Or, how to, and how not to, create and run a large scale plot for your RPG!
Most people join an RPG hoping that it already has an interesting storyline, or ten. The beauty of play-by-post is its ability to build complex plots that can develop your characters far more deeply than other kinds of RPGs. Some RPG forums run their game more open-ended and allow players to create their own plotlines, others force a more rigid adherence to whatever happens to be going on at the time.
My experience is that a plotline should always be optional.
Now I don't mean that the game setting should be optional. I mean that when you sign up and create your character, and get started, you should be able to come into the game's world, in any plausible way you choose as long as it gels with the setting, doesn't break powerplaying type rules, and doesn't otherwise disrupt ongoing storylines in ways unpleasant to the existing members. If I have a smashing idea for my own startup storyline in the game-verse, out of the way of the main storylines, I'd sure not stick around if I was told I couldn't play it.
That said, a game can often lose momentum from time to time and probably the best way to counter it is to create a game-wide main plot. So you decide, "I'm going to do this. My members are begging me for a plot!" So you brainstorm and create this original plotline, several chapters outlined and events packed in all along the way. You make sure to keep it under wraps, only letting the other staff know, and then maybe only the ones who need to know, because why give it all away? That'd spoil the whole thing.
You start the plot, introducing some new character, disaster, event, mass attack, what have you, and then watch as it just somehow doesn't work.
What happened?
Maybe it's more like...what didn't happen.
If you did all the above you probably went about it all wrong. An RPG is not a novel. It isn't even a short story. You have no idea how things are going to pan out, and to create a long elaborate plot dependent on several events that are in turn dependent on certain characters doing certain things, I recommend you put down the Word document and do something a lot more productive: look at your game.
I go by a sort of rule when I RP: I think "one step ahead." This is true whether or not I'm planning out a plot or just RPing on the fly. Plotting a roleplay is like trying to plot real life...almost. It's certainly almost as messy. If you structure it in a rigid story outline, it will fail two steps in, by which time at least most of the characters will not be acting as they were required to.
That's the beauty of it, you know.
So you still want the plot to wind the game up in a certain circumstance by the end. That's reasonable. But it must be FLEXIBLE. Keep a general bunch of notes on what you'd like to see happen, but really only plan your characters' moves one step ahead. Then, take a step back and assess what could come of it that would forward the exciting plot. It is touch and go. An added benefit is that nobody has to be locked out. Newcomers can hop into it, and still events will transpire. If things get slow, reassess where things are, and what each character wants the most. Keep a running brainstorm thread in your plot discussion board {you have one, right?} and invite members whose characters are in it, or want to be in it, to discuss their ideas and what they plan to have their characters do. Suggest what X might possibly want to do, in X situation that would cause some exciting things to happen, and as you get better at this, you'll be able to suggest ideas that would "nudge" the plot in the direction you think is most exciting. I guarantee it will get your members excited.
But what about the surprises? Well they sure have a place in a plot! I'd keep them solely restricted to what your own characters are in control of, or you and a few others you plot closely with. Like anything else in the plotline, it has to remain flexible. If the players are roleplaying their merry way right through one of your carefully planned surprises, remember the main reason why you started up this plot in the first place--making it fun for them--be happy you are succeeding, and then quietly adjust whatever surprises you have in store, to fit with the story's new direction.
There will be enough surprises for everybody here.
A good main plot for your RPG isn't this separate thing planned out by the staff and then shoehorned into the game from nowhere, where members are told they have to follow the script, or even that certain members can't even be a part of it. That sort of junk is destined to fail and leave your members feeling cheated out of a fun story experience.
A successful large RPG plot should be written the same way as any other part of your RPG: by the whole of your member group, arising out of existing situations, with some novel things thrown in here and there. It should be optional, flexible, and natural.
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