How did you get started with roleplaying?

I wanted to write a book, ever since I was young. I began collaborating with someone in writing a story, taking turns to write chapters. It wasn't a very good story, but I realized what I was doing was similar to roleplay. So, since I adore writing, I decided to look for more outlets. I ended up joining a couple of sites, but I didn't end up staying on them because they were so large that I had no sense of community or belonging. Now, I have been running a roleplaying site for several years, because I wanted a place where the members could be friends, even like family, and have worked hard to make new people feel welcomed, because I know the struggle. I'm super glad I found roleplaying, it's a great outlet.

 

I started with horses, then got into warrior cats. I'm still into warrior cats and I don't feel bad about it at all. I honestly always felt roleplaying an animal in a fantasy setting is no different than role playing a human in a fantasy setting, cause it is all fantasy after all.

 

Neopets introduced me to it but the simple forum system they had annoyed my 13-year-old ideals so I looked elsewhere. I started on horse rpgs, then eventually found myself on a Black Jewels rpg, since then I have never turned back from the Fantasy genre.

 

I started in an AIM chat room with a friend who was obsessed with DBZ. Of course, I knew almost nothing, but that didn't stop her from helping me out. It took me some time to move from chat-rooms (I moved to Y! from AIM), but it went from chat rooms to the now non-existent clubs to Y! Groups. (I do other forms, but PBEM is my favorite. :) )

 

I started to roleplay about 5 to 6 years ago after a close introduced me to the craft. I'm currently working on a brand new site, that has 50+ members and growing so I'm quite happy with that turnout. I have my own little place to call home now.

 

I started role-playing back in the mid-nineties with my best friend at the time. When I finally got my first computer in 1996 I got into role-playing on Yahoo! chats and discovered the Ayenee role-play group there. I played in those chats for a year or so before I decided to come up with my own site, which I've been maintaining ever since.

 

I had always been big on creating imaginary play universes and character as I was a kid and was into art and a big reader. I took this worldbuilding class back in 4th grade and designed my first maps and adventures then. I remember thinking it would be cool to see more stoff like that or like Zork, a text-based RPG game I played on my dad's old computer. So one day my friend in school shows me his Robotech: The RPG book that he GMs at lunch, and I was instantly enthralled. It got combined so many things I loved. So I got into anime and started a club for it in high school.

I was taking web design classes in high school so I started making a website for my character, this catgirl I'd created to be the club mascot. Which brought me to Geocities, because that was a place to build websites. And that, in turn, brought be to Yahoo, and Yahoo chat. The chatrooms were full of all kinds of people and some of them were roleplayers (the community was called Ayenee) and from there I discovered various RP boards. I started roleplaying and building a new "lore" that started with this catgirl and turned into a genetics corporation that made her, which I made a geocities page for. An increasing number of people got interested in my creations and wanted to RP with me. I decided to set up my first board. As Yahoo chat died out, I set off to create a whole new RP community in 2002, which is Star Army.

 

I started Roleplaying about 2-3 years ago, just joined a forum app (kinda disappeared recently) and thought "whats with all the roleplaying? Whats so fun about it.", Joined a group and enjoyed it. That's about it.

 

In 2003, The Lord of the Rings MSN Community that I adminned was a semi-roleplaying group, and eventually when its time was over one of the friends I'd made there had recently been introduced to forum RPGs and invited me to try it too, in her own LotR au rpg.

I did, and soon enough after it died and after reading my first Harry Potter book I moved on to a Harry Potter rpg and finally, totally fell in love with this hobby. I've always more or less loved creative writing, and around that time as a young adult it started to be truly important to me, so forum RPing too became the ideal and dearest hobby to me. Thus I've been acttively RPing 12+ years now, and can't see myself quitting as long as I am physically able to write.

 

I've always been a writer, from as far back as I can remember, in fact one of my earliest writing memories I was about seven or eight lounging in my garden with a notepad and pen writing a spy thriller - I was cleaning out the loft space a few months back and found it, so bad! Creative but I hope I've improved since then! As for online rpgs, I stumbled across a play by email star trek game based around Section 31 and it drew me in and played to my spy thriller wannabe writer heart and I couldn't say no.

 

I started back in 2001 on various chatzy groups and other rapid fire places, but later grew into forum roleplaying when short and sweet lacked something.

 

Some friends I went to school with got me involved with D&D and I haven't stopped since then. I've played D&D, AD&D, Rifts, Travellers, Marvel, GURPS, Ninjas and Superspies, Palladium Fantasy, Heroes Unlimited and many more

 

I was 13 or so, we'd just gotten AOL, it was the summer, I lived too far away from my friends to bike there...
So I started poking around the chat rooms. There was one called "Red Dragon Inn". I liked dragons. I liked red. So I went in. And I watched, and I learned, and I was hooked.

 

I was reading a book series, and a friend who knew I liked to write was RPing in that series. She suggested I check it out, and I've been RPing online ever since.

 

I always tell people I started roleplaying with Neopets, but that's not completely true. Back in the day when Yahoo messenger had chat rooms (or do they still? I don't use it anymore, so I'm not really sure.) I joined in on the roleplay one a few times. On top of that, I had a friend that I met on Yahoo that roleplayed, and I joined him a few times. After that though, I was on Neopets for a few years.

 

I originally got involved via Elf Quest but quickly began to expand from there. I know my first group I ever run hybrided that with War Craft to a rather dark affect.

 

I got my start back in the late 90s on wbs.net. Kinda just fell into roleplaying. I am guilty of starting with the *action* posts. I am happy to say i've moved far beyond that.

I bounded around other chat rooms for a while until about 2 years ago i was introduced to forum writing.

 

Actually, back when Neopets had first started up, I had discovered role-playing on their forums. During that time someone had posted a link to their role-playing site so I decided to join it. It was a Unicorn site that for some reason had demons. So I played the only demon on the entire site. Oddly enough the site didn't last long.... anyway, thats how I really got into fantasy sites. Played on one site for over six years before Avidgamers went down. Have been role-playing ever since.

 

I started roleplaying on MSN Groups and dabbled in MSN chatrooms when they were still around. MSN Groups is also how I discovered Yaoi, because it just so happened that the highest ranked group in the Anime subcategory was a yaoi rp group, which I joined out of curiosity and never turned back. ^_^

 

I started role playing in yahoo groups around the time that Order of the Phoenix came out, so about 2003 or thereabouts. I had gone looking for information (always love a spoiler) about the upcoming book and stumbled onto a myriad of Harry Potter games, most of which petered out and died a quick death due to rampant Mary Sueism and not a hint of how to plot anything. A few games lasted longer, the longest one about 10 years. I've tried to get used to forum games, but as I am not all that computer literate (very basic HTML is already a challenge for me), I find them a bit unwieldy from a moderator standpoint. I liked the simplicity of the old school PBEM games, but they appear to be sadly disappearing. At least, I have not been successful in finding any that cover eras in the Potter fandom I'd be interested in writing. C'est la vie.