I'm trying to find some active online communities that regularly host forum mad libs games. I used to participate in a few but they seem to have died down or the forums closed.
What I love about forum mad libs games is the community aspect - you get to see how different people's minds work based on the words they choose. Some people go for maximum humor, others try to make it poetic, and some just throw in the most random thing they can think of.
Does anyone know of any forums that still have active forum mad libs games running? I'm looking for places with regular participation, maybe weekly or monthly games. Bonus points if they have different themes or variations on the classic mad libs format.
I'm part of a creative writing forum that has weekly forum mad libs games every Sunday. We have a dedicated moderator who posts a new template each week, usually themed around current events, seasons, or writing prompts. The community there is really active - we usually get 50+ contributions per game.
What I like about this particular forum's approach to forum mad libs games is that they sometimes do progressive" versions where one person's completed mad lib becomes the template for the next round. So the story evolves and mutates over several weeks, getting more absurd with each iteration.
They also archive all the completed forum mad libs games, so you can go back and read the hilarious results from months or even years ago. It's like a time capsule of the community's collective silliness.
There's a roleplaying game forum I frequent that has amazing forum mad libs games integrated into their world-building activities. They'll post a description of a location, character, or historical event from their game world with blanks, and players fill them in. The results often become canon in their games!
What's cool about these forum mad libs games is that they're not just for fun - they actually contribute to the collaborative world-building. The game masters take the most interesting or fitting contributions and incorporate them into the ongoing story.
I've seen some incredibly creative ideas come out of these forum mad libs games. Players who might be shy about writing long backstories feel comfortable contributing a few words, and those words sometimes spark major plot developments.
Our movie forum has a monthly forum mad libs game that's become quite popular. We do it as a bad movie pitch" game where someone describes a terrible movie idea with blanks, and people fill in the worst possible words to make it even more ridiculous.
The community really gets into it - we have regulars who plan their contributions in advance and try to out-absurd each other. We've even had a few of our forum mad libs games turned into short films by members who are filmmakers.
What keeps these forum mad libs games active is that we make them events. We announce them in advance, have a deadline for submissions, and then do a "reveal" thread where the completed stories are posted. The anticipation builds participation.
I moderate a streaming service discussion forum that does bi-weekly forum mad libs games focused on predicting plot twists for upcoming shows. We have a template like In the next season of [Show Name], [Character] will discover they are actually a [noun] and must [verb] the [adjective] [noun] before [time frame]."
The forum mad libs games serve multiple purposes - they're fun, they generate discussion about the shows, and they sometimes accidentally predict actual plot points (though usually in much more absurd forms).
We've found that having a regular schedule for forum mad libs games helps maintain activity. Members know to check the forum every other Thursday for the new game, and there's always a core group that participates.
Our TV series forum has what we call Mad Libs Mondays" where we take a quote from that week's episode and turn it into a forum mad libs game. It's become a tradition that members really look forward to.
What makes these forum mad libs games work is that they're tied to current content everyone is watching. There's immediate relevance and shared context. The Monday after a big episode airs, everyone's already thinking about it, so the mad libs game feels like part of the ongoing discussion rather than a separate activity.
We also sometimes do "celebrity mad libs" where we take interview quotes from actors and turn them into forum mad libs games. Those get particularly creative responses since people imagine what the actors might actually say.
The classic film forum I'm active on has a wonderful tradition of Oscar Mad Libs" every awards season. We take acceptance speech templates and famous movie quotes, turn them into forum mad libs games, and imagine what ridiculous things winners might say or what absurd versions of classic films might be like.
These forum mad libs games have been running for years, and we have archives going back over a decade. It's fascinating to see how the humor and references have evolved while the core format remains the same.
What keeps a forum mad libs game community active, in my experience, is consistency and community ownership. When members feel like they're part of a tradition rather than just participating in a one-off game, they're more likely to keep coming back.