Enter the PbP
Somehow I’ve managed to stay away from Play-by-Post games all these years, vaguely associating them with some amorphous blob of fanfic and freeform roleplaying that I’m just not interested in. But in reality there are all kinds of gaming going on via PbP. I see this as going back to my Play-by-Mail roots from childhood, where I would sign up for games I found advertised on the back of Savage Sword of Conan magazine.
Here are some of the sites I’ve found for PbP — you’ll notice an emphasis on story games:
RPG.net (big)
Snail’s Pace (story games, new)
RPG Crossroads (long-running and cozy)
RPOL.net (big, not so many story games, but a wide variety nonetheless)
PbP House (fancy)
Subscribe to Kooneiform
I’ve written a comprehensive review of rpol.net here: http://www.kurlumbenus.net/loneGM/?p=16
It actually has quite a few “story based” freeform games, and some neat tools to help GMs stay organized.
Some other pbp sites:
http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/index.php
http://www.roleplaygateway.com/
http://forum.rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?f=30
http://www.myth-weavers.com/
A good detailed review of RPOL, GM. I’ve been running a game of Don’t Rest Your Head on rpgcrossroads.net (currently on an ‘unofficial hiatus’), where there are a dozen or so active players, so reading about a site with so many players is quite interesting.