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1.) Try to come up with an original theme. Originality is the most important thing when creating and RPG, mostly because there are so many RPGs out there, and many of them, sadly, resemble one another. If your RPG is different and unique from all the others, I can guarantee you are on the road to success. 2.) Don't copy! Resist the urge to steal ideas from other sites no matter what you do! Trust me, if you copy another site, the owners and members of that site will find you, and when they do, you're in a whole world of trouble. And aside from giving you a bad reputation and an inbox full of hate-mail, copying is also called plagiarism and plagiarism is very illegal. Don't do it. It's only common sense. 3.) I suggest building your actual site using a website host like GeoCities, Angelfire, or Brinkster. A pagebuilder like Expage should really only be used as a last, desperate resort. Of course, there are the few Expage sites that you would never be able to tell were Expage sites, but they are very rare. And site hosts like GeoCities, etc. just tend to look more professional than Expage sites. Besides, there's so much more you can do with them, while Expage has very, very limited space and capabilities. 4.) Remember, color scheme and organization is very important! People will be less likely to join a site that looks like it was just slapped together in five minutes than a site that looks like time was actually spent on it. And when it comes to color scheme, remember to keep it consistent. Keeping the same colors throughout the site will make the site look smoother and more unified. Besides, it's more professional. 5.) When using a background for your page, I know it's really tempting to put a bright and vivid background on your page, but... Again, try to resist this urge. Bright, flashy backgrounds can prove to be very distracting, and you don't want that. Backgrounds are supposed to be just what their name says: They're supposed to stay in the background! I suggest using either a faded or dark background, something that will not be distracting. Also make sure that text is easily readable on it--and by readable, I mean make sure that you can read it without having to highlight it! Also make sure to use no more than three backgrounds on a site. Again, keeping the background consistent is as important as keeping the color scheme consistent and for the same reasons. 6.) Though spelling and grammar does not really matter when you're actually role playing, it does matter when you are building a site. If grammar and spelling really isn't your strong point, I suggest typing up everything in a word processing program and running a spell check on it before posting it on the net. Spelling errors on a site tend to make the site look unprofessional and rushed. 7.) When you're creating all the links for the various pages on your site, make sure to check them all to be sure they work! |