Question for the Iwaku Roleplayers!

[Diana]

Since everyone is running around having fun with questions this week, why not some really good ones! 8D

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

 

[Sole]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying? 2005
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like? Good at the time, looking back on it though it was terrible due to its much lower standards.
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community! ...IMVU ;-;
4. What made you pick Iwaku? Activity. Far better activity than RoleplayerGuild (where I recently came from).
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it? Keeps me distracted from distress, and relieves writers block I have over writing my book.

 

[Hope]

Since everyone is running around having fun with questions this week, why not some really good ones! 8D

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

I like your positivity, Diana!

1. At MOONWINGS like 13 years ago ^^

2. It was awkward at first. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had a great time. It was what really got me into writing. I appreciate all the people that encouraged me, and I try to do the same for others.

3. Ummm, Moonwings. Awesome. Amazing. Fun. Family. Saved me. ^^

4. Aside from the after Moonwings thing... There is the fact that I've tried other forums. There is no other community like this one. Everyone is like a family here. I cherish all the friendships I've made.

5. It keeps my creative juices flowing. I like to challenge myself to become a better writer. ^^

 

[LunaValentine]

1. A long, long time ago (I was like...in first or second grade?)
2. Clumsy but fun
3. No thanks......It was Neopets...wwwaaaaaayyyyy back in the 90's
4. My friend Dedtoo made me do it. I thought it would be nice.
5. I'm looking to be entertained. I'm also looking for ALL kinds of the feels.

 

[Aine]

1. When I was... 13 or so, which means about seven years ago.
2. .... Awkward. I created an obnoxious elf character and I think I described her eyes 'poetically' for few paragraphs. To be honest, I die inside a little every time I remember it.
3. Tiny, non-English speaking server nobody here knows. It was a good site, but I abandoned it circa year ago due to some issues with certain members of the community. That's the reason I actually registered on Iwaku.
4. I just typed 'roleplaying forum' or something similar into Google and Iwaku was among the first results. And boom, now I'm here!
5. I love writing, but I'm too lazy to do it alone. Besides, it's a far better challenge to run the plot when there are other people involved.

 

[redblood]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
   When I started on iwaku three years ago :D It's so addictive
   
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
   Pff, I can't even remember what I had to breakfast, and you're expecting me to remember that? No way.
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
   IT WAS THE WORST ROLEPLAY COMMUNITY I'VE EVER BEEN AN ACTIVE MEMBER ON! AND THE BEST! cause it was the only one...
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
   Because every other site I looked at had so bright colors or only did one genre/setting or something like that. Iwaku was the most varied with the best designs I could find at the time.
   
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
   Just like books and movies, it's an escape from reality, but I can choose which direction it will take myself and still get some surprises when my partner throws in their ideas. It's also a good way of practicing my English writing skills.

 

[Ser K+]

Yeah... I don't know what's with these random questionnaires as of late.

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
   In 8th grade? I hardly got into it though.
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
   It was in this awkward play format (Character: Blah blah subject! *flails*)
   
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
   Youtube, with role-play groups, you know, back before Google went and screwed everything up.
   
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
   No offense to every other site... but a lot of them looked... more creeper prone. (OH! And ze COLOURS!)
   
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
   It's fun and I like writing. It also helps me realize my many, many, story writing flaws when I go back to read a couple stories I started to write. (I think it's had me mature up a bit too.)

I seriously adore this site, It's pretty great. ^^

 

[K3l]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?

When I was younger (Like, four) I used to roleplay as Pokemon with a few friends in my yard. I didn't know what the fuck it was called, or what I was doing, but I was doing it! Then as I got older I started doing the whole sticky note/notebook style of role-playing, eventually moving to forums.

2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

I don't remember much of my first forum aside from a few RPs here and there, but I guess that means nothing there was really memorable. As for chat roleplays I somehow ended up doing them with friends for whatever reason. It'd go from, "Hey how are ya?" to, "I bashed this zombie's head in with a brick!" in just a matter of a few minutes.

3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

Once again, I don't remember much from it. Unless the Pokemon thing counts, if so, then just imagine children who begged for candy, watched cartoons, and for some reason acted as Pokemon. That was the community right there.

4. What made you pick Iwaku?

Was already looking at the site for about a year and was interested in it but never signed up. The other site I roleplay kinda....Turned to shit (I know a few people here may know what I'm talking about), and Iwaku was the next best thing. So now I'm here, because another site fucked up. Honestly I like it better here though, the site and community in general.

5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
(Bout to go full anime backstory on you fuckers, watch out!)

Well I've always been interested in writing, ever since I was young I wrote. So far I have written seven novels, and allot more short stories and poems. It became my escape from the real world, abuse and all that jizzy jazz, alongside video games. People who have read my writing had expressed how much they've enjoyed reading it, and even got messages like, "My only birthday wish is to read a new chapter of your story!" and long heartfelt messages about how my writing actually inspired them and helped with some real world things. So it wasn't exactly the praise my writing got that made me happy, but knowing that I actually helped others in the way that I've always wanted to be helped and just the fact that I could entertain them in general. So where does roleplaying fit into this? Well, I've found that it's more fun to write with others....That's pretty much it. I like to enjoy others writing just as they enjoy mine. So what I'm looking to get out of RPing is entertaining others (And being entertained). Luckily a two year RP I'm in has gathered up it's own little fan-base, so that's cool too.

I know I could have said that outright without the whole backstory but I wanted to feel like I was in an anime, let me live my dream!

 

[Alan]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

I'll bite.

1. June 1997, just before my 17th birthday.
2. It was a group that formed earlier that year on Yahoo Chat called The Vampire Tavern. Yes, Yahoo did, at one time, have chat rooms.
3. We were a community that roleplayed various aspects of Vampire lore, based on the White Wolf rules. We did other fantasy RP as well, but mostly stuck to vampire RP as defined by the White Wolf rules.
4. Moonwings.
5. I haven't done much in the line of RP since my LARP days were put on hiatus back in 2008, but for me, RP is about creating and playing out a unique and engaging storyline. I feel a sense of accomplishment when I start with an empty foundation and build something great upon it.

 

[Kylulu]

• When did you first get in to roleplaying?

Back when I was in 11th or 12th grade. So about 2009-2010 ish. But I'd been LARPing for years before that.

• What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

It was a smut role-play. With vampire boys.

• Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

TinierMe was a Gaia-like site, with a huge, world wide community. There was only one forum area I was a part of, and that was the BL rp group. TinierMe was shut down recent-ish.

• What made you pick Iwaku?

Jack brought me in to watch the 24 hour wake-athon that you all were doing. Seemed like a fun place, so I hung around.

• Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

I love to write, and find that writing with another person, where I'm not in direct control of every little detail, is actually rather fun.

 

[Genghismike]

• When did you first get in to roleplaying?

2001. Back when I was a wee little lad at the tender age of 13

• What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

Ironically, I didn't even know what RP was. I had a tendency to hang out in the Pool Party chat room on AOL, and people there would just chat and bullshit around. But I liked to make myself "do" things in the chatroom. It wasn't until an rper approached me and told me I was a good roleplayer that I realized it was a thing. And my response was "What's RP?"

• Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

Pretty fun. It was new and everyone was so into writing and all the characters were so diverse and interesting. As an avid reader and having an overactive imagination, it was heaven for 13 year old me. And then came the age of Naruto. And Bleach. And I disappeared from the writing scene for a while until I discovered forums.

• What made you pick Iwaku?

I was forced to. Now I see it's a good decision.

• Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

It's fun. It's a creative outlet which can be done with others of similar interests. And personally, I feel a sense of satisfaction when I can paint a picture using words, and help others to improve their own skills.

 

[daemon_reaver]

1. middle school so about '09(maybe?) on Champions Online.
2. Not too bad.
3. Champions Online is pretty good. that was the MMO i started RPing on. most friends left though so don't really go on. Roleplaygateway was alright but took forever for people to sign on to a roleplay which died quickly.
4. found it on RPnation. which i left due to lack of activity and constant re-mapping. plus faulty alert system. the lack of activity and and constant re-mapping likely have something to due with each other. the creative freedom of course helps.
5. Got into due to it's a vent for my overactive imagination and not look like a total weirdo.

 

[heliacalRebirth]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?

My freshman year of high school... so.... 2012? Maybe? o.o


What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

My first ever role-play was based on A Game of Mafia, and it was hilariously bad but so fun at the same time


Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

My first role-playing community was actually my close group of friends. I had never even touched a role-play site my entire life, but I decided to make my own site on a whim (on proboards, which was very kind to super noobs like myself). Oh man... best thing ever.


What made you pick Iwaku?

Organization was hella good compared to most RP sites I've seen. Plus the default layout and design is very convenient... and there's lot of background thingies.... (yes, I am a huge sucker for advertisement. ESPECIALLY ON ENERGY DRINKS LIKE THEY ALL LOOK SO COOL)


Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

Because it's writing a story, letting all your creative juices seep out with other people! It's a lot more unpredictable and layered with all the different writing styles and directions the story can go making the composition and overall more interesting specimen ;3

 

[Jaydee]

Since everyone is running around having fun with questions this week, why not some really good ones! 8D

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

1. Getting real technical, I would play with action figures with friends of mine, having characters, long stories, and the like. Looking back, Dragonball Z was a big influence since I loved the feeling of continuity for characters, of seeing them grow throughout their journeys.

On online roleplaying, I think my first experience was in some comic forum I am actually embarrassed to think about. Twelve... no, I think fourteen years ago. Crud, I'm old.

2. Reasonably good, sometimes a bit off since I was an even worse writer back then. I got a bit better by the time a few of us decided to gather and have a forum of our own, but those were dark days where one has only one OC that is an absolute self-insert with trenchcoats and swords.

3. At one point, a few of us made our own forum, which was kind of our awesome little club. Among one of the people there, one said a quote that stayed with me in regards to writing: "Write as if you were writing a book." That quote made me think a lot about the way I write and tell stories, and to this day I consider it the most important quote in regards to making an engaging story.

4. I hail from Journal RP, livejournal and dreamwidth, specifically. For a while I roleplayed mostly canon characters, studying them, inspecting them, and what I liked was having long, connected stories for each character. However, things changed too much, RPs began to fill less niches, and after I decided I wanted to write original stories of my own, I decided to seek for someplace else to RP.

There's a lot of young people here, but I also see much less fear of new ideas and new stories. Seeing new faces coming in daily is refreshing, I don't know where to begin. I've done RP in forums, so this isn't too new to me, and everything has come a long way, it's rather comfortable to use. Sometimes I wish I could join more RPs since work has given me less time.

5. I am parroting this a lot, but I love stories and storytelling. I love taking different roles, acting, writing, forging new worlds and continuities. One of my favorite hobbies is collaborative storytelling, and seeing a character grow and change is fascinating, enormously satisfying.

 

[Isho13]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?

I think it was back in 2007 or 2009, when I was introduced to tabletop rpgs.

1. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

Good, I guess... I don't remember which one was the first one, but I remember I always had fun with it.

1. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

There was this latin american forum about anime, that had a roleplay section. You could roleplay anything, not just things anime related. Even if the space dedicated for roleplay withing the forum was very small (as in having no sub forums whatsoever), it was very well organized.

1. What made you pick Iwaku?

I liked the site's design, how they handled private messages, the sub forums, all of it; and I loved how it is so community focused, and how the forum encourage everyone to be friendly, instead of just expecting it.

1. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

I roleplay because it's fun to play pretend. I've been doing it all my life. Funny story: when I was little, I roleplayed a character (I was a little kid, didn't know what roleplay or acting was) who was my cousin, who worked in a russian circus selling warm icecream (?), and who thought I hated her for some reason xD

I expect to make new fond, funny memories, with my friends; both in real life and on the internet. And it's one of my sources of inspiration for drawing.

 

[Mr.Scales ⚖]

When did you first get in to roleplaying? I think about 2010
What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like? Long time ago, can't remember
Tell us about your very first roleplay community! IMVU, it didn't have as skilled roleplayers as iwaku, so i found iwaku
What made you pick Iwaku? i kept looking for a roleplaying website to replace IMVU, then i found Iwaku!
Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it? I roleplay because i love different things like walking dead and marvel, here i can interact with different people who love the same things i do!

 

[Beatrix]

• When did you first get in to roleplaying?

I was 13 in the 8th grade and stuck at school from an overnight field trip of those in my grade. It was something cheesy that was passed back and forth between me and one other person who stayed behind. I had been writing solo to express my feelings and imagination beforehand, but that simple little thing was my first foray into roleplaying.

• What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

It was a learning experience all around, as I had no clue as to what the fuck I was doing, but I was having fun. I was writing with other people, and that made the awkwardness worth it.

• Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

It was a site that my ex boyfriend had shown me for the art. I wondered onto the forums of the site and found the role play section. This is where I first developed my characters Beatrix and Vivian (Vivian has since been renamed). I had fun writing on there, and if I could find it and they still had the posts, I would probably cringe.

• What made you pick Iwaku?

My dear friend @LadySquee had shown me this site after many members of rpguild had been moving here. After doing a little exploration of the site, I fell in love with it as it was everything that I wanted. I signed up and pestered my husband enough to get him to join. So glad I persisted.

• Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?

In my opinion, it is a way for my husband and I to spend time together. I enjoy reading his writing and responding to it, as he (whether he truly knows or not) inspires me to be a better writer. We critique and correct each other, building each other skills as we write. It is also an outlet for my imagination, as my mind races and comes up with millions of ideas for characters (although I suck at CS's) and situations that I could see them reacting to. And that went with solo writing or group writing.

 

[Artorias]

1. When I was eleven-twelve years old I found some weird MMORPG place called Sherwood and began roleplaying.

2. A bunch of one liners and preteens doing stupid shit @.@

3. D'ummm. I guess the first 'community' I was in was on Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne where I began to roleplay some more.

4. Why I picked Iwaku was because I was bored one day in typed in the google search 'Forum Roleplay' and Iwaku was the first one to come up.

5. I roleplay because I get to escape reality and have fun, and write. I can make dreams a reality and other cliche, dramatic shit like that >.>

 

[Peanut]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?
Hmm, when I was about twelve, which was about eight years ago.

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
Ugh, looking back it was awful. Mary-sues and one-liners and little used grammar, because it was the internet and I wanted to be cool. But I had fun and enjoyed myself.

Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
My first proper role play community was RolePlayGateway, back when it was wholly forum based. It was amazing. It was where I learned to write properly and also where a certain role play inspired my love of rock music.

What made you pick Iwaku?
It became harder to find role plays to satisfy my need to keep advancing on RPG, so after rooting around for a while, came across toprpsites and found Iwaku. It seems like a good community here, with the right amount of crazy.

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
It's a means of escape and expression for me. I'm not really to get anything out of it, but I do love it when my boyfriend and I are chilling out at home, and I get to type quickly on a keyboard and pretend I'm working.

 

[Sidhe]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?
When I was but a wee bab. I started chat role-playing on Neopets when I was 9 years old, and lying about my age because my mom wouldn't let me on the Neoboards. Role-playing got me in a lot of trouble back then. My first 'serious' role-playing started when I was 11 on OekakiCentral's Neopets board. I met some great people there, and created what would become my oldest and most beloved character to do this day. He's changed massively, though. I mean, started as a green Aisha, ended up as a stupid, blue-haired Frenchman.

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
Lovely, I suppose? I was very carefree about it, and didn't take it too seriously. That was back in my chat role-play days that lasted until I was about 12 years old. Then I started to get Super Into It and joined the thralls of high school role-plays on the Neoboards. I made so many pet pages for my emo/scene characters and got banned so many times. It was glorious.

Tell us about your very first roleplay community?
The first community that I feel really shaped/impacted me (for better or for worse) was Literary x Kisses. It was really popular at the time, and was one of those sites that had you apply and then sorted you into groups based on your 'literacy' level. I was 14/15 then, and of course being placed in the most prestigious one was the most important thing to me. I got very involved in the community, met a lot of great people, and generally had a great time.

Eventually the popularity of the site got to the admin's head, and people started leaving en masse. My friends and I decided to make a similar role-play forum called 'Propaganda.' That was the only successful role-playing forum I've ever made, and I've made plenty. I was a super elitist douche bag back then, though, and required 'advanced role-players only' and blah, blah, blah. Propaganda had a few reincarnations when I got bored, and my friends and I followed each other, but eventually I just stopped. When my depression got very bad, I had no energy to role-play anymore. I fell out of circles and stopped talking to my friends. I migrated to Subeta for a while, but the site has kind of gone to hell.

What made you pick Iwaku?
Once I got back into role-playing a year or two ago, I noticed that 'all-genre/multi-genre' role-plays were virtually non existent. They'd just fallen out of favor, I guess. I don't like forums that require you to make a character and write out a character sheet and then force you into 'matching' threads... the ones that don't usually last for longer than a few months, but are very popular. I tried making my own again, but I'm not reliable enough to be a forum admin, and it was too stressful for me. I tried out the other multi-genre communities, but felt like I didn't fit in well, or they were too slow. Eventually I just googled 'ALL-GENRE ROLE-PLAY FORUMS GODDAMMIT' and Iwaku was one of the first things that popped up. So here I am.

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
Now that I'm passed my douche days of making sure everyone knew how fancy and elite I was, it's mostly for fun and to keep myself distracted. I love writing, and I love character development, and I (generally) find it a relaxing way to feed my passions. I needed a hobby other than 'sleep and play video games,' so I chose this. I'm still not perfect, and a lot about my illnesses prevent me from being an ideal role-playing partner, but I love it to pieces.