Iwaku Newsletter; April Fools Edition
Another spring. Another edition of the Iwaku Newsletter. From PSA's and generic site updates, to fun talk about past, present, and upcoming events, read all about what's been brewing on the site right here! The first edition came out in
October 2022 and focused on polishing up old policies. The
second edition laid out our focus for what 2023 will bring and this edition focuses on laying out those foundations!
PSA's, Updates and Site News
Oh how time flies.
January brought Iwaku several new Roleplay Realms
(peep the Roleplay Sparkles section) as well as the release of the
Iwaku Love Contest, which ushered in February and the month-long
Iwaku Love Festival! There were themed threads and events wherever the eye could see, as well as the
winners of the ILC! Trophies were handed out and the beloved
Valentine react went off to slumber until next February!
March 13th came as 2023's first Update Day, a small maintenance update our Owlmum wanted to get done sooner rather than later. As always, if there's anything you encounter that may be a bug,
let us know so we can stomp on it!
Past and Future: Events and Contests
Current Events
Recurring Events
Future Events
- @Manna Beast and @Miyu are planning an event for May- keep an eye out for the Mystery RP Palooza!
- Live readings of YOUR Roleplays, coming back to Iwaku soon!
- Poetry Fantastic Fanfare Talk (PFFT) - Next edition July 2023
- Learning French with Pav night! - Coming Soon!
- Summer Book Club is returning to Iwaku!
Iwaku Sparkles
Site-wide Sparkles
- A NSFW Content Guide is on the way, written by our lovely Site Support lead, @Kuno
- The BBCode Help thread has been giving a shiny new update! Got code-related questions? Ask them here!
- Iwaku's Resources are getting an overhaul, to be easier to read and consume. Check the next few announcements for any big changes!
Roleplay Help & Writing Guides Spotlight
Roleplay Sparkles
Have you ever wondered what the
Roleplay Realms are? Well, they're Iwaku's featured roleplays!
These large scale and character rich settings are
always open to new players (newbie and veteran alike) and provide a swathe of space for gamemasters and players to craft stories, adventures, and winding sagas that transcend the material. Between location based threads that span cities and even multiverses and compelling plot driven narratives, the Roleplay Realms provide unique and cultivated spaces to roleplay. Will you weave your own narrative or join an ongoing adventure amongst the stars? With many of the realms, the choice is entirely your own!
THE REGENCY INDEX
At the turn of the 19th century, Britain's fashionable elite dance in their balls and look for the best marriage partners, while the dark areas of London teem with the poor in their slums. Craft your own private stories or join larger events in this historical setting of glitz, glamor, and maybe even intrigue.
Interested? Good. Your invitation has arrived.The Multiverse is open! That which separates the realities between living beings across realms, galaxies, and the cosmos has been drilled opened. Roads between them have been formed, and chaos is spewing all over as conflicts arise from the confusion of how this is all possible. While the main culprit, an AI and her machine army, manipulates it all from the darkness of space. Explore these new worlds, both familiar and new, and see what awaits you in... The Evrensel Conflict!
Are you ready to explore the multiverse? Read over the rules and jump into the Discord once you're well armed!Welcome to Cervia, where monsters and magic are real, and only the strongest rule while the rest kneel. Whether you are a noble Vampir hosting banquets or a Fae eating their scraps, your life is bound to twist and turn in this dangerous world. Will you help shape the future of the country?
Are you ready to shape the future of Cervia? Apply for citizenship here.Myths and legends come to life in this fantastical reimagining of the ancient Persian Empire and its bordering nations– some drawn from history, and some as whimsical as the Simurgh that flies the Persian skies.
Has your interest been piqued? Read through the Introductory Guide, join the Discord if you'd like, or Ask the Shah if you're still curious for more lore! The bombs fell. The world burned. Humanity... survived. 227 years after the Great War, mankind, splintered by radiation, thrives in remote settlements across the post-nuclear landscape. Welcome to the Wasteland— where everything and its mother wants you dead.
Read over the Wasteland Survival Guide if you plan on kickin' up dust in the wastes.In the expansive world of Magaia, adventure awaits at every turn. The world is as boundless as the magical people who inhabit it. Each with their own unique culture and history. While an ancient magic flows deep inside the earth, it can shape the world in unimaginable ways. With wondrous beasts and bloodthirsty monsters walking among men, only the strongest will survive.
Coming soon!
GM Interviews
Another edition of the Iwaku Newsletter means another edition of GM Interviews. Here, Gamemasters are interviewed and pressed for their hottest tips on how to engage players, worldbuild with purpose, and how to keep roleplay(s) alive! This month,
@Wade Von Doom (winner of WaRP 2022/2023 and GM of the Evrensel Conflict) and
@LuckycoolHawk9 (GM of the longest running group RP on Iwaku) are interviewed for a peek into their experience and how it can benefit current and future GMs.
@Wade Von Doom & The Evrensel Conflict
- In your experience, what's the most important tool a GM should have and hone for roleplay success?
Wade Von Doom said:
Flexibility. I can't tell you the number of times I've written down a plotline for one of my threads and it fell off the rails because I wasn't flexible enough with my players to account for actions that wasn't in line with what I had in mind.
For me, I'm a very critical thinker. I need to have every detail of my idea noted down, from how the players get from A to B, to specific details of the plot that will add to the general world building, but may not be important enough to actually mention, or even be mentioned at all if the players don't actually try to find it. When you go into thinking of your plot, a friend of mine told once that when it comes to roleplaying, think of it like a Halo campaign.
There is an A to B, start to finish linearity when it comes to a roleplay like Evrensel, where we're very plot centric. But, the environment should be open enough for players to explore and strategize in, rather than say a Call of Duty campaign of strict linearity of Point A, Point B, Point C, etc.
If your plot allows it, let them tackle each section however they wish, in whatever order they wish. And if they bump into an invisible wall, then you can find a way to let them know it without abruptly stopping them in their tracks. You're the Director of this play, and your players are your actors. Give them a stage, a direction, and let them go crazy. You can certainly stop them from going off-stage entirely, but what they can offer when they know the boundaries can be a lot of fun.
- How do you keep your players engaged? Both within the narrative and in an OOC (out-of-character) sense?
Wade Von Doom said:
Having an active community I think can really make the difference in keeping players engaged. A lot of RPs can easily die off because the interest levels may start off high, but peter out once the rush of something new wares off. While the players may still be interested, the GM may find it harder to keep active once you get past the first several posts, and the excitement of the scene about to play out, with all sorts of ideas of how things may go and what interactions will be had, fading once the realization sets in that it'll take a long time to reach those exciting bits because IRL takes precedence over our little hobby here.
When you do hit those points of slogging through the bits you don't actually want to play out, having a player base that keeps active OOC can really help you keep the focus on the fun of playing with these people. You have a common goal, both for the story you all want to tell, and the fun of playing with these characters and having them bounce off each other, and they're willing to be patient with you to keep it going. Whether it means waiting a week or a month, that excitement is what will keep things going. If you vanish or ghost on them, then they'll move on to something else.
Keep in touch with them, interact with them in the OOC, keep open communication with them, so they know how you're doing. Find the right idea for your RP that you love, and are willing to keep at it for however long you want it to go for, and make sure your players know your enthusiasm for the idea, because they love a GM who shows that. It makes all the difference in the world for keeping them engaged, no matter how quick or slow you/they are to post for it.
- As an existing roleplay winner of WaRP, how has transitioning into a realm benefitted the Evrensel Conflict?
Wade Von Doom said:
The management is a massive help. Lol
Evrensel's first iteration started off as a forum on FanFiction.net. It ran for a year, but after some issues in IRL, I called it off and eventually left the site in general. But, it didn't stop me from later trying again, this time on different sites. I would say this current iteration of Evrensel is probably the 8th or 9th version.
It's gone through quite a lot of reboots, and certainly was challenging to reconfigure it to be this tangled web of various threads across Iwaku and Discord, with links in different categories or forums, and advertising it as a group RP that has more than one thread at a time. But, as I'm a stubborn man, I refused to let any of it hinder Evrensel. When you have enough passion for the idea, you'll find a way to make it work. It may take A LOT of tinkering, but if you can keep the core of it in your vision, then even if you don't find yourself with a forum, the means are there to enact the thing you really want to do.
- From a GM's perspective, what's the hardest part of handling a roleplay that spans multiverses? What's the best part about it?
Wade Von Doom said:
The hardest part is, without a doubt, accessibility.
The multiverse is a very fun idea, and there's so much potential for stories and characters when you open it up. But, how do you not let it become overwhelming to new players? One idea is to have there be a central location. All roads between realities lead to one place, meaning you only need to write for one location, and everyone can be within that. The other is to have it span across various locations to show the scope of how large the story is.
The former can be very easy to control, especially if it's a location of your own creation. But, there's still the issue of maintaining a power balance between characters. One person may want to play as Superman, the other may want to play as Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil. They are two vastly different people, both personality wise and regarding powers. How do you balance the power scale so you don't alienate players?
You can limit which fandoms are used, keeping only to ones you are familiar with, but there's the issue of how much of these fandom worlds you change from the story. You could have a list of original creations by you and your players, along with allowed fandoms like Doctor Who, Supernatural, Merlin, Star Trek, Star Wars, and maybe the MCU. But, as the story of your RP goes along, change would be inevitable. To the preestablished characters being played, to the worlds they're from. You can't have it be that none of them are affected by the story, it would mean there are no consequences on player actions.
But, if new people join who are familiar with these fandoms, they may be alienated. One of the selling points of a fandom in a multiverse setting is familiarity of existing materials. If the material is changed, it could very well make things difficult for them to engage in the story if they're playing catch up in both the story, and how the fandom they like has changed. I don't mean to say anything I said above is bad, I wouldn't blame anyone for focusing on just a few fandoms or original creations so it doesn't overwhelm you. I choose the latter idea of various locations across the multiverse, and it's the harder of the two ideas for sure to keep track and focus of.
But, for me personally, it leads to the best part: A flood of ideas to play with.
The potential for how these worlds, characters, and settings interact with each other is incredible fun to play with. Not just as a GM, but for a player as well. You can explore different possibilities, expand upon ideas that maybe the existing material you are playing with hasn't, you can create new consequences for the player, it's a plethora of imagination for story telling in RP'ing. A challenge for sure, but one I've always been up to the task of.
- What do you think makes players invested in a roleplay? How should future GMs plan to keep their players entertained?
Wade Von Doom said:
It's the freedom of choice, like any good game, that makes players invested. When they have a character they feel confident playing as, giving them an environment they can play in, whether familiar or not to their character, is a lot of fun. They could be investigative, helpful, destructive, secretly evil, they want their character to do any of these things within the environment and see what becomes of their actions.
Certainly giving them an interesting world helps with investment, but a good GM should always make sure the action is reacted upon. Can be good, can be bad, can have nothing happen from it at all. But, as long as the player feels you're paying attention to their actions, then that can help them keep involved in the story or the world.
And don't be afraid to have the reactions play out differently than you wanted them to. The domino effect is fun to play out, as one idea can lead to another, which could be more fun to play out. If it doesn't work, then it doesn't, and you move on from it. But, as long as the player feels satisfied their actions made something happen, then that can make them feel happy to continue playing, knowing the world can be fun to poke around at.
- What can players do to help gamemasters like yourself? Any tips for new players?
Wade Von Doom said:
Don't be afraid to ask questions to the GM.
There's always players who struggle to come up with posts, or lack motivation to get into the right mindset. If you need help, the GM should be there to help figure out what you would like to get out of your character in the scene. If you don't understand the scene, ask about the details of it to see if that'll jumpstart the brain.
It's never dumb to ask the GM a question. The GM, like yourself, is doing this as a hobby, and we're not better writers than you because we run a roleplay. Sometimes we can struggle too, and helping players can even help us out with direction if we aren't sure.
Even offering ideas to us isn't something to be ashamed of. The GM may have a set idea, but like any collaboration, all voices are equal when it comes to what the player thinks and if it could work in the setting. We're here to have fun after all, and it's fun to work with others on a goal we all want to achieve together.
@LuckycoolHawk9 & Starlight City / A Cruise Ship Experiment
Check back soon for Lucky's GM Interview!
Know a roleplay or gamemaster that deserves a spot in the next Iwaku Newsletter? Message @Nemopedia to nominate them!
Feed the Bunny
( ﾟДﾟ)＜!! Spamageddon Begins
I can hear you all screaming it already,
rissa, what the hell is Spamageddon? Well, fellow Iwakuian, it's
@Diana's masterplan to kidnap new people to our site! Our mission?
To get 500 daily active members by the end of the year!
It'll be an arduous process, one that'll take community effort, and our current goal in this pursuit is to host a month long ad campaign in April where we post Iwaku advertisement on as many roleplay forums as possible. More details (like ad-posting etiquette and affiliate partners) can be found in the official
Spamageddon thread, where Owlmum has laid out her masterplan.
To keep a community like Iwaku running, support is always needed; after all, the bunny's gotta be fed so the plots can stay flowing! Curious on how you can help support Iwaku?
Join the staff team! More than just the bunnies that help maintain the site, answer questions, and run events, they're also a team that helps make projects like this newsletter possible! We all strive to work together for a better Iwaku for us all. The requirements aren't heavy (just a few hours per week) but a consistent activity level is important!
Don't have the time or will to commit? No worries!
Donating is another way to help keep Iwaku afloat. Privately owned and run, Iwaku doesn't rely on advertisement to pay for its
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fancy perks and receive the fun donator-blue color!
Don't have money but still want to help out somehow? Don't fret, a simple
vote for Iwaku on TopRP goes a long way!
Riddle Me!
The nonogram in last edition's Riddle Me depicted the Iwaku Bunny! If you'd like to receive your own Riddle Frog trophy, be one of the first ten people to message
@rissa with the correct answer to the following riddle:
What is a frog's favorite year?
Rissa's Gator Bait
