...where to begin. I know well what an RPG on a message board is, and I have "played" lots of them. I'd like to join you guys, and I know that my imagination, combined to my good knowledge of the Warhammer world, would make me a suitable "player". But I don't know where to begin! I see lots of RPG's, but all of them are very advanced and I couldn't enter in them right now: I don't have a character and I don't know their story. So here are my questions:

1. Does anyone plan to start a new RPG soon? I'd like to join.
2. If not, is it possible to join an existing RPG?
3. Which one is good?

Thank you for your help, guys.

Well, I can't answer the first question, since I'm currently running one and can't read people's minds, but as for your other two questions:

2. Yes. Xarhain has done so in my current RP, Goblit Skullhelm did so in TWE, Scaly did that in SCOM (though I regretted that one later). Generally, GMs have character limits which they observe: i.e. they want five members, or seven members or what have you in the party, because that suits the level of enemies they want to use, and the difficulty of the puzzles they want to present (six heads are better than one, and all that). Should characters drop out due to inactivity, or die pointlessly in an encounter, then many GMs are willing to take another character on to keep up their 'quota'.

2. There are only three RPs running at the moment, and they are, in order of age:

>ITK, or Into The Kingdoms. Run by Goblit Skullhelm, it's a quest-style RP, with a wilderness journey into the Mountains of Mourn and the objective of retrieving an artefact at the end. Seems to be beginning to get a lot more complex, although suffering from activity problems of late... I can't blame Goblit, he'll be doing his GCSEs right now, and you have so many of those blasted exams to revise for I'm surprised he's finding time to post at all! I think it's gone a long way into its plot so far, and we're beginning to enter the build-up to the climax. Uses the Mordheim system, adapted for the purpose.

>TSB, or The Shadows Beneath. My one, it's a city-based RP set in Carroburg, with much subterfuge and conspiracy and so forth. Well, the players might not think it's quite that subterfugey and conspiratorial yet, but I've yet to get started on some of the best bits of the plot. Again, has been running a while, although we're not near the end yet by any means. My RPs tend to be rather long :). Uses my own system, based around Inquisitor.

>Well, no-one's started using an abbreviation for this one yet, but it's called Korhanthop's Curse, and it's run by Luc Arkhame. Started relatively recently, it's a quest-style RP, although from what I've seen so far it's got a slightly grittier, less heroic feel to it than ITK. Set in Araby/Nehekara. Essentially, this RP has just got started, with the tedious town-equipment-gathering stage disposed with and the journey begun upon, so might be your best bet should someone die outside the GM's plans or become inactive. I think it's using some form of the D&D system.

As to which one is good... well, I'm running one, so I think my opinion will be hopelessly biased :D. However, I'd say (as I have characters in both the other two) that ITK has been pretty fun so far, and that the mix of characters in Korhantop's Curse makes it look like it could become very good indeed. The best way to go about finding this kind of thing out would be talking with players on what they think to be the strengths and weaknesses of the RPs they're participating in, and the strengths and weaknesses of the GMs running them.

Thinking about it, I may be able to give you a sort of answer to your first question: that is, that RPs come in starts and stops. When a big RP finishes, as happened with TWE, there are often a burst of smaller RPs, as the climax/ending inevitably generates interest in the section: watch out for these, as they can often fall by the wayside (examples: The Silver Road, Mousillon), but ITK sprung out of the ashes of TWE, and it's survived pretty well thus far. Therefore, you should be watching the forum if any long-running RP looks like it's about to end, as those are probably the optimal conditions for people thinking about starting their own.

One final word: there's a generally competition to join a new RP of reasonable quality, so you do need to check your character entry for quality of description, spelling and just the general calibre of the personality you've created. That being said, your post above is perfectly punctuated and spelt, so I think you'd be in with a good chance :thumb:

While chili has covered it all, I can recommend one thing on running your own rpg. Do not try and run the rp through a character, I did and failed miserably. Otherwise I think mousillion would have a had a chance.