A History of RPG Writing and Its Purpose in the Writing/Simming World

Recent events have forced me to reflect on the creation of RPG Writing and my personal history with various fleets. Briefly, this will summarize 17-18 years of my writing and simming history.

On August 28, 2003, while stuck in an emotionally difficult marriage (long ended), I was looking for an outlet. To this day, I do not know the search terms I used or how I got there, but I found the SLA (Starfleet Legacy Alliance). At the time, it was owned and sort of run by the legendary Seth Cotis. I registered as Amanda Rose and joined a sim called the Defiant. Amanda Rose was a human counselor. I created her in a universe that was used to Betazoid counselors, figuring it would be a unique story. She fell in unrequited love with the Captain and I stayed on that sim in various incarnations for several years.

During that time, I met a number of people. Nobody at the time knew I was male. Within a few short months, I had created Zuub on Zealous and then given command of a struggling sim whose CO disappeared, called the USS America. I was a writer on that sim of a security officer, Kelly Jean O’Connor. Her picture is my icon. Despite my computer skills, I created her picture at that time. I worked my way up to the Manheim Fleet Captain and then tragedy struck in 2005. Seth Cotis suddenly died.

Unfortunately, in a power vacuum, there is often a power struggle. One side grabbed the controls of the website, despite the rules of the organization. Anyone who disagreed left. I was one of those people who left. Several others left. My sims went independent. At that time, they were the USS Horizon and USS America. USS Horizon lasted until roughly 2006 on yahoo groups. USS America lasted on the yahoo groups until roughly 2009. Both sims won awards in the Tournament of Sims at various times in this span.

In 2014, the SLA was dying and an individual convinced me to return and start a new sim, the USS Legacy. I became the Recruiting Chair and politics convinced me to leave after a few short months. It was a mostly amicable split, overall. From there, I created RPG Writing. Legacy, America, and Horizon flew and won some awards in the Tournament of Sims. Ultimately, however, RPG Writing and its bulletin board format ended in April, 2017.

After almost a year of not simming, I ran into a friend who was advertising for a sim that is now located in 22nd Fleet, but at the time was in Bravo Fleet. I asked why he never came to me and he thought that I was done simming. I got on his sim. Then, I quickly got into Bravo Fleet and got on a slow sim with a brand new creation: Amelix Milumad, a Tygarian. From there, I joined Faltan Station, with M’Mira. Many of the people on Faltan Station from that time, I now consider friends. Many of us were the core of what became one of the two major splits in Bravo Fleet a year to a year and a half later.

America and Legacy were reborn in Bravo Fleet. I was voted onto the BFA and given the brand new fleet, Task Force 64. I grew the pre-TNG era fleet to double its size in a mere month. Unfortunately, fleet politics once again struck me. Greenfelt left the BFA, tired of the politics, causing an infamous vote where a person who was desired by a certain set of people was defeated. A new person was eventually nominated and the politics became worse.

During this time, 22nd Fleet was created. Taking some inspiration from Greenfelt, myself and several others decided to leave BF. With the help of several of the folks on the Faltan Station sim, we finally left and re-formed RPG Writing.

Our idea of RPG Writing was to emphasize the sims and writing. Fleet politics had sucked the joy from most of us from writing. We wanted to get back to that happy place of creating stories and writing our characters. So, in mid-May, we broke away from BF to the consternation of those in charge at BF. It was the second break from BF in the month of May.

Creating the new version of RPG Writing was not easy, as myself and the other major contributor had no computer or web designing skills. All that we knew is that we had to leave. Several sims came with. Some are still with us in RPG Writing. Some are not. The names of the people that initially left are still on our signed Articles. As of May 31, 2019, we officially had that charter and began as a writing group.

Transitions are difficult, Bravo Fleet refused to leave us alone and tried to attack a set of our sims and our group for using materials that were co-written. Thankfully, their challenge was thrown away due to two sharp attorneys in this group. It further bonded many of us together. Of course, shortly thereafter, Vince and his cohorts retaliated by banning me from the BF forums.

But now, my sims were not in just one group. I still was on sims in 22nd, RPG Writing, and still on one in Bravo Fleet. The owner of the sim I was on in Bravo Fleet, kept me on because we have a mutual respect and of course, there was a story to write. Neither of us said anything to anyone about my being there, nor did anyone on the sim.

Then, within the last 48 hours, I was informed by said person that an ultimatum was given to his sim: kick me off or be kicked out of Bravo Fleet. This is exactly the tyranny that RPG Writing was created to avoid. No person should have to choose between a fleet and a valued simmer.

Here, in RPG Writing, our philosophy is simple: sims control their own destiny. We do not control you. Our Council has very little power. We’re here only to assist. Nobody else, besides you should control creations! If I were to describe us, it would be as a group of independent sims that have a common set of ideals. These sims and writers are a community where we write and interact. Nobody is charge of anyone else out of character. We do not have out of character ranks. There are no power plays. I hope that RPG Writing becomes nothing more than this. We want everyone to enjoy themselves.

I hope that this history has illuminated where we came from and where this group intends to go.

Sincerely,

Amanda Rose