The Arena Underground

The Arena Underground came into existence in mid-2004 and brought some much-needed order to the world of OB role-playing. Most of the role-plays on OB would feature posts in the threads with lots of OOC (Out of Character) discussion happening on the sidelines. For role-plays that involved a lot of player discussion or when things got heated between members, the massive OOC portions could get in the way and were generally ugly in the main thread posts, especially for people who were just reading along with the story.

The underground thread serves many important purposes. The first is to discuss ideas for new role-playing games to find out if they would stand enough of a chance to be created. The next was so that all OOC discussion would be moved from the main thread, and finally it allowed a place to talk about role-playing in general.

Like with the role-playing games themselves, discussions on the games require a rating so that if someone wants to follow with the underground, they will know what to expect.

Some time in mid-late-2006, Jokopoko created a Coming Attractions sticky for people showcasing new ideas to come. By PMing ideas to Joko, he would post them up. For whatever reason, the thread died rather quickly after creation.

The vast majority of underground threads have been incredibly short-lived, especially in the early days when most died out before reaching ten posts. Only the most successful and long-running role-plays have managed to range from 50-100 posts. In recent months, the Underground threads have become more and more active, sometimes outweighing the posts in the main thread.

To date, the longest-running and probably most dramatic underground thread has been the one for The Panopticon Underground with well over 500 posts and still going strong

Categories: Forums