EISPIRATEN

Is there a way to make this automagically happen? Is there something the originator needs to do differently?
I usually forget to make sure that I select the "open in a new tab" option.

Are you asking about how to open links in a new tab? That's a browser thing. MIddle-click. Or ctrl-left-click probably.

No, I can do that from here. I would like any links created in a story to automatically open in a new tab if that's possible rather than making the user do something.

It's possible, but would require work. And even more work to make it apply only to some users. If somebody wants to take that on, or if one of yall can find some phpbb extension that does this, I'm happy to facilitate.