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Storygaming
Online text-based roleplaying is as old as the Internet itself. It is a form of roleplaying, where one takes on the role of a fictional character or group of characters to participate in an imaginary world. It is also a form on interactive fiction, where one co-creates a story for their character with either computer prompts or typed posts from another player. Entire communities of players join communities and forums to type in-character (IC) and out of character (OOC) at each other. Storygaming Online is a resource full of tips, suggestions and a very simple but effective rules set for doing so: the SO System. The SO System is completely free and licensed as [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. CC BY-SA 4.0.]

Because the term roleplaying has become so broad and Interactive Fiction means something specific to a fair number of people, we prefer the terms storygames and storygaming as a title for online text-based roleplaying. Its also a lot easier to type than the latter. Most people storygame in settings that were borrowed from books, movies and television shows or use a tabletop rp system like Dungeons & Dragons, the World of Darkness or Shadowrun. Converting a tabletop system intended for 2-6 players + a DM/ST/GM sitting together with dice and paper character sheets for a set number of hours has always been a challenge. Sites like Roll 20 can significantly help but the rules themselves can be cumbersome and popular storygame sites have small groups people playing together practically 24-7. There's no good way for a single DM/ST/GM to guide the storygame. The solution of creating a volunteer staff to help everything run smoothly can often backfire as social politics rear their ugly heads and people spend more time fighting or griping OOC than they spend storygaming their characters.

The Storygame Online (SO) System
Storygaming Online is a system with:
 * an easy to learn, easy to remember rules set
 * basic character sheets that convert easy to any setting genre
 * a single 10 sided (D10) Event Dice that is rolled when a player isn't certain of their character's success/failure or wants some guidance in what to type next.
 * completely customizable attributes, powers, merits, flaws, etc., called Traits