games collapsing - is this normal or am I unlucky?

Hello

I've been involved in 3 play by post games so far - four if you include a game I tried to join (made character etc) but wasn't chosen.

Each of those games ended after a somewhat short period of play - the intro, maybe a small battle. I must admit this is a bit frustrating.

But... is this normal? Do most games fail to gel? Have I just been unlucky? Or... maybe I'm disruptive/unpleasant and I'm the reasons those games failed?

:/

IME, pbp games are a bit if a lottery draw.


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Sadly its pretty normal. I haven't been on here long but over half my games have gone the same way.

Don't lose heart some of them do take off properly, especially if you start to learn who the regulars are.

I was also very lucky to get into an already up and running game where some of the players had left.

It's not because you smell

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Having paid some attention to the "Talking the Talk" board for a while, that seems pretty normal.

On the other hand, I've only played in one game here: the one I got accepted into the day I joined the boards. A year and a half later, it's still going.

So, as Morrus said, luck of the draw.


...or TallIan's wrong and you smell.

It is, unfortunately, the luck of the draw. Some GM's are known for not following through, sometimes it's just bad chemistry with the group of players, sometimes it's purely back luck of life circumstances that kill games.

On the other side of it, there's a PBP game that I am in that's been running for over 13 years now... and yielded friends for life (seriously, three of them just attended my wedding and one was IN my wedding party) ...so there's that.

It does happen. It's not you. Just hang in there.

Yeah...it's a little of column A, a little of column B.

It's pretty normal for PBPs to die on the vine. You're also fairly unlucky if it happened to all three games you've joined.

This is one reason why I'm pretty liberal about joining any/all games that start up...I tend to expect most of them to die out, so I join a lot. Of course, that has bit me before, because sometimes they DON'T die, and then I'm left juggling more games than I can handle.

You'll find a good balance. Just hang in there.

I've only been playing for a few months, but from what I've seen, it's pretty much just luck. The first game I joined that actually got started actually finished in about five months (TPK, with the understanding that once everyone died, the bad guy won. Best game ever.)

Then there's the one that I spent days developing a character, only for it to never actually start.

And the ones that did start, but fizzled after the initial encounter.

I've been DMing my own games as well, testing the waters as it were. One is fizzling, but I'm trying to revive it. One is just starting to pick up, and the other, my oldest, is still going strong for six months, now, and has gone up through level 4. So there are a lot of variables.

You know, on a more general note: the fact that you even think about your own behavior and how it might affect others/your games tells me there's a 99.9% chance you're not a "problem player." Those people don't consider anyone beyond themselves (or, worse, know they're ruining others' fun and like that). So I wouldn't worry about that, in PbP or elsewhere.

Yep, just like what everyone else said. Quite a lot of games end prematurely, but some go on for years.

Looking at my current track record:

12 games ended:
- 8 games fairly quickly
- 2 games did not start after creating characters
- 1 game got lost in a forum crash (but has since rebooted)
- 1 game went on for almost a year

5 current games:
- 1 has been going for a year and a half
- 1 has been going for many years
- 3 have started fairly recently.

Just to give an impression of the lottery of PbP games. It's not you, it's the nature of the game, both here and on other forums.

It's pretty much the norm. The same thing is happening on Roll20 for example, so it's not "just" the medium. I also see a lot of people there trying strategies to keep games going that I've seen here over the years like over recruiting and then hoping you're left with 4 or so consistent players after the bit.

A lot of my games have eventually floundered, though usually I have a good year at least. There are some days I completely forget to even think about PbP. There are days I put off a post because it's not very consequential and I'm hoping there are more replies so I have more to build off, other days it seems like there's almost too much to reply to.

I've seen games focus on the long form RP because the combat mechanics of table top don't work nearly as quickly when people are posting once per day. I've seen and done rules changes to try to adapt for that. I think a lot of stuff that's now in the PbP FAQ needs to be re-written as it was based a lot on some people's predispositions in a different era and doesn't hold to always be true.

Always keep in mind what your actual goal is playing or running the game. If your goal is the really long form long term game the first goal is participant buy-in. If you want a game to run for years, everyone needs to have the same goal and be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make it happen. And not every game has to be about that. My "escape" game was meant specifically to be short, for good or ill. But I was clear up-front about that.