10 Years of RPG: Share Your Story

Just this past August, RolePlayGateway turned 10 years old. While we have undergone many changes in the decade since, one thing remains: the good people that make up this community.

To celebrate, share your favorite story below. If we get some good ones, I'll put together a compendium and publish the best. Maybe we'll even bring back some of the folks who helped us get started, and they'll share theirs!

I came here because of a fight.

Specifically, after making it to the finals of a tournament on another board that featured grand melees in order to speed up the process, I came here to get better because TwilightShade was here. Figured I'd find some good opponents. Well...I did, but I found so much more.

People liked me here despite my juvenile-looking name of qbsuperstar03. They respected me, and within a year, I was a moderator. Then came a period of darkness. Deaths in the family. A fall from grace. A spiral into depression. But on the other end of it, I found something I never would have expected--friends.

Years passed, and now we talk about everything together. From fighting games and art to competitive Pokemon and engineering puzzles, I never knew it was possible to form relationships this solid with someone you've never met face to face, but it makes sense. After all, there is a person on the other side. The fact that you'll never hold hands doesn't mean you can't stay up way past your bedtime shooting the breeze with them. But just as you can love someone online, you can also hate them for how badly they screwed you over and dragged you into their schemes. I have the people of this site to thank (or blame) for that important life lesson as our world becomes more and more connected to virtual spaces, vast collections of 1s and 0s that code for funny cat pictures and silly little match-three games.

As 2016 approaches, let's remember that the screen names we see every day are real people with feelings that can be affected by the things we type into these boxes. I still feel the impact of some of those words, and where possible I save those messages to remind myself of the good I've done, the failures I must not repeat, or the evil that I must oppose. This must have been the sort of community that the GWC vets had when they came here back in 2005. I'm a little jealous that they got such a head start, but that's okay, because they made a place where others could have the same thing happen to them.

This was my first introduction to roleplaying.

I wasn't even sure of what exactly it was when I first joined the site. All my life I had loved to write even though the technical bits of writing never came easily and still don't to this day. I have progressed though, and that's one plus for me.

I ended up finding the place due to the fact that I was looking up stories of a game I used to play. I found one, but the story was old and dead by the time I tried to apply. However I had made an account and I intended to look around a bit.

I joined at such a young age, that my grammar and spelling was far worse than it is today. I made friends all across the map, there isn't one that I will forget despite no longer having contact with them.

One of my favourite memories, was getting to know a certain individual actually. We had joined the same role play and when the other players died out we kept the story going because we wanted to see it through. Unfortunately it did come to an end, and thus we didn't talk much to each other for at least a year.

I got back into contact with this person, despite him not being too terribly active. Slowly him and I became friends and eventually we found acceptance and love in each other. To this day we have been dating for three years, with more years to come.

This site has not only helped me develop as a person and a writer, but this site has given me many people to cherish and grow with. Fantastic writers from all sorts who have inspired me. This site has also given me a best friend and well to be cheesy here, my boyfriend. I would have never met him without this site.

Roleplaygateway is also the place that has always stoked my fire with inspiration to keep doing what I love. I love to write. This play has really furthered my writing capabilities and my creative aspects with writing, that I have been working on a book for at least three years now. The site is the place where I find non-verbal support for it. I don't have to ask for it, I just know being surrounded by passionate writers that, we'd all support each other in our art form.

This was a place I called home for many years, and truthfully it will still be home for me. Happy belated tenth birthday to the site!

I've been in an off-and-on RP for what will soon be eight years thanks to this site. A very, very long time ago, when I was a wee lass with bright eyes and no idea what the difference between "metal" and "mettle" was, I joined a story with a simple premise:
You are a student at an academy started by the grandson of Van Helsing. You major in killing monsters, and minor in kickin' ass.

The GM and I never got along, for various reasons, but there was never a dull moment. The original story was pretty... eh, hectic, with random kidnappings by Dracula and a major plot twist every three posts or so. The introductory post of my character revealed my young American gun fetish, and every now and then I find that post to show to other, new writers that are embarrassed about cliches or writing quality.

Now there's a user who logs in solely to respond to my PMs as we continue our third (fourth?) attempt at the story, with a return to crazy plot twists and nonsense. Good guys are bad guys, bad guys are good guys, the main bad guy is, like, a huge jerk. I've seen a lot of RPs come and go, as well as other websites and communities, and nothing has stuck with me quite like this has.

It's funny when I think back to joining this site; to this jaunty place with stories and an anime girl on the front page. Was it going to be full of nerds? Good thing I'm just joining to stretch my writing chops, hone dem skillz - impress randos with my verbiage. I didn't expect much, I certainly didn't expect to meet some of the most genuine, kind and funny people with anyone could have the privilege of writing. I made friends, I had foes, I fell in love and yet there was an ebb and flow to my attendance here, however, I always came back. It feels like going back to school, though the people are different the halls remain intact with nostalgic reminders of who you once were. My first roleplay here was a great experience, rich story about a subject of which I had little idea. Gundam Academy, it had some members from the predecessor of this site. The people made me feel welcomed and sadly those people that I had such great fun with are no longer here or like me, wander in semiannually.

Many users are young, children really - I was 26 when I joined. Still a relatively young man, I mean young for the earth but too old to crash high school parties as it were. It was here where I gained appreciation for a person's ability regardless of age, reading this wonderful prose written by some snot-nosed adolescent didn't make me salty but inspired me. I was a massive shitlord at 15, drinking hot garage beer and stealing Kool 100s from some friend's mom. I didn't really care about writing, this was of course a thousand years ago when gas was 90 cents a gallon and "Get off the phone mom so I can use the internet" was a common phrase. Hell, it took minutes to download a picture, it would take overnight to download a CD that is of course if you didn't get kicked off because you ran out of AOL minutes. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is this new generation was raising Neopets and writing blogs that thousands of people could read. They seemed better adjusted that we did at that age, I guess 'worldly' would be an apt compliment and it certainly showed in the better writings. Part of the fun was being amazed by youthful exuberance, they weren't cynical and that was reflected in the prose. For the most part it was romance-anime-high school-fluff still they were creating something.

For this site's tenth birthday I'll just end in saying that this place is more than just some website to visit while you're dropping a dook, it's a growing place full of vibrant people of which you may share a commonality. Write your own story or add to someone's because through site changes the core always remained the same; a creative community where all are welcome (Even Saladin).

I've been a member of Gateway for 7 years and for the most part I've tried to remain active in the community, I was even staff for awhile and that was an adventure of itself.

I originally came here at the request of now husband, who at the time I was dating long distance. We had been doing a few plots with one another here and there, but nothing all that entertaining. I was a "veteran" of the Yahoo! Chat RP rooms, and did a few other things during this time (MSN, Geocities, Fantasy Realms). Once they ended/died off/ whatever you want to call it. He encouraged me to get involved on the site. But there were times when I found it difficult because either everyone was posting super short stuff or stuff with purple prose; which I suppose was what was popular at the time. I had pretty much started out doing multiple paragraphs, and the occasional short pickup. Learning what was "culturally" appropriate here on the site was toughest for me.

I followed all the crazy scifi arcs with Barney, Ylanne, and the gang for awhile till that got to the point where I couldn't even find a place to be IC. It was strange because there for awhile I was on the outside looking in, but I'd still try and pick up something to do on the site here or there.

Eventually I ported a few ideas I had run on Yahoo over, some took off like crazy (MCU), other's not so much (E2020 etc). But I've rage quit a few times, and looked into a few other sites even. However there's something weird though at times about being on the same site as your partner for a hobby, quarters can get a little too close and things can get ugly. Especially when it's someone as charismatic as Barney can be.

Finally though, after awhile I managed to fall in with a group of people that I got along with pretty well; that isn't to say I don't get along with people, but not everyone you meet and write with will match up to you just right creatively.

I would however, have to say some of the scrapes I've gotten into in Gambits here on the site are a lot of fun, just pure, go with it chaotic fun. Where else would you find a space pirate, in a fight with a secret agent, in a bar that is also popular with dragons?

Including an old account, I've been mostly active for 7 years. I hung around the Discussion and Debate forum back when it was a cluster-bomb. I only roleplayed one game during this time. I left for a few months and came back with a different alias. I was still addicted to Discussion and Debate, and spent most of my time there.

When Occupy Wall Street started, I spent 3 months camping out in sub-zero temperatures. When I came back home, I had a message asking if I wanted to be a moderator in charge of D&D. Of course, I said yes.

I lost my moderatorship once for a year because I was hospitalized. C'est la vie.

People come and people go. I get to see them at one point in their lives, often when they are most critical of the world and themselves. I enjoy when people come into D&D, especially when I disagree profoundly with them. But I also like when people say what I was going to say, but better.

I joined this site in September 2008, originally under the username "Treali Storm." (I changed usernames around a year later, maybe a bit less, to "Ylanne," and it's been that way ever since.) Between 2009 and 2012, I served various roles on staff -- I was among the very first crop of Mentors, and then became one of the first Mentor Team Leads (and served among the longest stints as a mentor/scholar during my tenure). Later I was a Global Moderator and a Scholar.

My thing for a long time was crime writing (very similarly to ViceVersus -- who was originally SatoDragonFist{TAS} and then just Sato before becoming ViceVersus -- though her shtick was more noir and mine was maybe a bit different in exact flavor). I've always considered myself much more of a forums person than a chat person, but I ended up deeply embedded in the Multiverse (mostly through chat) for several years as well.

My first major roleplay on this site was Disappearing Children, which died after many months of sustained activity. My best, longest running roleplay that I created was When the Lion Wakes, which sadly ultimately also lapsed into dead-status after a couple years of activity. Some of the posts folks wrote up in WTLW were incredible.

In the Multiverse, I took on the reigns of what was then the Terran Liberation Front (that was Prose's thing before she disappeared) and then built up the Terran National Government, so that was also a thing. There have been some really fun times with the NRP scene.

Over the years, I've met a number of folks whose writing I've truly and deeply admired for the beautiful prose it's always been -- everyone from Ronin (also known as Nemo) to EreAi (also known as Ellipse) and ViceVersus and Parabola (also known as Script) and Alasund De'Astio. More importantly, though, I've met a number of people who are not only fabulous writers but are fantastic human beings who I've continued to be friends with in the years I've known them -- I ended up *in* Izoi and Barney's wedding (barney_fife used to be admiralmcgregor), and have met up with several other Gateway folks in meatspace since (Ellipse and Ronin among them) and keep in touch with many, including DemiKara (also known as Karato). That is definitely one of the best things about this place -- it's certainly taken on a number of undesirable attributes in recent years, but I remember Gateway fondly as a place where I have always had a solid community. (Community = complete with drama and tension and fights as much as friendships and epic roleplay and conversations on real world, cutting issues.)

(*I know I missed a lot of people here, because over the years, I've had the opportunity to interact with so many lovely people in so many different ways. This place has been incredibly important to me over the last several years, especially because of those connections.)

It's difficult to say exactly what RoleplayGateway has meant to me as a writer, a roleplayer, and a person. It taught me a lot of skills that I still use, from my time as a Moderator lead in being succinct, direct, and approachable to a community to the importance of reading between the lines in posts. It was at RPG that I learned that I didn't have to give my roleplay partners all the information, that surprise was okay. It was at RPG that I learned that saying more means sometimes writing less. It was at RPG that I made some very important and lasting friendships that I'm incredibly proud of.

I've also used RPG on a resume, which landed me my current job. I may have smudged the actual content of the site a little and beefed up what I did, but I totally snagged a job roleplaying.

I loved and continue to love this site. Every now and again I'll poke my head in and smile because it's still doing so well, steered by incredibly competent hands that are passionate and stable people who won't let RPG go away. They - and you - deserve a ton of credit. It's apt that I once heard RPG described as akin to Hotel California.

You can check out anytime you like, but you can never truly leave.

Well, RPG has been my life. I started back in 1996, seems like yesterday when i first started out. My sacred names werr KaosKnightGohan, StarKnightGohan, of couse Legendary Gohan, NewMysticGohan (Clan of New Mystic Vegeta) Originally with parachats. Im an original member of PPC (Pikas Pokemon Chat). Ive migrated to different RPG communities over the years. Mostly known for unofficial digimon domain ressurection from site closing. I like to call myself a pirate of RPG chats.

Eventually, I had stumpled upon GWC which I grew to know a lot of people. I had ended my RPG years back on Animeforum in 2008. Ive had experience to all of the fighting techniques over the years, preferably t2. I have never posted anything on the forum whatsoever, I do regret not getting the chance to grow with the community due to life but i am glad that roleplaygateway is successful. I was told by Eric about the site (hence my 10 years ago).

This site has memories of many members that I knew and wish I would have kept in contact with. Glad this community is doing well for itself, I plan on becoming an active member just to get the feel again. I am happy to see that the trend is still continuing til this day. Anyone has any questions for me feel free. Glad to have RPG be a big part in my life over 10 years of experience and happy that I've grown to know a lot of people over the years that I consider as family.

Mostly I just beat people up before the arena died.. then the debate forum became a place I'd visit every so often. But the loss of the chat basically spells my exit--I don't come here much anymore and don't intend to without a community chat.

The community chat exists. Presently, it's just not on the bottom bar.

You'd be a loss for Debate and Discussion. You were a voice of reason.

Sara Whitley wrote:J don't come here much anymore and don't intend to without a community chat.

I spend less time looking at RPG without the community chat, but I still have the tab open when I'm watching Youtube or Netflix or playing a video game, so I can refresh every half-hour and check for PMs and posts.

Anyway, as far as I'm aware, chat will be returning, and in the mean time it appears as if actual RPs are being posted more frequently than storages and private stories. Jump back into RPing, or browse the forums. It's what I've had to do to fill the void.

Role Play Gateway can be the only forum I can be said to have had any sort of presence on. I must have been something like thirteen when I originally joined, and being a lonely kid living a dozen kilometers from my nearest friend/civilization with only a 56KBPS internet connection to keep me company, this place was a very comfortable place to be. I ended up jumping head first, despite some confusion as to how everything worked, and ended up having a lot of fun. I believe I had a role in one of the few Role Plays (from my understanding) to have been completed on this site, and while I dropped out just before the end, that was a great experience.

As has been mentioned above, I find myself coming back every so often, poking my head in and maybe even trying to get back into the swing of things, but unfortunately I never stay too long. I am glad however, that this place still exists and so strongly. It warms my heart to know that it may be providing to some kid right now what it did for me all those years ago.

Does anyone know/remember pooka_x? Four years ago she inadvertantly helped turn a shoddy multiverse character into one of my most popular d&d quest givers, who launched even more characters I still use today. I'd love to reconnect with her and let her know how much good came out of hastily rewriting two characters for a silly relationship drama arc in Gambit's.

Even though I've come on sparingly in the past seven years, there are so many people here and so many roleplays and stories that are special to me. I'm really glad I found this site so long ago - I was looking for a place to continue harry potter roleplays, since that's what I've done since I've been roleplaying, which has been a long, long time off and on. One of my favorite roleplays I did, even though it didn't get off the ground much, was a Detective Conan/Case Closed roleplay. It was fun to reinvent my character! Another one was a Tokyo Mew Mew roleplay with MaSigma. ^^

I joined this site just barely a year ago.

I had stumbled upon the site after I looked up some roleplaying forums on Google. I was having a really bad time in school, and my roleplaying friends had given up on D&D, saying it was a waste of time. I really needed something to take the edge off, and this was the first thing that came up on the search.

I remember when I first got on. Everyone greeted me, everyone was so eager to have me join the community. From Day 1, I was having a blast, jumping right into the MV and doing a few 1 on 1 chats back when you could instant message people (man, I miss that feature).

But then the site crashed. For a few months, I was stuck waiting, wondering when it would get back on. After checking every day for 2 months, I started to lose hope. School was getting harder to manage, and I was becoming a nervous wreck.

But then the site got back on, albeit with a few... changes.

A lot of people left. A few things were different here and there, but I didn't care. I could finally get back on and have some FUN.

I've been struggling with depression for a long time now. If it weren't for this site, I might have given up completely. This site somehow managed to give me something to look forward to every day; someone to talk to, something to express myself in. I found friends on this site that have treated me better than anyone I've known in person.

So thanks to ALL of the staff behind this site. For cheering me up when nothing could.

Before even joining this site, I was pretty much a seasoned Roleplayer having gained my RPG experience solely from Yahoo! Groups and to an extension, Y! Messenger. I originally started roleplaying online right out of high school in 2000. By the time the mid-2000s rolled around though, all of the rpgs I was in died out and I kind of lost interest, but in 2011, I missed roleplaying and find this site through Google. Needless to say I got hooked easily.

My first RPG here was one of my favorites called Devil. It was basically a love story. Even though there were only 6 of us playing, we had alot of fun, but the rpg died out when our moderator vanished and another joined the military. I would love to see this rpg get revived.

Another one of my favorites that unfortunately didn't last long was a Disney-influenced rpg called Fractured Fairytales. If this rpg ever gets revived, I'd be there in a flash lol.

One rpg I was enjoying was a very complicated Victorian love story called One More Chance/Redemption. Redemption was the first attempt, but that ended and One More Chance was the revival and lasted a bit longer but than people started to vanish including the mod.

I did try my hand at becoming a moderator myself, but with all 3 of my rpgs, people wouldn't keep up and my 3rd one also caused me to burn out.

I only come around to see if there's an rpg I can see myself committing too because I have to love the concept right off. I will admit, I am partial to the romance ones, which seem to be lacking lately. However I do like this site. And those RPGs I created helped me come up with 3 more stories. It was the biggest reason why I started roleplaying to begin with, to help sharpen my writing skills.

So my story's probably pretty typical of a lot of folks here. I pitched up here six years ago, 16 years of age with fuck-all creative writing experience and a hankering for a community where I'd fit in. I was a bit of an odd kid, but I had a lot of stories bottled in my head and this seemed like the place to let them out.

I'm still blown away by the community here. It's had some ups and downs, but the people frequenting this website are some of the most wonderful human beings I've ever had the pleasure to converse with. RoleplayGateway still manages to be inclusive and inspiring, pushing young writers to make their dreams a reality.

I've written a lot of stuff for this place, in more genres than I care to name. It's tested me, pushed my limits and broadened my horizons.

Thanks, RoleplayGateway.