What RPG extras do you like to use?

I like the "gossip" board, where IC things can be posted that are floating around. We also have the Plotting board and a Whiteboard which can be used to work on WiPs.

We also have a Journal board, where characters can keep an IC diary of events, thoughts, etc without having to actively RP something out. We've found it to be really useful and its a lot of fun reading some of the entries.

 

Along time ago, I never used any extras on a site mainly because I didn't know how. But now I've built a site with the option to use most of these things. Trackers, Plotters, Music Playlists, as well as some Media stuff for characters like twitters, cells and messages, and even tinders. I dont require them in my site of any site for me to be interested in it. But they are loads of fun.

 

Open. Thread. Directory. All the way

 

I like keeping a timeline to remember which threads happen in what order, since I tend to go crazy and have multiple threads per character. Also have been known to keep a tracker that I'm terrible of keeping updated! Development threads are fun because I'll make character graphics and put them there along with gifs I find xD

 

I use a Lot of Shit for characters, from Myers Briggs to bloodtype shite

 

I have an obsession with thread trackers. It must be in order, somehow organised, and look basic but nice. I'm a big fan of character development forums too, and wanted ads of course. Plotters I'm not so fond of, though I'll utilise them with new members or people who don't talk in cBox/Discord servers as the best avenue of plotting.

 

I keep just about all OC off the rp forum itself. Instead, we have our chatter and random things on Discord. On the forum itself, it's really only an introductory section and application. Unless you count setting, lore and such. Plenty of those.

 

I used to be very big into thread trackers but over the years and the steady gain of characters, it just became too much to do. But character journals/profiles are nice and recently i started to get into using shippers. We also use an NPC list so that whenever an NPC is mentioned, we can keep track of them and how they are associated with others.

 

I like this kind of stuff a lot, that show the way that information gets misconstrued in the telling and spread throughout an in-game world

I also like incorporating dice rollers for a little randomization now and then

 

I used to be really into plotters & trackers, however trackers are kind of a pain in the butt to keep up on and they require maintenance that I hate doing so I have them but I don't utilize them like I should. I love my plotter though and update it as often as I feel the desire to!

I also keep playlists for some of my characters, though not all of them, and most of them are private for me to get into a character mindset.

Discord is really big for my game. We have channels in there from animals, to memes, to politics. We're a community, not just a place to game so I want everyone to be social and feel like they have friends!

 

I have sections for plotters and world development so my members can make plans with one another, and also contribute to building the world itself. We've also got a character development where players can manage journals, mood boards, playlists etc; there is also a graphic board so players can post things they've made or had made for them - or even set up a studio to take requests.

In character I have an IM/Text/Phone board for interactions that don't merit an entire thread. Maybe one of the alphas just needs to communicate with a few members quickly, or two characters are arranging some surprise event for another. These also get used as a sort of goofy chat-play kind of exchange with characters sending gifs and jokes to one another, or something like a female character is in a bar thread being hit on by someone obnoxious so they're texting a friend in the mean time.

I've also got discord bot integrations for certain site events. For example, right now there's a wendigo haunting the forests outside of one of the town areas. For the most part, all my players know is that this thing is there and its powerful - they've got to figure out what its weaknesses are etc. Now, some aspects I have set in stone as far as the monster mechanics go; there is a list of exactly what sort of things will harm or kill it, and if a player guesses a weapon that can be used then they use it in the thread, then complete a dice roll with the designated bot - the random generation dictates how successful it is or isn't.
As an example:
A characteristic of this particular monster is that it inflicts wounds that won't heal naturally regardless of whether the character is human or supernatural. We had a player with a character that was badly injured by it, and his wounds were starting to become more than his enhanced healing could compensate for - another character found where the creature had been nesting and took some moss from the site, took it to a witch to make a salve. They performed a die roll to determine whether or not the attempted treatment was effective, or whether it was back to square one. In this case it was effective.

 

I prefer well-rounded places. Of course, we come there to RP, but if I can get help with my regular writing or even other arts, that's very welcomes. Places like Character Development, Writing Discussions/Questions are places I love to hang out just as much as the IC's of my RP's

 

We wound up rarely using discord, though I'd love to - so I nixed it from the board for now. I may add it back in the future, but we've really tried to simplify things. I loved that the chat was actually integrated into the Home Page. It was nice.

Since groups.io has possibility of multiple sub-boards and hashtags, we opted to go with the hashtag #OOC for anything that the writers wanted to pop in there. I'm about to update with a sub-group for just writers to toss ideas around for development. As moderators, we're always looking to incorporate writer ideas into our plans. So I believe this might help. So far we had asked that people just use email, but maybe the addition of a sub-group would further encourage this?

We're playing with integrations. This might be a future situation. At the moment, we use Imgur for our albums and bios. We used to use the files sections and albums inside the group, but this just seemed a lot more seamless. It's almost like you can create a wiki in this application and just link it to the group.

As a moderator, I'm really pleased with the functionality and mobile friendliness of the Groups.io ... my only frustration is the limit on image data - hence we still use Imgur.

 

We have a Discord but use it very rarely - mostly as a backup to our chat which is integrated with the forums but if the hosting server goes down, then we still have the backup Discord server to go to - where we hang out OOC-ly. As far as other extras specifically geared towards Character Development, we have an OOC forum called 'Tangled Webs' which serves as a planning stage for all our future adventures, possible plots & character discussions.

 

I like thread trackers because they're helpful for players wanting to connect and figuring out the best way to do that, that's mutually rewarding. Plus, it's just helpful to have a list of past threads for reference.

As a game master, I also like forums with plugin features. Especially ones that allow staff to share a roster of NPCs (Proboards has that feature), because sometimes it's fun to surprise non-staff players with a random monster encounter or something.

I also like OOC "casting" or "looking for" threads, where players can post what characters they want to rp with. Sometimes there's specific canon characters that players feel would add to their own characters narrative, or sometimes they have original characters in mind but they want someone else to play them. I think it's good to have a spot for that on the boards.

 

In addition to our character sheets, we also have an area for in-character correspondences, journals, and other forms of IC expression. OOC resources include plot notes and OOC journal threads. We use a tagging system extension with phpBB and so keeping trackers of threads are optional because players can simply tag their threads with their name and go from there.

 

Thread Trackers are a pain in the ass to maintain but they are nice especially when you need to set a timeline for a plot or for your characters. Thread shippers are also nice as they can be simple lists to help people find which character's they want to plot. I like moodboards to read through and honestly I just like watching people be creative. If I can facilitate that on my board it build's community so I see no problem with it :D

 

i think my sites are literally the only ones out there that do narratives, mostly because my friends and i really enjoy writing them as a form of character development

 

Personally I don't use them myself, but I know a lot of my members enjoy them, so we normally put up individual development boards for each member so they can do all the extra things they wish to

 

One of the things I love about the platform I chose to host my game on (I use IPS) is the ability for users to create blogs. These blogs can be given descriptions and used for IC purposes. I absolutely love it.