It means that isolated in my own little country being forced to rely on inventing my own characters is almost as boring to me as playing chess by myself.
I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Dialogue and character interaction are fantastic tools to push the plot forward and cultivate your character's identity. But we often lose those when the only characters are player characters.
What should be a quick, interesting conversation becomes an exchange of long-winded monologues, where every participant spends a small eternity dwelling on each sentence and saying in one hundred words what they could say in five. And the more players you have in any situation, the longer it takes to actually
do anything, resulting in ludicrously slow pacing, where it takes a week to finish introductions.
Inventing background characters gives life to our story, and keeps our characters fresh and developing. It helps us move the story forward, and doesn't inhibit our creativity. It also helps us get into the habit of writing as our characters instead of ourselves.
Not that writing alone doesn't have its downsides. For one, when other people are relying on us to move the story forward, we tend to write more. There's also the wonderful element of unpredictability and necessary adaptability that come from working with other writers and their characters.
Dabiene, maybe we could find a happy medium. Each kingdom/faction/rainbow club could have a group of three or four writers working together. They pursue a plot internal to their kingdom/faction/rainbow club, while at the same time working together to plan out and execute their goals on a larger scale. We have the benefits of writing with others while still retaining some of the autonomy that comes from writing alone, as well as being able to roleplay on a massive scale with a lot of people.
People can also group or be grouped so that newer writers can be working with and getting advice from more experienced ones.
Just a thought though. I don't doubt you've got some wonderful plans in mind already.