One of the disadvantages I found was that nobody ever really wanted 'their' character to die, or suffer, or 'look uncool'. I made an effort to have several of the characters I was playing die, which typically surprised people a lot.

Freeform RPGs require the most trust and cooperation between players, and I find it to be much more difficult than ordered games. But the possibilities are endless, so it's worth playing.

As Ghavrel said, the old RPGboard was nearly exclusively made of this.

Actually, I think this is what Ghavrel wanted to start with his first post here, too.