Online RP

Hello everyone !
It's been a while since I posted an article on this blog, but I was out of ideas.
So today's might just be a miracle, so even if it is a particular topic, I hope you will find this article interesting.

So, recently I've been doing a lot of "Online RolePlay", which is not a perverted thing.
It's something I used to do when I was younger and "new on the Internet", but I had stopped for a while, until quite recently I re-discovered my love for it.

So, first :
What is "Roleplay" or "RP" ?
You might know that from the club that was created last year - kind of in a videogame fashion (RPG), you incarnate a fictionnal character and make them live through adventures.
You basically have to create a fictionnal world in which your character, and the other player's characters will live. Then you have to create your own character, deciding on how he looks, speaks, thinks, acts, what is his backstory, and what are his relationships with the other player's characters.
Then someone (called the "Game Master" or "Storyteller"), who does not have a personnal character, will lay out the story, telling you what is happening and putting your character in different situations, asking you what they do, and then making you roll the dice to see if he manages to do what you want him to.
There are a lot of other precise rules to make a RP game function, but that's not what we're here for, is it ?

Then,
What is "Online RP" ?
Normal RP games happen in real life - you have to meet up with the same people everytime, which might be sometimes complicated.
But with the amazing thing that is the Internet, RP fans have found another easier way.
Online RP, or at least the one I know, is played on Forums. Anyone can create a forum using http://www.forumactif.com/ (a form of which exists in English, but is way less popular than the French one), so there is a lot of different RP forums to choose from.
Each RP Forum is its own universe : the one who created the forum though of his own world, with its own story. So once he created the forum, he can write the context, which will be left for anyone to read, and fall in love with !
Anyone, then, can join the forum and make his own character, using the presentation sheet the creator will have made, and then with other people play as their character, and create links with other characters, all through writing.
This might be a bit difficult to understand without an example, but there is not really a forum that I can show you more than another. It is actually very simple - you decide on an event with the other player(s) and write it, turn by turn.

People will post their part one after the other (fonts, pictures etc are just there for style)

And most important,
Why is it amazing ?
Some might think creating a character and making him live through text is stupid.
But I wouldn't agree.
I think it is a great exercise to use your own imagination and write something (well, I chose L for a reason). I also think it is an amazing passtime, and people eventually get very involved in their character, wishing for their story to grow, which I think is amazing.
And I have to add, on this kind of forum you will meet a lot of amazing people with a great imagination, and a talent in writing, that you will be able to talk to on the ChatBox which is part of the forum, or the parts reserved for discussion instead of RP. It is, in my opinion, very interesting, and might be of help for those who want to get better at writing.

I hope you understood what it was all about, and that some of you might get interested !
And I'm always here if you need any advice on how to write, or what forum to start on~
Dana