Here's an idea that hit me just a few days ago while writing up a guide to creating legendary roleplays. I thought, why don't I create some sort of award or recognition for roleplays that are above and beyond the bar? So, here we are.

Epic Level Roleplay
Now accepting nominations for the most prestigious award on RolePlayGateway.

Are you an owner or a player in a roleplay that you think meets the highest standards, and would qualify for the "Epic Level" award? You'll have to nominate them by posting here.

We'll then review the roleplay and update with the results. Winning roleplays (and all of their players) will be adorned with due recognition and acknowledgment of the achievement.



Some tips for Epic hopefuls:
So you're the creator of a new game, and you want it to be Epic Level? Follow these guidelines to be off to a positive start, setting them as game rules for your roleplay.

Turn Off Your Signature For IC posts.
Like any good writer, you're trying to project an image into a reader's mind. Since you're playing with multiple other people, this is a collaborative effort! Roleplays are split up into posts, and a signature in the middle of a story destroys continuity! Any reader should be able to flow from one post to the next with minimal effort, and without the feel of the story being disturbed by a dose of the real world. This includes text-only signatures! Turn all signatures off for in character posts.

Follow the elements of style.
Strunk's Elements of Style is a irreplaceable article. While you are free to add your own individual flair to your posts - Strunk outlines some very basic information that will help make you look like a legend.

Edit your posts. (To make them more epic, of course.)
Since this is a forum, (and not chat, or IM) you can take as long as you want to write a post. Spellcheck, grammar check, rewrite, use the thesaurus - all before you hit submit. No one has to see your post until you're 100% done with it, so take advantage of that. Make it perfect. Then, and only then, hit submit.

Oh, shit! You've been punched in the face by a glaring grammatical error that somehow slipped past your three hours of intense inscription! Boom. Click that edit button. Fix it. This happens a lot, even if you're a fan of the preview button. Be quick, though! You don't want anyone to see that you've actually made a mistake, transposing your 'i' with the 'e'.

This also means that you should encourage your players to go back and clean up old posts! If they go back over something at the beginning of the game and rewrite it, that's fine. This sort of edit is often mandatory to make your collaborative writing project come to a polished finish. For those of you who have a bit more experience under your cramped wrists, hold reviews in an OOC thread about the posts, and provide writing suggestions that will help give your roleplay that "we're really good at this" look.

Format for the medium.
This means that if your roleplay is on a forum, format the posts in a fashion that suits the forum. Nothing is worse than seeing paragraphs on a forum broken by a single carriage return (line break, for all you non-paper people), causing what would be well-written and smoothly-read paragraphs to clump together in one big sea of text.

This also means that you have full access to use bold and italics, among all the other text effects available to you. Hey, and it's okay to augment your writing with an image here and there, since it is part of the medium.

Many users will have nice essay-style roleplays in a chat medium, using cutscripts or other formatting tools to bypass a chat's built-in limit, then publish them as raw logs. Unacceptable. If you're going to publish something, format it for the medium. No one wants to see your timestamps and cutscript injections in the midst of your roleplay. It needs to read well for the medium.



My to do list for this thread:
- Get an award image.
- Add and explain more tips.

The Award:



Winners:
None.

Nominees:
In order of nomination:

The Badlanders: "In a post apocalyptic world where tribes and clans roam the Badlands and ruined cities of the world a few 'civilized' folk formed a city they have dubbed, City 3."
The Hotsy-Totsy Twenties: "...takes place in the Roaring Twenties (the 1920's) in New York, New York, America. Whether you're trying to sell Hooch (bootleg liquor) or trying to go from a piker (a loser/coward) to an egg (someone living the rich life), there's plenty of action to be had."
Ghalerion: "The people who have a choice left to them: to save Ghalerion or let it fall to pieces before their very eyes."
Gundam Wing: Continuing Legend
The Keepers of the Keys
Fateful Travels

I have added The Badlanders to the nominee list, and I'll be reviewing this RP over the coming weeks.

I also added the image of the award! Winners will be allowed to add this image to their roleplay's thread. Also remember to post the URL for your nominations, please.

I've added Gundam Wing: Continuing Legend to the list of nominees. I haven't added The Keepers of the Keys because you didn't give me a link...

That's a great idea, thanks!

I have not added The Gateway to Hell because it clearly contains signatures and OOC comments within the IC game, so I really can't consider it for nominations. If you want to re-nominate it, you'll have to work with a GM to help you clean up these problems (by moving the OOC comments into another thread, reformatting your posts, etc.) before doing so.

Fateful Travels has been added to the list of nominees.