Games vary, but generally there's a moderator or two who directs the overarching plot (usually with behind-the-scenes input from everyone) and gives the players things to react to, while the players are free to make their own subplots within that framework.
For instance, I briefly ran a game that involved Ministry employees during the first war with Voldemort. Each player had an LJ for their chosen character(s) in which they could post private diary entries or letters to non-player characters (which everyone could read but no one could comment on or explicitly act like they'd read), letters to other characters (viewable to all, but only the recipient could reply), or write-ups of private RP sessions with other characters (conducted in IM chat or by email, then put together into a vignette).
As the mod, I put together a public timeline of the war that everyone could access, and once a week I would post something like a departmental memo that everyone could comment on, or a newspaper article describing some event that would incite response. It's a tricky balance for a mod, keeping everyone interested and engaged while respecting their autonomy over their characters.
Anyhow, it's been a while since I joined a proper game, but I've been doing private one-on-one RPing on IM for years, and it's great fun.
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Date: 2010-05-27 09:12 pm (UTC)For instance, I briefly ran a game that involved Ministry employees during the first war with Voldemort. Each player had an LJ for their chosen character(s) in which they could post private diary entries or letters to non-player characters (which everyone could read but no one could comment on or explicitly act like they'd read), letters to other characters (viewable to all, but only the recipient could reply), or write-ups of private RP sessions with other characters (conducted in IM chat or by email, then put together into a vignette).
As the mod, I put together a public timeline of the war that everyone could access, and once a week I would post something like a departmental memo that everyone could comment on, or a newspaper article describing some event that would incite response. It's a tricky balance for a mod, keeping everyone interested and engaged while respecting their autonomy over their characters.
Anyhow, it's been a while since I joined a proper game, but I've been doing private one-on-one RPing on IM for years, and it's great fun.