It has been a wild ride to be sure…
2025 will mark 20 years of roleplaying for me. I began in the summer of 2005 in Myspace groups making extremely simple roleplays in a Dynasty Warriors forum. It is here I met some of my first roleplaying friends (some of whom I still have as friends to this day). I started off simple as a one lining text speak roleplayer, and boy was I horrible at it.
It was a year later I created my first dedicated roleplay profile on Myspace, playing as the Samurai Warriors character Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Even from this point, I have beloved friends I’m happy I stay in touch with and even RP with to this day. After Myspace began to die off, I moved to the now defunct Sitemodel .net where I began to leap into multi-character roleplays and expanding my ability to write paragraphs and multiple paragraphs. I met more friends.
When Sitemodel rebranded itself into Roleplayer .me and eventually Aniroleplay.net, I moved there. For 6 years, I stayed there. I expanded my horizons to move comfortable into a multi-para to novella style of writing. I met more friends, some of whom have even become my closest friends of all outside of my wife.
My time at Ani ended unfortunately as poor moderation led to an outbreak of drama and bullying that still haunts the site to this day. In 2016, I packed up and moved to a new blossoming site known as Roleplayer’s Guild. My year there was spent being introduced to many more friends and expanding my horizons finally to original characters.
Roleplayer’s Guild unfortunately fell under its weight, growing too large too quickly for the admin to keep up. As we left, my friends and I came here in late 2017. In RPRepository, I finally moved almost entirely to original characters and began the burgeoning process of developing my own world. It was here that I met many more friends, and learned what a truly great roleplay community looks like when its leaders at the top take their jobs seriously. Since then, I’ve expanded my repertoire to include other sites and even apps such as Discord, where I’ve done my best to foster a community to write with one another.
Now here in the first month of 2025, I look back at my path to this point. In 20 years, I have had tens of thousands of roleplays; some as short as two replies while others have gone on for years and years. I have roleplayed with thousands of people (some brief, some deeply missed). I have gained hundreds of friends. I will likely gain more in the years to come.
My philosophy for RP has always been to cast the widest net and be the person the community wants of me. I strive to not be too picky; I strive to help where I can. Even as the weight of having too many roleplays puts a strain on my time, I still try my best to look out for others. From this, my advice to others is to never stop expanding. If you find yourself short on rps, look around and make yourself known, even to people whom you may not consider at first. Some of my best roleplays and closest friends were people that started out just like me; one-liners and text speak.
Be the beacon for the lost souls to find, and you’ll never find yourself short of company.
Ultimately, though, it would all be meaningless without the vast community of writers and friends I found along the way. To the staff at RPR who have fostered the best RP site community I have ever had. To those who I have known since my early days. To those who I just met. To those I lost and never found again. To those who I have shared wonderful stories and enchanting tales. To those who have guided and nurtured my journey along the way and to those I have taught in turn. To those who have a creative mind and an adventurous spirit…
Thank you for making this journey a wonderful adventure.
Here’s to another twenty.
2025 will mark 20 years of roleplaying for me. I began in the summer of 2005 in Myspace groups making extremely simple roleplays in a Dynasty Warriors forum. It is here I met some of my first roleplaying friends (some of whom I still have as friends to this day). I started off simple as a one lining text speak roleplayer, and boy was I horrible at it.
It was a year later I created my first dedicated roleplay profile on Myspace, playing as the Samurai Warriors character Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Even from this point, I have beloved friends I’m happy I stay in touch with and even RP with to this day. After Myspace began to die off, I moved to the now defunct Sitemodel .net where I began to leap into multi-character roleplays and expanding my ability to write paragraphs and multiple paragraphs. I met more friends.
When Sitemodel rebranded itself into Roleplayer .me and eventually Aniroleplay.net, I moved there. For 6 years, I stayed there. I expanded my horizons to move comfortable into a multi-para to novella style of writing. I met more friends, some of whom have even become my closest friends of all outside of my wife.
My time at Ani ended unfortunately as poor moderation led to an outbreak of drama and bullying that still haunts the site to this day. In 2016, I packed up and moved to a new blossoming site known as Roleplayer’s Guild. My year there was spent being introduced to many more friends and expanding my horizons finally to original characters.
Roleplayer’s Guild unfortunately fell under its weight, growing too large too quickly for the admin to keep up. As we left, my friends and I came here in late 2017. In RPRepository, I finally moved almost entirely to original characters and began the burgeoning process of developing my own world. It was here that I met many more friends, and learned what a truly great roleplay community looks like when its leaders at the top take their jobs seriously. Since then, I’ve expanded my repertoire to include other sites and even apps such as Discord, where I’ve done my best to foster a community to write with one another.
Now here in the first month of 2025, I look back at my path to this point. In 20 years, I have had tens of thousands of roleplays; some as short as two replies while others have gone on for years and years. I have roleplayed with thousands of people (some brief, some deeply missed). I have gained hundreds of friends. I will likely gain more in the years to come.
My philosophy for RP has always been to cast the widest net and be the person the community wants of me. I strive to not be too picky; I strive to help where I can. Even as the weight of having too many roleplays puts a strain on my time, I still try my best to look out for others. From this, my advice to others is to never stop expanding. If you find yourself short on rps, look around and make yourself known, even to people whom you may not consider at first. Some of my best roleplays and closest friends were people that started out just like me; one-liners and text speak.
Be the beacon for the lost souls to find, and you’ll never find yourself short of company.
Ultimately, though, it would all be meaningless without the vast community of writers and friends I found along the way. To the staff at RPR who have fostered the best RP site community I have ever had. To those who I have known since my early days. To those who I just met. To those I lost and never found again. To those who I have shared wonderful stories and enchanting tales. To those who have guided and nurtured my journey along the way and to those I have taught in turn. To those who have a creative mind and an adventurous spirit…
Thank you for making this journey a wonderful adventure.
Here’s to another twenty.
Nice run! I think I was registered on Roleplayer Guild at one point but never actually roleplayed there.
This year 2025 makes it 25 years of online forum roleplaying for me. I started on a music forum on EZBoard in 1999 called Rock Alley. EZBoard was a precursor to Runboard and Proboards where your registered account was a 'global' one and it could access the forum sites people set up on them. I still have my Runboard I started in 2005. Started it after EZBoard crashed and burned on the last day of May taking much of the content of my board with it. We managed to salvage much of the stuff when EZBoard found a months old back-up, and our forum had a couple dozen people at one point who were mostly refugees from The One Ring com (TORc) and the DarkStarr EZBoard. Slowly people quit logging in, and around 2015, it was just my wife and I there writing our stories together. We still write together there, but we have a mirror group here.
I too have made lifelong friends on most all these places, including meeting my soulmate on TORc in 2001. Sadly a few of my friends have passed away over the years. To new friends and old, and to another twenty! 🍻
This year 2025 makes it 25 years of online forum roleplaying for me. I started on a music forum on EZBoard in 1999 called Rock Alley. EZBoard was a precursor to Runboard and Proboards where your registered account was a 'global' one and it could access the forum sites people set up on them. I still have my Runboard I started in 2005. Started it after EZBoard crashed and burned on the last day of May taking much of the content of my board with it. We managed to salvage much of the stuff when EZBoard found a months old back-up, and our forum had a couple dozen people at one point who were mostly refugees from The One Ring com (TORc) and the DarkStarr EZBoard. Slowly people quit logging in, and around 2015, it was just my wife and I there writing our stories together. We still write together there, but we have a mirror group here.
I too have made lifelong friends on most all these places, including meeting my soulmate on TORc in 2001. Sadly a few of my friends have passed away over the years. To new friends and old, and to another twenty! 🍻
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