House rules for my upcoming pbp game

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Posting these here in advance of me posting the solicitation for people to sign up for a pbp game, just to see if there's any issues that I've missed. These are essentially the rules I'm currently using for two pbp games on a private board.

We will not be using a battlemap, or a grid or any similar tools. Any maps you make will be made on your own and will be your responsibility. If a description is unclear on my part, ask me to clarify and I'll do so.

We will be using almost no Attacks of Opportunity, other than moving through an enemy's space or casting spells within melee range.

Initiative order is based on how fast you post: By the time I return to the post to add the enemy's action during combat, anyone who posted (and in the order that they did so) will be going first. If you didn't get there before me (and I will be allowing a few hours between combat posts, except when everyone has already posted), then your action will take place after the enemy's. This isn't intended to penalize people who get busy in their offline lives, but it's to encourage people to check regularly. Empty placeholder posts don't count as posts, although posts consisting of readying an action do.

Wizards and sorcerers can have their familiar for free, including any of the ones from Stormwrack but penguins. (Sorry, penguin lovers.) I advise against choosing a familiar that can't leave the water.

I will do all the rolling and post successes and failures, along with a running damage tally.

Leaving aside whether or not these are to any one person's taste (I'm sure some people will personally disagree with some or all of them), is there anything that jumps out as being poorly explained or unworkable?

Thanks.

(I'll start soliciting characters next week, after the election is over and my workload returns to normal.)

 

[CanadienneBacon]

I think you'll have good success with doing the rolling yourself and posting success or failure as descriptive text in your DM's posts. Doing so jacks up the versimilitude in PBP games, in my opinion. That, and invisible castle can be unwieldy to read/mess with.

Particularly since wizards and sorcerers start play with only a small gp amount, giving wizards and sorcerers their familiar for free is a quite a 100-gp boon if other classes are still expected to pay for equipment per normal gp starting limits. At what level are you thinking to start play?

I don't think you'll have any trouble with not using attacks of opportunity. Likewise, I don't think (as long as you're good at description, patient with players' questions and don't mind occasionally repeating yourself or rephrasing) you'll miss battle maps. Battle maps take a lot of time to create and can be a bother. I do mine using MS Paint and it's enough of a time-taker that I've considered scrapping them altogether.

My gut instinct tells me that resolving combat actions without initiative is a bad idea but I can't pinpoint why. You can always take a certain pre-specified time limit to call for PCs' actions during combat, then post results after said time limit has elapsed. If a player hasn't posted for a character within the aforementioned time limit, then you might simply go ahead and NPC him/her that round. I'm curious, what is your reason for wanting to base initiative order on post rate? If it's to keep the game flowing, there may be better ways out there to accomplish said goal.

I like that you don't have a lot of house rules. Good move, I think. An overdose of house rules can be off-putting to players.

I'm interested in playing a cleric in your game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The initiative thing comes from my two Midwood campaigns. It doesn't get everyone posting quickly (two people in particular in the different games have very busy jobs/lives), but it gets combat to be a quick thing, since it becomes a priority. It also adds a little of the tabletop urgency to things, since lollygagging about, discussing strategy in OOC can't really go on indefinitely, since at some point, the characters are going to get a smack in the mouth because their players took too long deciding what to do.

 

[Dirk]

Everything sounds cool, i might play real life permitting. what type of campaign, what lvl what settings. Im lost is there another thread with more info or you just seeing how many peps might play?

CB whats your mortality name, i think your on mortality right? Im Sparticus on the mort forum.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'll post all the details next week. I still have a little bit of adapting to do with the adventure, and work is a bear until the election is over. (I'm a reporter.)

 

[stonegod]

All except the initiative are probably not an issue for too many people. I've seen combats on these boards both ways and they can both work. Having it up front does help people w/ their concepts.

The initiative one may be a killer, especially since some folks have the different posting speed (as mentioned previously). This is also true of those that do not post on weekends (I know a few prolific folks like that).

 

[Rhun]

I love the initiative rule myself; of course, I'm an avid poster (except as Stongod mentioned, on weekends). Anything to try and get posters to post more often and to get combat resolved quicker is a good idea on my part.

I also like having no battlemaps, and getting rid of most AoO. The familiar thing doesn't seem to make much of a difference, I think. 100gp may matter to a 1st or 2nd level character, but after that it doesn't mean much at all.

 

[Erekose13]

Sounds okay by me. I'm intrigued if you will be running the game I've been hoping you'll run Whizbang. I'm also curious what sources you'll allow when it comes to it as well, I'm a little disaffected with strictly core games and hope to see at least a little leeway in that respect.

 

[Bront]

My thoughts:

Eliminating AoO to a point is understandable, but that's part of the balance of spellcasters, in that they have to cast defensively or get struck in melee. Playing them by ear is understandbable though, and fairly easy to accoplish. It does mean some feats become less usefull (like combat reflexes), so at least a warning in advance is nice.

The initiative thing can push combat, but it can cause people to loose actions because they couldn't post in time, effect the timing of spells and attacks (which can be planned before hand if initiative is known), and it nullifies an advantage of high dex and any feats that increase inititive (including some class features). I usually like to impose a deadline for posting your next action, and encourage people to post actions ahead of time, which speeds up combat tremendously. With a set deadline, it still limits OOC plotting.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I hear you about the initiative. This is a level 1-3 adventure I'll be running, so most of the class features affected won't be available, but that's a very valid concern. I'll think about it.

And the plan for any ENWorld games I run will be core rules plus one or two supplements, which will rotate based on the adventure. (Stormwrack is mentioned in the above notes because this is an adventure taking place on the urban waterfront.) When I run a Redhurst adventure, for instance, I'll likely allow most feats and spells from Complete Mage or Complete Arcane, for instance.

I want to keep each of these games simple enough for me to be able to have a single file to tote back and forth on my RAM stick to work. Limiting the number of supplements helps with that, but I definitely understand the desire to stray a little from core. The adventure I'll start soliciting for next week will allow one of the Stormwrack races as a non-core choice, for instance.