D&D 5E PbP games: what works and what doesn't?

[EarlyBird]

It is the same for me, I had an RL group for 2 months and then peoples schedules and my own changed around and now their is no time for a face to face game, so I went a bit crazy starting all the 5e adventures to cure me of my hunger for RPing.

I think I am at my limit, but one game should be over in a month or two and my others are all preped for at least a month or two.

 

[Radaceus]

I have moved away from my gaming group of 30+years, in 2013 they invited me to play over Skype ( like Sheldon, they have me screened into the RL game room), I sometimes roll dice live by camera zoomed into my dice tray, but since i now DM them through roll20, we often just use that as a tool for rolling dice and DM to look at my character/add notes/interact.

I've never sat at a table and played with anyone else (not since the early days anyways), and though I considered joining in AL at a LFGS...i just couldn't gel in that environment. I found the PbP here a few years back and really enjoy this format (sadly the server crash disrupted/wiped most of those games and life interfered at a similar point so those games are lost...).

Anyhow, I am up for anything to help save time and make this format work better, assist in doing what I can from the player side to alleviate DM workload.
Also, a big thanks for doing this to all you who are DMs, mayhaps I will be able to return the favor in the, as of yet unforeseeable, future...

 

[KahlessNestor]

We use Google Hangouts for OOC/off forum communications at SavageRifts.com, and it works pretty well, though if you're in a lot of games (like me) I can see it getting overwhelming LOL Over there, they have a "post once a week minimum" rule, and you get more XP for higher post rates. Things slow down in combat, obviously, but we often use the Savage Worlds Quick Combat rules for some of them.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So... I've got one for you:

What do you do with NPCs in PBP?

I've been having enough trouble lately keeping up with my players' posts, running monsters, and playing in the games I'm playing. Both of my two active games have a number of NPCs who are travelling with the party, for various reasons. I like 'em when I'm roleplaying them, but they're a pain in combat. In FtF games, I often will give a quick player the NPC's stat-block to run in a fight, so to keep my workload down. I suppose I could do that here, but it seems on the surface like it's easier to just run 'em myself, but in practice, it's a lot of work.

 

[jmucchiello]

I can't help. I have a running fight going on right now with over 2 dozen npcs (10-15 of which are active combatants) & the party against an unknown number of kobolds and other combatants. I think it's running smoothly. But then, I'm doing "side" initiative: enemies, party, townsfolk, new round.

 

[EarlyBird]

I think you could ask your players, maybe someone running a fighter might like to run the mage NPC a couple combats for some spice, or something like that.

In the Out of the Abyss game we just started the darkmantle combat and I was thinking of doing the NPC actions at home, and then narrating them. It would hopefully it will feel like the DM rolling behind the screen and telling the group what happens.

Problem I see giving over the NPCs is if you have a slow poster, than if you push through a combat you have two characters actions to worry about screwing up.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm not sure a slow poster will be any worse if they have an NPC, though because you'd still have to wait for them to turn in their PC's turn anyway, Though I suppose they could theoretically take longer to post, but I don't think it would be by much. I think finding the time to post at all is more of a rate determining step than how many characters you are posting for, when it's only one or two (when it's a dozen, that's another story).

It's just... I don't want to always be having the urge to get rid of the NPCs with increasingly strange excuses. Even in your OOtA game, they are barely there - always behind us or otherwise off-panel. To an extent, that's fine - you don't want the NPCs to do all the work, or overshadow the PCs, but it becomes strange when we're constantly finding a way to get rid of them.

 

[Kaodi]

Side by side initiative is one aspect of the PF2 playtest I am not sure will be a feature or a bug for PbP. I mean I suppose if we were doing QA for a video game then "we did something we were not supposed to and broke the game" would actually be a job well done. But will Paizo be similarly receptive?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Hmmm... You're right. I have been reading a lot from them lately on how specific they want their feedback. I mean, we can PBP playtest it ourselves for fun, but we are probably knocking ourselves out of how valuable they will consider our feedback. I guess it ultimately depends on what we find, and how well we articulate it, though.

 

[jmucchiello]

I think they would be foolish to ignore side-by-side initiative. It is not exclusive to PbP. People use it at home too.