Geez, you forget to look at the OOC thread for one day and all hell breaks loose
Binder_Fred said:
(and there *is* the occassional hook-up glitch)
This isn't the first time I've used the PBEM style for forum gaming. And yes, there is the occassional hook up glitch, but glitches invariably sort themselves out. The *most* dangerous potential problem is with time anomolies, but I've enough experience these days to see them coming a mile off and cut them off at the pass. Example:
Group X enters the tavern and take a seat at a table. PC 1 and PC 2 head off to the bar to order drinks (group A) and PC 3 and PC 4 stay and get chatting to some locals (group B). Group A players post at a slower rate than group B, so while group B have what amounts in reality to a two hour discussion with the local, group B buy drinks and come back to the table. Clearly this wouldn't take 2 hours, so everything gets a bit funky.
As I said, this kind of thing is easy to spot given some experience, which I have in spades.
Shayuri said:
Here's my main concern, aside from confusion which will pass swiftly now that I understand what's going on a bit better. It seems to me that doing things this way puts some extra-game pressure on posters. That is, it influences what people can and/or will do based on who posts first...not necessarily which character acts first.For example, say I post Aranel observing the thieves run away, then starting to track them, then noticing you and deciding to join up...and I post it first. But maybe you intended to go to the camp first and notify them to get help. Well...now you're stuck.
Yes, there is a little extra pressure on players and more care is required in posting, but games progress *much faster* and provided players have maturity enough to know what *their* character knows/sees and what they know/see are two different things everything runs smoothly. While I'm stoked to be playing a Middle-Earth campaign, it's not the last campaign I want to play in this lifetime and forum games played out on a turn by turn basis are, IME, way too slow. Worse still, forum games, compared with tabletop, rely really heavily on players being present for their part in the round and given Fred, and Fenris, have already warned of likely away time, that means long periods of inactivity while everyone else twiddles thumbs.
Some posts *will* be rendered null, and you have to accept that if you play this kind of system, but null posts are rare -things usually sort themselves out so the posts are still valid, or maybe just need a slight edit. At present, for example, Ulfang is running down the rearmost burglar. But even if he takes that guy out, the others are still running. Now, they might stop and help their buddy, or they might not. If they don't, Baran's scene at the treeline still takes place but I just use 4 rolls instead of 5 (unless Ulfang dies in the opening scene and the level 20 Nazgul disguising itself as a short human escapes... heh, don't worry Renau1g, only joking). If the burglars do stop to help their companion then the treeline scene might not happen at all. No biggie. Most of the writing on that score was done by me anyway.
In either case Aranel's measured opening post isn't compromised, mainly because you haven't finagled and have worked only with the information already provided, which is the perfect way to roleplay outside the turns system.
Where a turn based system isn't used, certain moments will become unstable as described above, but for the vast majority of the time there'll be a linear timeline. At crucial points, like combat or similar, I'll use rounds and those will be most stable of all.
I'm interested to hear what other players think. If the general concensus is, wtf is going on?? I hate this!! then I'm happy to switch to turn-based. I think, though, if you give it a while it'll soon start to feel more comfortable.
