I love the forums. The fact that people in different areas of the US and someone in Japan can participate in the game is very cool to me. That being said, keeping up with the forums can become a chore, even for me. We should also keep in mind that participation on the forums is entirely optional. It earns you xp, but is not required for anyone in the game.
On top of that, characters don't always work as well online, and online characters have trouble staying up-to-date on what's happening in the game. So, how can we balance all of that, and have it be fun for everyone? In truth, we probably can't, but there are some tips and tricks for making online playing easier for the regular players, and more engaging for the online-only players.
Make sure your character fits the setting
We are playing in two primary settings. One is White Wolf's World of Darkness, and one is Venture by Night. The facts of these worlds are that the supernatural exist, and we are playing vampires. We drink blood, have access to supernatural powers and sleep during the day. We are also all employees of Venture Corporation, a multi-national conglomerate that does everything from scientific research to software development, to offering occult services. As a result, electronic communication (particularly using the forums and e-mailing other vampires) is often the most efficient way of accomplishing things.
Regular Characters
Take these things into consideration when creating your character, and set expectations in character for your participation. There are a lot of levels of interaction on the forums, that may change as your out of character life gets busier or less active, or as your character develops. This could mean you begin your character as very active on the forums, but they then become less and less active to the point where they aren't posting at all. If this is the result of out of character considerations, you may end up posting regularly again, or not at all. Or you may only check to see if one forum updates, and not worry about the others, or you might constantly hit refresh in case a new post has been made. These are all valid ways to use the forums, I just ask that you let people know what to expect from you and your character, so they don't expect you to be more active than you intend to. It's best if you can come up with an In Character justification for inactivity, or a sudden burst. It helps keep the setting going, and cuts down on confusion.
For example, if you know you don't want to use the forums, you could establish that your character just woke up from torpor, and don't understand these strange devices called computers, or are too busy with your responsibilities to spend time on the forums. If your character is a computer guru, then there should be some in character reason why they don't deign to use the forums (maybe they hate the platform the forums run on).
Online-Only Characters
If you are an online-only player, then making a character who is going to spend a lot of time on the forums and responding to e-mails is imperative. I recommend staying away from concepts that are loners. This is true for regular players as well, but it is particularly evident online. If your character is a loner who only talks to a few people, then you aren't going to be involved in major plots. That isn't to say you should start in depth conversations with everyone in the game, but make sure you know the other characters. Whether you love them, hate them, tolerate their presence, or begrudgingly respect them, at least your character has an opinion about them.
Making the most of the Forums
The forums are a tool for keeping up with the game in between sessions, and for online players to interact with the game. However, they can easily become overwhelming. So, how can you make the most of them, without refreshing the "Recent Unread Topics" page every few minutes?
The first step is to commit to the forums, or commit to staying off them. If you are committed to them, that does not mean you are posting every day, or even every week necessarily, but you are committing to keeping up with them during downtimes. If you commit to staying off them, come up with an In Character reason for not participating. That way no one expects you to be on the forums, and there is no confusion.
If you have committed to being on the forums, that's awesome. They are a valuable resource. Of course, you want to make sure you have time to participate and do other things. There are some tips & tricks for checking them out regularly, but not getting overwhelmed.
Check regularly whether that's once a day or once a week, make it a habit to check in.
Use the "Show unread posts since last visit" link I love this link and use it every time I visit the forums. It shows you all the new posts since the last time you checked the list (if you click on a thread it's automatically marked as read).
When you reply to a topic, make sure you click "Additional Options" and select "Notify me of replies". You will then get an e-mail if someone replies to you. You can also set it up to always do that by default by clicking "Profile" in the top menu, and then going to "Notifications and E-mail".
Subscribe to the newsletter This is more of a figure of speech, since I don't actually have a newsletter you can subscribe to right now (though I would like to figure that out). However, if you let me know that you're interested, I will start sending you summaries of the forums so you can keep up with what's going on. That way, if you're a Mekhet, and they start talking about bringing in a new Priscus, you know about it before the next game.
Online Scenes
Online scenes are difficult, but useful aspects of the game. Coordinating the schedules of two or three people is difficult, and if the scene involves 5 or 6 characters, it becomes almost impossible. However, there are options, and getting a scene done during a downtime can make games more interesting (since you're already resolved the scene) and means that characters don't have to leave the main group to run a side scene.
Here are some helpful tips & tricks for online scenes:
Take the initiative - As soon as you know you need to run a scene, start planning for it. E-mail the players and an ST to get them involved and check schedules.
Try to run it as a chat - Chats are harder to coordinate since everyone has to be online at the same time, but are quicker than e-mail scenes. If you can coordinate a chat, it I usually preferable.
Run it as an e-mail scene - If a chat isn't available run it over e-mail. This is a little more complicated, but an ST can run a scene over e-mail by setting up an order in which characters can respond and act. The major drawback is that if someone gets busy, you can end up waiting on them for the scene to continue. If you are involved in an e-mail scene and know you are going to be busy, let people know and either have an in character reason for dropping out, or get an ST to NPC your character.
As is usually the case, if you commit to being on the forums, or participating over downtimes, and realize you aren't able to or don't want to, you can always tweak your character so that it makes in character sense for them to change their minds. As always, if you need help with any of this, talk to a storyteller.
IRC Channel
This is something I started a while back, but hasn't gotten much attention. I'm trying to revitalize it now, so here's the deal. We have a channel on Slashnet (http://slashnet.org/) for the game. You can enter it and chat with people in channel, private message other players, run scenes, etc. To access it, you will need to either have an irc client installed (I recommend X-Chat Aqua if you're on a Mac), or you can use the java client (http://www.slashnet.org/java.php). I should be idling in the channel a lot, so stop in.