FACTION LIFE has officially opened its doors, and is looking for members! If you are interested in becoming part of a developing RP community, check out our RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN. Members who join our site during the first two months of its lifespan will receive bonus rewards to help them get started.

Getting an affiliate request from an established site is such a nice feeling.

FACTION LIFE has officially opened its doors, and is looking for members! If you are interested in becoming part of a developing RP community, check out our RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN. Members who join our site during the first two months of its lifespan will receive bonus rewards to help them get started.

FACTION LIFE has officially opened its doors, and is looking for members! If you are interested in becoming part of a developing RP community, check out our RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN. Members who join our site during the first two months of its lifespan will receive bonus rewards to help them get started.

FACTION LIFE has officially opened its doors, and is looking for members! If you are interested in becoming part of a developing RP community, check out our RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN. Members who join our site during the first two months of its lifespan will receive bonus rewards to help them get started.

Sometimes, especially with fandom sites, you need that brand recognition, so that people immediately know what the site is about upon looking at your banner. People associate Dragon Ball with Goku, Yu-Gi-Oh with Yugi, and Chainsaw Man with the guy with a literal chainsaw on his face. But I agree that it can be misleading to use graphics of canon characters on sites that only allow OCs. Some ways around that off the top of my head would be:

* using abstract art of those characters, or art that shows them in silhouette.
* using original/commissioned artwork that evokes the same "feel" as official art.
* for "-mon" sites, using art of the monsters rather than the human characters.
* using a recognizable location instead of a character (ex. using a picture of Hogwarts for an HP roleplay).

I feel like it depends on the site. In shounen fandoms, combat events are inevitable. If a site has a heavy focus on plot, a more railroady PvE approach might be preferable. In faction-based sites, you could get away with a faction v.s. faction event with little to no GM involvement. I've seen that type of event being pulled off very successfully on a Pokemon site recently, but it requires a devoted memberbase and strict PvP guidelines to avoid OOC drama.

I've also tried my hand at running mystery/puzzle-based events a couple of times. The problem I came across was that either the players metagamed (wittingly or unwittingly) and solved the mystery way too quickly, or they had a collective brainfart and I had to basically give the answer away.