Question for the Iwaku Roleplayers!

[Yuuki_Tatsunohi]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?
last year ._.
What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
It was really weird and something I've never been used to before. But it was really fun and I wanted to continue but the rp died......
Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
Most rpers on a site I first started are more of fandom rpers and I had a few friends who did that and I wanted to try it out. So I made an account exclusively for rping and it was really fun! I made a lot of new friends who I still am friends with today. The site was really amazing and addicting . . . until it took a turn for the worst. I still go on that site but under a different account for other reasons.
What made you pick Iwaku?
I wanted to see what other kinds of roleplay there was, so I basically googled roleplay sites and this was one of the first choices. Though I think the main reason why I chose this site was because of the design, as it was not too bright and did not hurt my eyes. Stupid reason I know, I was pretty much just broadening my horizons and was sure I was gonna abandon this account after awhile, but then I found everyone here to be very chill and friendly so I stayed!

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
Something to help me pull through my bouts of writer's block, a hobby in my free time, and to write and create stories with others!

 

[Ochalla]

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?

Online forum roleplay started for me when I found this big old chatroom called Sailor Moon Universe the autumn after I graduated HS. People were a mix of in character and out of character. Then one day after being there for a year this chica named Diana said her friend was starting a Sailor Moon styled RP. I knew enough about RPing due to a failed attempt to be in a D&D group in HS and I liked the idea of make believe story telling with people so I joined in... the rest you could say is history. That's questions 1-3

When did I come to Iwaku? Well that chica Diana was still having fun with roleplaying, and she was a fun sort of girl so I often played with her and even helped admin a tiny RP site of her's known as MoonWings (You probably never heard of it). Well she affiliated with this other RP site called Iwaku. I checked it out. I even found the irony that the sites second in command, known as Thomas at the time, but changes his names often, functioned in the same role I did with Diana. Well I didn't think too much of it. I'd mess around in the Insanity board from time to time, but never RPed there... until DRAMA... MoonWings imploded and eventually I wandered over to Iwaku since DIana was there. That's question 4.

Question 5, why do I roleplay? To quiet the muse! If I didn't RP I'd most likely have several dozen badly written stories no one would read. RPing lets me explore plot ideas, interact with others, and as a side affect improve my writing. Improving my writing is a nice side affect (or is it effect?) since I never liked writing or English classes while in school so I'm making up for lost time. Plus, FANTASY! I didn't learn about good fantasy writing and novels until late middle school. All the time wasted!

 

[Alexa Ray]

1.) What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
My first forum was a Vampire Knight RP. It was wonderful, but I've long since remembered most of it. Everything died in the end but I moved on to other fanfiction forums, then the sister site which had original forums, which were nice for the most part. One forum in particular was great until crap broke out and I kept going back only to be beaten down again.

2.) Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
This is my first roleplay community. It's absolutely exuberant and everyone is mature, which is the best thing for me.

3.) What made you pick Iwaku?
At the time when I joined, if I remember distinctly, it was the top roleplaying community, so I decided to check it out and it looked awesome and everything looked so organized, which is my cup of tea, so I came here! :)

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

Roleplay is an escape for me. It's an escape from all the pressure and sadness and hopelessness of real life, it's an escape from my Dad's (very low) temperament, and in general, because writing is key to roleplay, it's another way for me to do what I love best- writing through interaction with other roleplayers just like me. I've already gotten so much out of it, especially with improving on detail and worldbuilding, as well as inspiration.

 

[Dawn]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?
Well, when I was a young warthog teen, I had just gotten into anime and, really, the internet in general. Through Neopets, I came to find a website called Anime Crave. They had a chatroom much like our cbox here and that was where I discovered what roleplay was. o____o I went on to join a friend's RP site and then by chance, Diana's RL brother recruited me to Moonwings! About a month prior, I also discovered Livejournal and it's many, many Japanese Rock RP communities so I was over there as well. And since Moonwings was Iwaku's sister site at the time, I ended up over here eventually. :P

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
Well... Anime Crave was a lot different than how it is now. There were no moderators for the chats, so people got away with pretty much everything. I was young and naïve and I didn't realize that some of these people were acting like sexual predators. At the time, I guess I was okay with it because it was new and exciting but when I look back on it now, I think "That was a terrible place for me to be."

Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
The very first roleplay community I had joined was on Livejournal. It was AU Jrock themed. >___>; There was guns and blood and a lot of hookers... So many hookers.

What made you pick Iwaku?
By the time I had been on Moonwings for about a year, I was having trouble in my offline life. I felt very alienated in my own house and from my parents. I was also the drifter kid in school who didn't really have that one solid, always there friend. I felt very, very lonely. Moonwings became my home. People there, like @Diana @Tribs Kehvarl @Shiny @Maggie @Kooriryu @Alan @Britty (and so many more people, I swear I'm not forgetting you, I'm just making this list too long). These people were a BIG part of my life and whether or not they realized it, they've helped me through some really tough and emotional times. Some of them slapped some sense into me when I was an idiot teen even (that's right, I'm pointing at you, Koobear). So naturally when Moonwings sunk into the ocean, never to be seen again and only to be whispered about over candlelight or shouted about over a tankard of ale, I followed the great migration over to Iwaku here. And you know what? I met so many more amazing people. Iwaku is my home. We're a family. That's why I picked it.

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
I started roleplaying for fun. Then somewhere along the line, it became more about fine tuning myself as a writer. This proved way too stressful for me. It had SUCH a negative impact on me because I had turned something I loved into, well, a job. So now I roleplay for fun again. I'm not going to worry so much about my writing level or making masterpieces. I just want to be creative and enjoy it.

 

[Kooriryu]

;_; Oh Dawn...

 

[Brovo]

#1: When did you first get in to roleplaying?

Oh, um... Story time! When I was about eight years old I stumbled on my Dad's D&D collection. He hadn't touched it in years, layers of dust coated it, and I just dug into it. There was enough materials to teach me how to create my own world, right down to the biomes and weather patterns, so I went about doing that. When I started playing Warcraft III I was about 11 or 12 years old, and I met some people online to role play with. Hit forums feet first when I was about 13-14 years old.

I'd say "good times" but, no, not really. Things are in every way better now.

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

Confusing. I wasn't yet fully versed in the art of masquerades and social constructs, so I tended to stumble about awkwardly having no clue why I was offending everyone. It also didn't help that most people who used the terminology and acronyms of role playing hardly understood what it meant either, but tried to force me to adhere to their rules. On the flip side, I took at as a challenge and got significantly better over time as a result.

#3: Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

It was based on Warcraft III with some forums on the side. It had a few hundred members and there were a few folks like me who would organize huge role play extravaganzas. It was essentially a metaverse with everyone having a cast of characters they'd take from one session to another. Then some freaky cult-like shit happened and a couple people killed themselves.

Needless to say, that ended things pretty quick, and since I was just a mentally unstable kid at the time, I took off running like a rat off a sinking ship.

#4: What made you pick Iwaku?

Nice site architecture. I had to get away from a dying site (this one with less cult-like fanatics thankfully), and decided to shop around. This place looked promising and was recommended to me by @Kestrel so I went ahead and moved here. Others wanted to join me so I told them about it and before I knew it, over forty people joined me. More might be coming, even.

If any of them turn out to be rather aggressive people, then as a Canadian, I feel obligated to apologize in advance, even if nothing happens. So I'm sorry. Though I'm also sorry if nothing happens and that results in a false apology, so I'm sorry about being sorry about being sorry about being sorry about being sorry--

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

Genocide Fun. Entertainment. I enjoy spending time with my fellow role players and this is a good way to go about it. Usually I'm the GM, so I create humongous worlds for people to play in. The usual schtick is that they can romance NPC's or each other, and that death tends to be very distressingly permanent and common. It sets the tone and atmosphere that players have to be careful and tactical in their decision making, and sets the basic principle: Take no risks, and everyone around you will suffer, but you'll be safe. Take risks and you can alleviate the suffering of those around you, but naturally increase the odds of being horrible killed before you can accomplish your ultimate objective.

It's interesting to see players try to balance pragmatism and heroism. Who will they save and who will they leave behind? Only one way to know.

 

[Disgruntled Goat]

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. I was about 11 or 12, I think. I was a big pro wrestling fan and started out in an E-Fed. So, that's almost 15 years ago. Geez. -_-;;

2. My experience was pretty good. For those that don't know, in E-Fedding you both write a roleplay piece (like a wrestler making a speech in the middle of the ring) and the judges pick the best; that person then wins the match. I was moderately successful, and typically wrote about two paragraphs. For someone starting out, I thought I was doing pretty well.

3. My first community was an E-Fed. There were a lot of other 12 - 18 year olds on the site, so everyone was of a similar age, plus we were all wrestling fans so there was automatically a shared interest to talk about. Plus, with everyone being the same age and male, we all had fairly similar tastes in music and television, so people had lots in common.

4. Eh-heh. Well. Uh. I met a guy in a chatroom that was offering to pay for people to roleplay with him. The sheer concept fascinated me, so I asked him about it, and whether he'd had any takers, and he mentioned that he'd advertised in the chat room, on Omegle and on Iwaku. I knew what Omegle was, but I threw Iwaku into Google and liked what I saw.

5. Well, I started out in E-Feds, where writing longer and better roleplays was the key to winning. When I lost interest in both wrestling and E-Fedding, I stopped roleplaying altogether and started trying my hand at writing short stories. They then turned into longer stories, and whilst I like to think that I was good at that, I wasn't getting as much enjoyment out of it. Even having people leaving feedback, it just felt like something was missing for me, because I was writing alone, and a handful of comments just didn't seem to cut it. I then looked into roleplaying again, joining up a forum that former friend was running, where he hosted a military-themed roleplay. I wasn't getting "feedback" as such, but seeing people reply to my messages and build upon what I had said was much better, because we were building something together, and where the story-writing had felt isolated, this felt much more fun.

The site had one main roleplay, and unfortunately, the GM had to leave due to real life issues. Whilst I give his replacement credit for stepping up to the bat and continuing the storyline, I just didn't care for it, because the new GM didn't have the same attention to detail and he favoured his friends... so I wrapped up my part in the storyline and bowed out. I like the community feel, and the knowledge that I'm creating something that other people will enjoy and respond to. You don't get that from writing a story, or from any other medium that I've come across so far.

 

[Razilin]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?
I must have been...10 years old?...when I got into Dungeons and Dragons. So 1994.

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
Dragon-Tear.net. It was boring.

Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
Iwaku back when Peridox was in command. I moved from Dragon-Tear to Iwaku and became ingrained in the community. That was, what? 2003-2004? At any rate, I've been popping in and out since Iwaku first went up. Original Generation, right here, ladies and gentlemen!

What made you pick Iwaku?
GabrielZero (Peridox's main recruiter at the time) message-bombed everyone on Dragon-Tear to promote Iwaku. I responded on a lark.

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
For fun. Nothing more, nothing less. If I wanted to "live out a fantasy," I would just do that. The entire reason I studied martial arts, kendo, got top marks in school, entered a lucrative career, did international traveling, and picked up Parkour as a hobby was so I could actually BE a multiclass fighter/monk/cleric/wizard. Or the closest thing one could actually get to being the Goddamn Batman. I don't need to roleplay to fulfill those dreams. I just need to find the next challenge. In between, RPing fills in the time and is fun, too.

 

[Kiilgore]

• When did you first get in to roleplaying?

Its coming up on a year now for me. A bit more than a month and two days.

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

It was a bit weird, and you could easily tell that I was very bad. For a few examples, my first RP character was the only survivor of an event. (Cliche FTW.) Also, after one of my characters was hugged, I literally wrote out 'Arthur received y*'s hug...' *= Just in case she doesn't want me using her character's name, I used y as a placeholder. As for chat roleplay, it was just minor ones, just messing around in the main site chat. But it was fun.

• Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

It is a very nice community. It was formed as a successor to OtakuZone. Sadly, the activity has died down on the site... :/

• What made you pick Iwaku?

Well, as I said in my intro thread, I stalked here for a little while before joining. One of the members of the site was talking about this one as a way to possibly stay in contact, so I decided to stalk a bit. After learning that the site was not to shut down, I didn't come on here to stalk for a bit for a while, but then as my main RP on the site was dying out, (DANG YOU GM BASED RP WHERE THE GM ABANDONS (#._.) ) I decided to join here.

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

Fun. Simply just fun. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Tempest]

1.) When did you first get in to roleplaying?

Oh, god. Well, when I first started getting into roleplay, I would say was when I saw my cousins and parents playing DnD playing it when I was about 9. I started trying to draft up characters on my own and skimming through the books after that. Of course, no one would actually play with me and my characters were all a bit screwy, I couldn't actually figure out how to actually follow the rules at that time. I was just more interested in the races and backgrounds, ya know? I drafted up a half-dragon character and it was way overpowered and had a dragon familiar. Yup. No way the GM would have accepted that even if they would have let me play, haha. The whole character creation idea kept with me and I was actually a bit of a LARPer as a kid! I'd create characters for all of my friends to play and draw them out on paper for us all and we'd go out and play out epic adventures during recesses and after school and stuff. Was pretty amazing.​

​

My first online experience actually didn't start until I was about 11? It was in the MMORPG Everquest 2. Ran into a couple people who were going to do some roleplaying and they explained the whole concept to me and I kind of jumped on the idea. It just seemed really fun. It kind of fell through, though. It kind of bummed me out, but I kind of liked it and actually found another girl about my age at the time and we went around RPing as a half-elf couple for the longest time (we actually had played together on two of our higher level characters, freaky coincidence!). Was fun while it lasted, was also my first experience playing a guy role too. Odd as it may be.​

​

After that, actually landed up getting into actual forum RPing through an Adventure Quest guild. I was just looking for something social and it led me to my first real in-depth roleplay experience that has continued to this day. I got to say, I'm definitely glad for it. It's led me to a lot of experiences and meeting a lot of people and I don't regret it one bit!​

​

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

​

It was in a dying RP on a dying site. Of course, it didn't really stop me. I was just so amped to hop in with my ideas. I was writing them out in the middle of my class so that I could post them as soon as I got home on a computer. I was just so jazzed to be part of this writing experience. I would try to post several times a day, as soon as someone else would reply. And really, it did pick up as soon as I started posting in it again and everyone seemed to like the way I was taking it. It was a really... loose RP with no real determined plot or anything. It was just go where you wanted. Ha, and it was all dragon oriented and all the characters were really overpowered and these massive figures of legend. It was really fun sometimes, too. We tried to work into the RP at times events of the community at times too. Heh, I think the only thing that might have me cringing now would be the RP standards. It was terrible. I would just cry at what I used to think was incredible writing back then.​

​

3.) Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

First forum. Oh god. It was actually the site for uhh, the Adventure Quest guild (back when they still sponsored them on the site) for the Legendary Dragons. The group was actually dying, as was their RP section and my joining actually pumped a little bit of life back into the community. I just started reading up in the IC and I just got so amped. I just got flooded with ideas and I hopped in with the character Vutha Sjach the worgtamer half-dragon. Next thing I know, the RP was actually going again and the small community (about 10 people) was all active and talking and I was getting to know them all pretty well and it was a really good time. Uh, course, there was some site issues, we ended up site hopping a few times, usually making a new board. The community didn't really grow that much, but we were pretty happy just chilling with our little tight-knit gang for the longest while. Of course, we all sort of started drifting our own way after awhile.​

4.) What made you pick Iwaku?

Actually, I largely picked Iwaku because of @Brovo . He seemed to be fairly impressed with the site and with a quick passover, the site seemed fairly decent. An active staff, stability, actually fair rules... And all these neat features *droooool* What more could I want? Well, actually, my best friend. Wherever he goes, I go. He was leaving a wreck of a site and like hell I was gonna bail out on him. So, if he was gonna jump ship, guess I was gonna join him, even if it meant we were both going to be potentially drowning. Nice that things turned out so swell, though. ^_^​

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

Why? Well, I guess its a bit of an outlet for me at times. I can just escape for awhile and just play with all these ideas in my mind. Well, its also fun, I enjoy it, that's pretty important. Its also something so many of my friends do, so there's a community there I'm involved with and that is always great... Its something I love, I love writing and I wouldn't want to give that up as I just love breathing life into all these different characters that just would not exist without me. I -make- these beings. I bring them into reality and allow others to see them. And it all jumps from my imagination... And isnt that just something wondrous? Heh, of course, there's always the fact that I love to grow attached to these characters and see the twists and turns of how they develop unexpectedly as others interact with them. I just love how other people can effect what I'm writing. Its not just about what I'm doing. Its about everyone that's involved. I could write a story all by myself... But it loses out on some of the life that a roleplay can have, where it just seems to grow on its own and can take on a shape that no one ever expected it to take.​

 

[Jorick]

When did you first get in to roleplaying?

Around the end of 2005. I'd experienced some roleplaying things before then, like a single awful session of D&D where I didn't quite get it and stumbling into roleplaying rooms in Warcraft 3 and Diablo 2, but 2005 was when I first actually got into it.

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?

It was, ah, interesting. It was in World of Warcraft (which I'd count as chat roleplay), on a roleplay server that I had joined purely because a couple of my high school friends (I was 16 at the time) played on that server. There was someone yelling in the chat about some bar called The Dungeon over in a certain area of the city (for those who've played WoW, the building in Cut-Throat Alley in Stormwind), and they included a little OOC bit about it being a roleplaying place that was active nightly. I was bored so I headed on over to see what it was about.

As it turned out, it was more a roleplay strip club than a bar. The building was just a basic empty little house thing, downstairs area with a table and chairs plus a few other chairs arrayed in like a reading area, then a simple bedroom upstairs, so people kinda used the table as the bar and the reading area was the stripper stage. People with female characters were doing the dance animation and slowly removing their armor, and they were using the chat emote system (basically the same emote thing as you find in IRC and similar chat programs that displays the message as "Username <input>" instead of like "Username says: <input>") to describe their actions. There were people sitting around watching and emoting that they were giving the strippers money, and I learned later that most of them actually did hand over gold so the strippers actually made lots of in game money. Other people had bought a bunch of in game food and drink items and were selling them (they also made decent profit). Then there was the bedroom upstairs, where the inevitable sexual roleplaying went down; usually they took it to a private chat, but sometimes there was a pair that didn't give a fuck so everyone in the downstairs area was able to see the messages in the chat. Oh, also, a lot of the strippers also pulled double duty as prostitutes and took payment for sexual roleplaying up there.

So there I was, a 16 year old boy who'd never really done any roleplaying before, dropped right into the deep end of the debauched side of things. I had plenty of motivation to learn how to roleplay thanks to my hormones and libido ganging up on my brain and convincing it that it really wanted to join the festivities. I kinda just watched and figured things out at first, and had some people teach me some things about roleplaying (and other things, like ovipositioning, because some people have rather odd kinks) when I first ventured into it and was a bumbling fool. After a couple weeks I was way into it and was roleplaying for more time than I was actually playing World of Warcraft as intended. Took me quite a while to level that character (which was the first placed I used the name Jorick, in fact) to the initial level cap of 60, all because of roleplaying. I stuck around with a lot of the Dungeon folks for a while (and I've sort of kept contact with one of them) and eventually got into doing some sexual roleplaying myself (hormones + libido = super effective combo), but after a while I found forum roleplaying and that has been my favorite ever since.


Tell us about your very first roleplay community!

Well, depending on how you define "roleplay community," I have three viable options. The first would be the above, the group of people in World of Warcraft who I first met and learned roleplaying from. It wasn't much of a community though, so I don't really count it. The second would be the first forum I roleplayed on. It was in the Spam section of a forum about general fantasy genre stuff and it was a free-for-all mess, but the roleplaying was a side thing that happened to be there for a little while rather than the actual focus of the community so I dunno if I should count that one.

The first place I joined that was actually a community dedicated to roleplaying was the forum I and many others recently migrated from. It was a great place for a while, tons of great ideas in the roleplaying sections, plenty of great people hanging out in the out of character areas. I had a few long roleplay slumps while I was using that forum where I didn't feel like roleplaying at all, but I stuck around because the community was great. Then at the end of 2013 the site died and was down for about a month, and the owner decided to rebuild it from scratch rather than using one of the many available forum packages readily available on the internet. A lot of people had already found other places to spend their internet time in that month interval, and the place never really felt the same either feature or community wise. It had a lot of buggy stuff and server troubles, and that got to be unbearably annoying, so now I don't go there much any more.


What made you pick Iwaku?

Two things. First, Brovo, the person GMing two of the three active roleplays I was in decided to jump ship and selected Iwaku, so I came along for the ride. That accounts for me initially joining Iwaku. Second, it's a forum with all the expected features and the staff is actually active and actively working to improve the site. The bare minimum I desire out of a forum are the basic features (text editing options, private messages, etc.) and active moderators, and Iwaku surpasses that by quite a bit, so that's what has kept me present and active. If the chosen forum for migration had been garbage there's a good chance I wouldn't have bothered to suffer through it, so I have to give both reasons equal weight.

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

I roleplay mainly for entertainment and secondly as an outlet for my creative urges.

I enjoy writing things and roleplaying is a fun way to do that with other people, so it tends to be entertaining. I'm not really into it for escapism because that doesn't work for me. When I'm feeling stressed I can't work up the motivation to write, so in those times I go for passive entertainment like TV shows or for video games where I can demolish enemies.

I also have a lot of ideas for various characters and plot points and lines of dialogue and whole scenes that pop up in my head now and then. I've got hundreds of notes, both electronic and on paper, that could act as a monument to the frequency of these ideas. I'm terrible about actually motivating myself to write solo things, despite being one of those guys who aspires to write novels and do it for a living if at all possible, so the ideas just kind of pile up and gather dust. Roleplaying gives me a way to use those things and derive entertainment and a sense of artistic satisfaction from doing so.

 

[Brovo]

4.) What made you pick Iwaku?

Actually, I largely picked Iwaku because of @Brovo . He seemed to be fairly impressed with the site and with a quick passover, the site seemed fairly decent. An active staff, stability, actually fair rules... And all these neat features *droooool* What more could I want? Well, actually, my best friend. Wherever he goes, I go. He was leaving a wreck of a site and like hell I was gonna bail out on him. So, if he was gonna jump ship, guess I was gonna join him, even if it meant we were both going to be potentially drowning. Nice that things turned out so swell, though. ^_^

What made you pick Iwaku?

Two things. First, Brovo, the person GMing two of the three active roleplays I was in decided to jump ship and selected Iwaku, so I came along for the ride. That accounts for me initially joining Iwaku. Second, it's a forum with all the expected features and the staff is actually active and actively working to improve the site. The bare minimum I desire out of a forum are the basic features (text editing options, private messages, etc.) and active moderators, and Iwaku surpasses that by quite a bit, so that's what has kept me present and active. If the chosen forum for migration had been garbage there's a good chance I wouldn't have bothered to suffer through it, so I have to give both reasons equal weight.

 

[phantasmagoricStoner]

1. When did you first get into roleplaying?
Almost a year ago.

2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
It was quite nerve-wrecking (I was scared I didn't live up to my RPmates expectations) at first; trying to write in third person's point of view since I was used to writing first person. There was a lot of one-liner posts as well.

3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
The first time I roleplayed, it was on rinmarugames.com/forum . I accidentally clicked on the forum icon and it led me to a place where the fans of the dress up game came together and share their game experience and they roleplayed there. I thought it seemed fun so I joined. Although, I left the website quite early as I didn't really like how most of the roleplay ideas were quite bland and they all seemed the same. Only a week later, I found a Harry Potter themed roleplaying website called hexrpg.com . I still go there though but not as often. Well, I only go there now to re-read my last roleplay with my group, which actually made me feel as though I was part of the Harry Potter world. I was still in my Potterhead days and I was craving something Harry Potter related. I don't have many friends that are into Harry Potter so, I would usually read fanfictions that's based on the fandom. When you sign up for that website, you're roleplaying a Hogwarts student, so you get "homework" but it's like once every month. You also get house points for your house. They'll assign a house for you after you submit a short write up about yourself. I was placed into Slytherin :D So, from there, I started joining some of the roleplay. Most of their roleplays are mostly jump ins, it is rare to see one with a sign up. I had a roleplay group there, the four of us were constantly replying each other everyday but around the beginning of this year, my school started and I had to go for camp. Around those days, the roleplay slowly died. When I came back for camp, there weren't anymore replies, which left me quite disappointed since I really love Harry Potter. About two weeks later, I found Iwaku :D I signed up for RPNation but I got confused there and my eyes gets really sensitive to white backgrounds.

4. What made you pick Iwaku?
I got addicted to roleplaying and I needed more. My roleplays on hex were slowly dying. I searched for roleplaying websites on Google and it gave me a list of websites. I clicked a few, only to get disappointed by how inactive most of them seem till I clicked Iwakuroleplay, I was impressed and quickly signed up.

5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
I used to write fanfiction and I felt as though my writing skills weren't really great. Also, I needed to get a break from writing. So, I roleplay. Plus, I was bored at that time. Since I found out about roleplaying, I took it as an opportunity to improve my writing. Through roleplay, I hope to improve my writing skills and maybe impress my stuck up English teacher with my writings. Roleplay gives me an escape from my boring reality, and I roleplay because at that time, I wanted to be a totally different person. I'm used to writing in a third person's perspective now and I actually enjoy it. And, sometimes, roleplaying makes me feel smart because most of the girls in my class dislike writing.

It's also like, having another life! Which seems really cool, in my opinion

 

[Dervish]

1. When did you first get in to roleplaying?
   
   Back in October, 2001. It was back when I was in grade 8 and just after the whole 9/11 attacks happened. The forum had a section dedicated to talking about it, I guess it's appropriate to mention it because life definitely changed before and after that. A transformative period of my life, regardless.
   
   
2. What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
   
   Not as awkward as I would have expected! I remember it being a lot of fun just playing a character like a video game character, and while mine wasn't nearly the most original person ever, it was fun playing a space faring free lancer. The community was friendly, very accepting, and we were all pretty bad at it, but I have nothing but fond memories!
   
   
3. Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
   
   It was a forum called Outside the Greatfox, which was a Star Fox fan forum. The community kind of largely had a persistent world thing going on with the same characters, games would lead into other games, and we took a kid friendly game and made it into a very dark and mature setting before you knew it. People would challenge other characters to fights like an arena section, only these non-canon fights kept their own scores and the same characters would be interacting in a narrative based roleplay at the same time. It was pretty neat! It was a pretty inventive community, and I definitely loved it until people got to the point where one liner speed posting with 100 plus posts a night became the norm. I always wrote in paragraphs, so I couldn't keep up. It sucked, and after about 4 years on that site, I left roleplaying until 2012 when I really started to miss it.
   
   
4. What made you pick Iwaku?
   
   My old forum is kind of on a decline and all the people I enjoy RPing with started coming here, which has a vibrant fantastic and friendly community and a great amount of features for players. I have a feeling I'm going to love RPing here, whenever I get my stuff squared away. I'm still on the other forum, just in a reduced capacity. I also have a game that's been going on a bit shy of 3 years on the other forum that I really want to see to the end.
   
   
5. Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
   
   
   I absolutely love storytelling and character and world building. I like coming up with scenarios that surprise and delight my players, I live for that surprise or the emotional impact, and about the best compliment I ever received was "Dervs, that post made me cry!" I do try to stay away from a lot of the tropes, or at least subvert them so that they're familiar but not as predictable. I just really love sharing a mutual hobby with like-minded individuals and creating memories as fond as those of my first days on OTG.

 

[Plaetzchen]

So since I am new here and was already thinking about this for the introduction thread, good opportunity for some oversharing!


When did you first get in to roleplaying?
Back when I was 10 years old. Quite some time ago now.

What was your first forum or chat roleplay experience like?
My first time... it was the same as for most people. At first it hurt, but with trying again, and again, you get better, the pain goes away, you know what you like and what you don't like, how you want to be treated and treat others. I guess the very first time was actually a disaster. After about 2 weeks of preparing with a small, but really motivated group, we started the rp in an prologue mode. Again 2 weeks later the story started and looked promising for about one week. And suddenly the Game Master stopped responding. Turned out he was cross with the forum and wanted to troll people one last time before leaving. *insert swear word of choice*

Tell us about your very first roleplay community!
It was actually a general discussion forum that had its roots in Manga, Anime, Visual Novels. It was quaint. Small, tightly knit community. At first I joined for the movie/anime/tv series recommendations and then got stuck in the philosophy section. Half a year after joining, someone started to propose that the community would organise a role play for the members and that's how I started to do role playing online. Since the community was small, there was always just one role play going on at any time. So choice was rather in "do you want to join or not?". But since there were a lot of creative minds at work, nearly all game attempts (some never really made it, as said above) were unbelievable fun and made me a huge fan of this kind of role plays. I guess part of it was also, that people tended be very serious about the games and sometimes posted walls of text that probably would put 'A Song of Ice and Fire' books to shame. It really impressed me.

What made you pick Iwaku?
I tried finding something in my native language, but I guess it was not ment to be. Then I decided to take a dip into the deep end and try it in English. Most other sites are either only 1x1, or only a certain custom world, or only fanfiction games, or just plain unattractive. Iwaku was definitely the most good looking one in the bunch and it has really a (at least to me) disturbing number of games, members and everything going on. I hope I can find myself a new cozy home here.

Why do you roleplay? What are you looking to get out of it?
I really do like writing. Like most people who replied here. I love storytelling. Love to create worlds. Love to create characters. I tend to have a whole bunch of characters in my head, either fully thought and planned out, or just bits and pieces of them. I love to put them out there and see what will happen with them. How they will react. Whom they will interact with. I like to slip into their skin (well not literally, I do not go Silence of the Lambs on my characters) and explore the world or any other world through their perspective. I guess that is why I also often like to play characters that do not resemble myself very much personality-wise. It tends to make things a lot harder, but also more interesting. Since my first community did not do role playing primarily some did not really get that concept and somehow people started to think for some time that I was a lunatic, serial-killing psychopath after one of my all time favourite games. Trust me. I am no psychopath. Definitely not serial-killing as a hobby. About the mad part I am not sure, though.

 

[Beatrix]

Don't be so bashful, Brovo. You were both directly and indirectly the reason why either people joined, found out about this site, or even cared to glance at it, and I'm sure that we are all thankful that you mentioned this place. I have mentioned this place to a few of my non-rpg internet friends (like a mocospace buddy) and they love this place as well. So be happy that you started the Great Migration.

 

[Dervish]

Don't be so bashful, Brovo. You were both directly and indirectly the reason why either people joined, found out about this site, or even cared to glance at it, and I'm sure that we are all thankful that you mentioned this place. I have mentioned this place to a few of my non-rpg internet friends (like a mocospace buddy) and they love this place as well. So be happy that you started the Great Migration.

Hey! You did my sig tag as well. :D

Like everyone else said, Brovo, you're a pretty fantastic guy and you always been a big part of the heart and soul of the community. You have a lot of influence in a quiet and understated way, and people are incredibly loyal to you as roleplayers because you always have their best interests at heart. Iwaku is going to find out what all the hype's about in no time. ;)

 

[Brovo]

Don't be so bashful, Brovo. You were both directly and indirectly the reason why either people joined, found out about this site, or even cared to glance at it, and I'm sure that we are all thankful that you mentioned this place. I have mentioned this place to a few of my non-rpg internet friends (like a mocospace buddy) and they love this place as well. So be happy that you started the Great Migration.

Hey! You did my sig tag as well. :D

Like everyone else said, Brovo, you're a pretty fantastic guy and you always been a big part of the heart and soul of the community. You have a lot of influence in a quiet and understated way, and people are incredibly loyal to you as roleplayers because you always have their best interests at heart. Iwaku is going to find out what all the hype's about in no time. ;)

... Well. I. Um.

It's just hard to absorb is all. I don't take this stuff for granted. I spent most of my life being the outcast, the idea that so many followed me because I decided to go is still hard to swallow. As much as I act the egotist I'm actually quite humbled anytime anything like this happens. Y'all are good folks too, don't forget that.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go stare at ferrets and feel warm fuzzy feelings of acceptance and appreciation that I normally don't feel.

 

[Dervish]

... Well. I. Um.

It's just hard to absorb is all. I don't take this stuff for granted. I spent most of my life being the outcast, the idea that so many followed me because I decided to go is still hard to swallow. As much as I act the egotist I'm actually quite humbled anytime anything like this happens. Y'all are good folks too, don't forget that.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go stare at ferrets and feel warm fuzzy feelings of acceptance and appreciation that I normally don't feel.

Approximately what happened.

EDIT: Apparently this site has a dice rolling mechanic! That's kinda neat!

 

[BrattyCommissar]

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. A little more than seven years ago.
2. It was on an anime fanboard, but the roleplay wasn't fandom based. Didn't last long before I felt that I made a mistake with playing them. Not sure what made me decide to keep RPing but leave them. Don't think they were mean, I think it was they didn't pay attention to me because I was new? Or something. I felt very much like an outsider, whereas elsewhere I fit in rather well!
3. My first actual roleplay community? That was different. That was fun. When I got into actual roleplaying on places meant for it, it was a blast.
4. Brovo. He held captive an RP and wouldn't let me in unless I came. Basically blackmailed me. The bastard.
5. Because I like to write, and I'm not good at going out and about due to anxiety and physical ailments. The physical ailments have diminished now to where I can handle them, but now I'm just so attached to roleplay that I keep doing it. It's bloody fun when you get a good group going.