The Medium is the Message
SavageRifts.com is a Play-by-Post (PbP) website for role playing games. This means we use dedicated internet forums, or discussion boards, to creatively describe our world in writing. In this medium all of our character sheets, adventures, in-character, and out of character interactions happen in dedicated threads to help keep our collaborative enterprise organized and enjoyable.
One of the reasons players turn to online gaming is lack of time. PbP gaming is great for those who have real lives (abbreviated on the forums as “RL”). Rather that sitting down for three or four hours at the gaming table or in an online chat room, PbP games happen asynchronously - meaning people post a different times as their schedules permit. This also means PbP games move much slower than tabletop or live chat gaming. At SavageRifts.com we make up for this in two very important ways: High quality writing and well enforced site standards.
High Quality Writing
Everyone on the site, players and GMs, are writing together to tell a story. We use the Savage Rifts universe as our setting and their rules for resolving certain conflicts but ultimately we’re writing a story. A story in which your character is a major player. To this end we look for well written posts that describe not only what your character is doing but what they are thinking and feeling. This usually means posts are more than one line long and, depending on the circumstances, can be very involved. We encourage character introspection and dialogue with other players. We also encourage the use of proofreading and spell check. Our site features a handy “Preview” function that lets you view your fully formatted post before submitting. This can be a very helpful tool for reviewing a post before hitting send. If you do notice a mistake, don’t worry, players can usually edit their posts too (except the dice rolls, we lock those bad boys down tight).
Protip: Before hitting submit use the “Select All” function and copy your post (either to hold it on the clipboard or paste it in another app). This way if the boards freezes or your internet connection suddenly drops you don’t lose all that hard work.
Style
In general, we prefer the third person, present tense format of writing. This tells us what the character is doing now, as opposed to what has happened. The sites following this. Also, be sure you don't take too many liberties. You are in complete control of what your character wants to do, but it is the GM's job to mix everyone's actions into a coherent whole. Don't try to control the actions of others (unless given explicit permission).
- https://www.thebalance.com/writing-fict ... on-1277122
https://ditchwalk.com/2010/07/05/scruti ... tense-pov/