have some free time I wasn't expecting and it's making me miss roleplaying like I used to. I want to get into some "interactive writing" with some fun people and not too many rules. Does any place like that still exist?
(This is anonymous because I don't need coworkers teasing me.)
I want to find a good chat room or forum where people engage in freeform roleplay. I'm most interested in communities where the emphasis is on the writing, not the stats or whatever, but I also want a place that's pretty nice to newbies... Since that's what I'll be.
I don't care about environment, genre or any other specifics. Just give me what you've got! Pretty much, I have some free time I wasn't expecting and it's making me miss roleplaying like I used to. I want to get into some "interactive writing" with some fun people and not too many rules. Does any place like that still exist?
(This is anonymous because I don't need coworkers teasing me.)
NationStates (based on the futuristic political thriller Jennifer Government by Max Barry, and created by same) might interest you. It allows you to roleplay as the leader of an entire country. You start by answering a few questions about your political philosophy, and the game then generates a nation tailored to your ideals. From then on the game will periodically message you with some pressing political issue occurring in your nation, and your response will sway the nature of your society.
That's pretty much the extent of the formal gameplay: influencing your government type (and a few simple statistics) with your policy decisions. But that's really just flavor. The real meat of the game is in roleplaying with other players.
You do this on the site's forums, which include a model United Nations (now called the "World Assembly" after Barry recieved a cease-and-desist from the real UN), where players debate and pass laws which (theoretically) affect the rest of the community, and a space for the playing out of "international incidents", where aggressive players can fight (imaginary) wars. Players can also create and join regions, some of which have hundreds of member-states. The largest regions develop their own mini-communities, with off-site forums dedicated to regional policy debates and mock elections. All this is done through free-form roleplay in the context of forums, bulletin boards, and private messages.
I can vouch for the vibrancy of the community, as I participated in one of the larger regions for a few months and was a regular of the game's off-topic forum for awhile. I hear there's also a sequel to the game debuting soon, though I'm not sure what the feature set will be.
Anyway, if you have an interest in politics it's great, a very open and free-form RPG to settle into.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:15 AM on May 23, 2008
That's pretty much the extent of the formal gameplay: influencing your government type (and a few simple statistics) with your policy decisions. But that's really just flavor. The real meat of the game is in roleplaying with other players.
You do this on the site's forums, which include a model United Nations (now called the "World Assembly" after Barry recieved a cease-and-desist from the real UN), where players debate and pass laws which (theoretically) affect the rest of the community, and a space for the playing out of "international incidents", where aggressive players can fight (imaginary) wars. Players can also create and join regions, some of which have hundreds of member-states. The largest regions develop their own mini-communities, with off-site forums dedicated to regional policy debates and mock elections. All this is done through free-form roleplay in the context of forums, bulletin boards, and private messages.
I can vouch for the vibrancy of the community, as I participated in one of the larger regions for a few months and was a regular of the game's off-topic forum for awhile. I hear there's also a sequel to the game debuting soon, though I'm not sure what the feature set will be.
Anyway, if you have an interest in politics it's great, a very open and free-form RPG to settle into.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:15 AM on May 23, 2008
There are a zillion roleplaying communities on Second Life. It's free for a basic membership. But, there's a lot of ... stuff .. to learn before you can just roleplay. That said, for variety, I think it would be hard to beat.
posted by cameradv at 6:34 AM on May 23, 2008
posted by cameradv at 6:34 AM on May 23, 2008
Well, MUSHing is still going strong. Perhaps not as strong as it was 10 years ago, but a community still exists.
Most of these games are very role-playing based. Each one has a different degree of 'stats' and such. Some will have none . . . you essentially sketch out a description and background for your character and go. Others have fairly complex systems that help determine what happens in specific situations. (If you enter a sword fight, you'll role play the fight, but behind the scenes a roll is made to see who will eventually win.)
So, to get started, find a MUSH. Go here and selected 'MUSH' and 'MUX' in the 'Select a Server Type' box and hit 'Search'. You'll get a big list of games. Find one that you like the look of. You'll have to make sure that the game has active players. Some games hang around for years without many people actually playing.
I'm a bit out of the loop, but I know FiranMUX was a good spot to get up and running quickly . . . and always had many people online.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding MUSHing. I think it fits what you're looking for. Text-based roleplay without any strings attached.
posted by ChrisManley at 6:48 AM on May 23, 2008
Most of these games are very role-playing based. Each one has a different degree of 'stats' and such. Some will have none . . . you essentially sketch out a description and background for your character and go. Others have fairly complex systems that help determine what happens in specific situations. (If you enter a sword fight, you'll role play the fight, but behind the scenes a roll is made to see who will eventually win.)
So, to get started, find a MUSH. Go here and selected 'MUSH' and 'MUX' in the 'Select a Server Type' box and hit 'Search'. You'll get a big list of games. Find one that you like the look of. You'll have to make sure that the game has active players. Some games hang around for years without many people actually playing.
I'm a bit out of the loop, but I know FiranMUX was a good spot to get up and running quickly . . . and always had many people online.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding MUSHing. I think it fits what you're looking for. Text-based roleplay without any strings attached.
posted by ChrisManley at 6:48 AM on May 23, 2008
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Back when I played they didn't really have a website and it all revolved around the usenet group alt.starfleet.rpg and various mailing lists...
posted by Jerub at 9:06 PM on May 22, 2008