[tshiggins]

I participate in the ones that interest me as a way to throw out some fun ideas. So, creative writing is part of it, but creative brainstorming is the fun thing, for me. I participate(d) actively in the "Build a Steampunk World" thread, because the interaction was/is so good, and the genre is one of my favorites.

Some of those threads, though, just don't inspire me. I have little interest in horror, superhero or silly settings, and I'm hit or miss on fantasy and space opera. Generally, I start to lose interest if people, in my opinion, deviate too much from the basic premise.

For instance, if someone says they want a post-apocalyptic game, and people start to talk magic, I bail. That alters the premise, so much, that I seldom find the thread any fun.

I also prefer a playable setting. When people start introducing grotesquely high-powered stuff, I bail also (this is part of why I have so little interest in supers settings).

So, yeah. I like to participate in the creation of useful campaign settings of the sort I prefer to play and run. Part of it is that I'm running my own Infinite Cabal setting, right now, so I'm really interested in threads that present ideas I can use for that game.