My apologies if this post is inappropriate. I was told the computer forums would be the place to post this.
Outside the world of subscription based MMO’s there has always existed a sub-culture of free to play roleplaying games, user created worlds where the players and the server hosts can let their imaginations and indeed as is often the case, their talents run wild. In these games worlds are populated with ideas and gameplay elements that are simply not possible within the boundaries of the massively popular games such as World of Warcraft, at least not the same extent.
One game that not only offers the framework for such worlds, but also a professional toolset to create it, as well as a supportive, knowledgable community to play and give advice upon, is Neverwinter Nights 2. It is well known that Neverwinter Nights 2 (and indeed its predecessor Neverwinter Nights) ships with a DM client and with a toolset for creating your own adventures. But peer a little deeper into the community and you find the true beating heart and soul of the NWN fanbase - The Persistent World (or more commonly PW). A persistent world is essentially a free to play mini MMO usually supporting a maximum of up to 96 players at one time. Obviously as most of them are created by non-professionals rather than paid designers, you’d think that quality may suffer a little? However it is somewhat shocking to see that often these non-professionals can out-do spectacularly the professional game designers, with fully realised worlds. Whether the worlds are tropical islands, undead infested wildernesses, or even painstakingly recreated locations from within the DnD source books, each is spectacularly realised taking full advantage of the tools on offer.
However it is the gameplay essence of these PWs where the newcomer soon realises just how far apart from mainstream gaming this sub-culture truly is. The players do not join these worlds and become part of the community because they’re free. They play here.. to roleplay. Now most of us will have come across roleplayers or indeed have ventured onto a roleplay specific server in our time playing MMO's, but it is taken to a different level in these persistant worlds. Levelling is less often the focus than making a name for your character within the world, be it through skulduggery, political skills and diplomacy, or simply because your character is renowned for being a knowledgeable and amiable old soul.
Now roleplay by itself is all well and good, but how is it different from any other MMO roleplaying server? Well, firstly you factor in that the people who build and maintain the server are likely the same people you play with. This means that the world can be dynamic towards the players' actions. For instance, if a score of players assault a keep together, kill all foes within and torch it to the ground, it only takes a few tweaks on the toolset and a quick update and the keep is nothing but a smouldering ruin next time you play. Furthermore the Neverwinter Nights games ship with a slightly unstable, yet still invaluable DM Client. This allows for certain players or staff members of a PQ to take the role of Dungeon Master, formulating and implementing plots on the fly, tailoring events and occasions for specific characters and bringing a completely personal feel to the way the game is played. It's not about taking a quest to kill a certain number of enemies, nor grinding XP to hit the next level. It's about taking part in a dynamic living breathing world, where your actions do matter, and can change the world you play in on a day-to-day basis, as well as create your own entirely unique story.
Now at this point you may be thinking this all sounds too good to be true (or you may be thinking something along the lines of 'roleplay? Lol'), and you'd be right. Whilst the non-professional teams don't negatively impact build quality or vision, they do lack well.. professionalism. With these servers being smaller and more intimate than a large scale MMO, arguments, tantrums and dramas are always but a step away from rearing their ugly heads.
Nevertheless, PW's offer an experience that is unique and distinct from both the classic pen and paper game and MMO's. MMO's will never be able to compete with the attention to detail and responsiveness a human DM can provide. But more importantly to this community, PW's offer a distinct advantage over pen and paper. While PW's will also never be as intimate as a classic pen and paper game, they offer a few advantages:
(1) First and foremost, PW's allow a greater level of immersion and chance to delve into the role of your pc. Whereas most pnp games meet once a week, a PW is always there, you can always log in for a few minutes or hours on end and immerse yourself in your character. This allows for some truly amazing character progression arcs. Without a doubt, the best roleplaying I've ever seen has happened on PW's for this reason. The ability to truly make a pc your own is unparalleled.
(2) Visual Representation - It is a fair point made by pnp games that no computer graphic can ever match the power of the human imagination. While this is true, when multiple people are involved, it's nice to have everyone see something for what it is supposed to be. Neverwinter Nights 2 offers a solid graphics engine to show the world and your character. It has become the dm client that Wizards of the Coast flirted with making with their release of 4th Edition but ultimately scrapped.
(3) Computer Handled Mechanics - While the DM can step in at any time (I often do) and break the game down into its pnp round by round components through use of the pause button (only DMs can pause the server), it is a great relief to have combat and skill checks streamlined and handled by the computer. DM's can be as mechanic intensive as the want, or if they want to focus on story, they can let the computer do the work.
While I would never argue that pnp or PW's are superior or inferior to one another, the point I've tried to demonstrate above (with the help of a portion of an article made by a member of our server) is that PW's offer a unique experience that is distinct from both MMO's and pnp games. With a recent patch to neverwinter nights 2, joining a pw is easier than ever. Where once you had to download and install files for each pw into countless subfolders, now you need merely click connect to the server of your choice and the autodownloader takes care of the rest. In this economy, neverwinter nights 2 gold (which costs $30 I believe) is a great investment because these PW's are 100% free, forever. If you guys are interested, I recommend you head on over to the neverwinter vault and check out the 'top gameworlds' tab.
World of Charun, The Frontier Reborn, A Land Far Away, Baldur's Gate, Middle Earth: The Sixth Age, Sundren - these are all well run pw's aiming at slightly different audiences. I personally am an admin/story lead for the Frontier Reborn, the first Neverwinter Nights 2 PW (and still the best!). If you're interested check us out at The Frontier, a Neverwinter Nights 2 persistent world .
I hope this post isn't inappropriate. Many of our members also run pnp games. I know for a fact there's one game using maptool looking for more players, and I've pointed them to these forums to perhaps find players for a game.
Thanks for reading.

My apologies if this post is inappropriate. I was told the computer forums would be the place to post this.
Outside the world of subscription based MMO’s there has always existed a sub-culture of free to play roleplaying games, user created worlds where the players and the server hosts can let their imaginations and indeed as is often the case, their talents run wild. In these games worlds are populated with ideas and gameplay elements that are simply not possible within the boundaries of the massively popular games such as World of Warcraft, at least not the same extent.
One game that not only offers the framework for such worlds, but also a professional toolset to create it, as well as a supportive, knowledgable community to play and give advice upon, is Neverwinter Nights 2. It is well known that Neverwinter Nights 2 (and indeed its predecessor Neverwinter Nights) ships with a DM client and with a toolset for creating your own adventures. But peer a little deeper into the community and you find the true beating heart and soul of the NWN fanbase - The Persistent World (or more commonly PW). A persistent world is essentially a free to play mini MMO usually supporting a maximum of up to 96 players at one time. Obviously as most of them are created by non-professionals rather than paid designers, you’d think that quality may suffer a little? However it is somewhat shocking to see that often these non-professionals can out-do spectacularly the professional game designers, with fully realised worlds. Whether the worlds are tropical islands, undead infested wildernesses, or even painstakingly recreated locations from within the DnD source books, each is spectacularly realised taking full advantage of the tools on offer.
However it is the gameplay essence of these PWs where the newcomer soon realises just how far apart from mainstream gaming this sub-culture truly is. The players do not join these worlds and become part of the community because they’re free. They play here.. to roleplay. Now most of us will have come across roleplayers or indeed have ventured onto a roleplay specific server in our time playing MMO's, but it is taken to a different level in these persistant worlds. Levelling is less often the focus than making a name for your character within the world, be it through skulduggery, political skills and diplomacy, or simply because your character is renowned for being a knowledgeable and amiable old soul.
Now roleplay by itself is all well and good, but how is it different from any other MMO roleplaying server? Well, firstly you factor in that the people who build and maintain the server are likely the same people you play with. This means that the world can be dynamic towards the players' actions. For instance, if a score of players assault a keep together, kill all foes within and torch it to the ground, it only takes a few tweaks on the toolset and a quick update and the keep is nothing but a smouldering ruin next time you play. Furthermore the Neverwinter Nights games ship with a slightly unstable, yet still invaluable DM Client. This allows for certain players or staff members of a PQ to take the role of Dungeon Master, formulating and implementing plots on the fly, tailoring events and occasions for specific characters and bringing a completely personal feel to the way the game is played. It's not about taking a quest to kill a certain number of enemies, nor grinding XP to hit the next level. It's about taking part in a dynamic living breathing world, where your actions do matter, and can change the world you play in on a day-to-day basis, as well as create your own entirely unique story.
Now at this point you may be thinking this all sounds too good to be true (or you may be thinking something along the lines of 'roleplay? Lol'), and you'd be right. Whilst the non-professional teams don't negatively impact build quality or vision, they do lack well.. professionalism. With these servers being smaller and more intimate than a large scale MMO, arguments, tantrums and dramas are always but a step away from rearing their ugly heads.
Nevertheless, PW's offer an experience that is unique and distinct from both the classic pen and paper game and MMO's. MMO's will never be able to compete with the attention to detail and responsiveness a human DM can provide. But more importantly to this community, PW's offer a distinct advantage over pen and paper. While PW's will also never be as intimate as a classic pen and paper game, they offer a few advantages:
(1) First and foremost, PW's allow a greater level of immersion and chance to delve into the role of your pc. Whereas most pnp games meet once a week, a PW is always there, you can always log in for a few minutes or hours on end and immerse yourself in your character. This allows for some truly amazing character progression arcs. Without a doubt, the best roleplaying I've ever seen has happened on PW's for this reason. The ability to truly make a pc your own is unparalleled.
(2) Visual Representation - It is a fair point made by pnp games that no computer graphic can ever match the power of the human imagination. While this is true, when multiple people are involved, it's nice to have everyone see something for what it is supposed to be. Neverwinter Nights 2 offers a solid graphics engine to show the world and your character. It has become the dm client that Wizards of the Coast flirted with making with their release of 4th Edition but ultimately scrapped.
(3) Computer Handled Mechanics - While the DM can step in at any time (I often do) and break the game down into its pnp round by round components through use of the pause button (only DMs can pause the server), it is a great relief to have combat and skill checks streamlined and handled by the computer. DM's can be as mechanic intensive as the want, or if they want to focus on story, they can let the computer do the work.
While I would never argue that pnp or PW's are superior or inferior to one another, the point I've tried to demonstrate above (with the help of a portion of an article made by a member of our server) is that PW's offer a unique experience that is distinct from both MMO's and pnp games. With a recent patch to neverwinter nights 2, joining a pw is easier than ever. Where once you had to download and install files for each pw into countless subfolders, now you need merely click connect to the server of your choice and the autodownloader takes care of the rest. In this economy, neverwinter nights 2 gold (which costs $30 I believe) is a great investment because these PW's are 100% free, forever. If you guys are interested, I recommend you head on over to the neverwinter vault and check out the 'top gameworlds' tab.
World of Charun, The Frontier Reborn, A Land Far Away, Baldur's Gate, Middle Earth: The Sixth Age, Sundren - these are all well run pw's aiming at slightly different audiences. I personally am an admin/story lead for the Frontier Reborn, the first Neverwinter Nights 2 PW (and still the best!). If you're interested check us out at The Frontier, a Neverwinter Nights 2 persistent world .
I hope this post isn't inappropriate. Many of our members also run pnp games. I know for a fact there's one game using maptool looking for more players, and I've pointed them to these forums to perhaps find players for a game.
Thanks for reading.