This is essentially me putting up an official interest check for something I had an idea for, at least the vague making of an idea, to see what people might want to see in a forum of this type.

I LOVE Dragon Age, the world, the design, the characters, the politics. I've always kind of had a huuuuge hankering to RP in this world, use some of the many dozens of characters that I've made and played in the various games. I just, I always seem to chafe against most existing Dragon Age forums for several reasons, they're mostly personal, but still reasons!:

- They're almost ALWAYS real life face claims only, which, in a setting where most people's characters have faces created on a character creation engine, feels kind of pointless. The games already have a touch of realism in the style? Why real life ONLY?

- They always rely HEAVILY on canon, take place sometime in the midst of canon, or rely on canon characters from the series. While I love canons as much as the next person, obviously, it's difficult to make OCs feel important when everything relies on pre-determined history. It's also not very newbie friendly!

- Everything is always incredibly complicated, application process, available information, plot. While a long plot is great for a world you've built yourself, when a lot of it is provided, it can be intimidating.

My goal for this forum would be simple, and I have a list of a few things that I personally think might make it fun, and a bit unique:
- Mixed face claims, you can use real life, game screenshots from Dragon Age or other CGI sources, the only requirement is that the source has some air of realism. You can even draw your own, just again, try and keep it to at least semi-realism stylistically. I feel that this opens the forum up for people who might not feel comfortable with RL face claims, but also caters to people who DO like them and enjoy consistency.

- AU setting, or perhaps a setting far into the future away from any of the canon stories. Most canon characters would be dead or assumed retired, the story then belongs to OCs to shape and write as they desire. Perhaps a corrupt man or woman seizes power and turns the tides against the righteous? That will be up to players and staff, with major plots and arcs cleared and approved by staff. This allows for OCs to be a part of world-altering events, but also allows for some control in how they are implemented.

- Relatively relaxed, no stats or strict control on magic, it will be determined by age rather than hard stats. Your character's starting age will determined how good they are, and the more threads in which they use their magic, the better they become. Perhaps opens up for abuse, but I trust people to be reasonable, and I'll trust staff to help me keep an eye of OP characters or God-Modding.

- Easy app process, probably wont be very many bells or whistles, just something relatively straight forward and painless to fill out. I want people to be able to jump in quick, rather than taking hours and days filling out a complicated app.

- Newbie friendly, to where you don't have to have played or kept up with every single shred of canon lore to jump in. The world will be open, I will try to cram as many locations into the forum as I can, to allow for plenty of variation in character and story.

- Probably hosted on Jcink? I need to learn the platform, A LOT, but it feels like I ought to try for this.

All this being said, this is as much a call for advice as it is me pitching ideas. I know there's several Dragon Age fans around, so my question to you is simply this: What would YOU want in a Dragon Age forum? I can't promise all things will be implemented, but I want to listen and hear what people might want!

And thank you for reading all of this!