Rules for a Successful PBP

[Dr Simon]

On player attrition, my experience is that the drop-out rate is usually highest before the game has started, or within the first few posts. People will submit excitedly to your call for players, then never produce a character, or decide that they don't have the time after all. At the beginning of play, some players will post for a bit, then perhaps decide that the style isn't for them, and drop out. Once you've got a hard core of 3-4 players they tend to stick with the game unless real life intervenes, if you don't let it stagnate.

Although most people on here will respond to a game using D&D 4 or 3.x, PbPs are also very useful for trying out other systems, or for wierd one-off scenarios. This also goes for players; don't be afraid to let them try out wierd or unusual combos. The impact of any potentially broken characters is less in PbP because they amount of actual play time is less.

You will probably fail if you try to run an epic 1st-20th campaign (says he, running Curse of the Crimson Throne), as it will take you most of your life (I've been running Edge of Anarchy since Sept 2008, with a very regular group of players, and we're just about done). Hewligan seems to be doing well with Rise of the Runelords as well, so it can be done.

Allowing the players to have lengthy planning sessions tends not to work in PbP. It can waste an entire evening of a table-top game, so think how long it can take online. And that's without a nice map and props to play with.

Free-form experience tends to work quite well, and there's no reason why not unless you've got a crafter in the group. Simply let the characters level up when you feel like they've done enough, and make it faster than the usual rate.

 

[covaithe]

- Use a short adventure. PBP games take a long time and are liable to peter out before you get very far. OTOH, you can always go for a sequel if things are working well.

This. In my experience, PbP games start off with a burst of enthusiasm. People are excited about new characters, new settings, new challenges, and can't wait to post. It's great. But sooner or later, every game slows down. Someone gets busy at work, or goes on vacation, or gets sick, or loses their internet connection, or just has a case of writer's block. While waiting for them, everyone else's posting rate falls off a bit, and it gradually... relaxes. The longer the game goes on, the slower it gets. Eventually, it will grind to a halt completely. A dedicated DM and players can slow this trend, even reverse it for a while with effort, but never stop it completely. Exactly how long it takes for a game to slow to a crawl depends greatly on the DM and the players and how much they put into it. It might be a week, or six months, or, with an exceptional group, it might last years. But sooner or later, every PbP game will die of inactivity.

That's okay; it's nobody's fault, it's just the nature of the medium. As DM, the trick is to accept this and plan for it, by making sure your adventure finishes before the pace slows to the point where it becomes work rather than fun. How? Lots of ways, but it boils down to: 1) do what you can to keep the pace up, and 2) tighten your adventure to the bare essentials.

I won't go deeply into 1, except to note that the easiest way to screw this up is to take on too many games at once. We've all known, or been, someone who was having a great time playing or running a few games, and, having some extra free time, decided to fill it with more games, only to find that that free time disappeared a month down the road. That's a quick recipe for burnout.

With regards to 2, plan your encounters sparingly. Use fewer encounters, but (depending on your players, your system, and the needs of the story, of course) make them slightly tougher. If your adventure calls for 6 encounters, granting 1 level's worth of XP/treasure, consider finding a way to cut it down to 3 or 4 encounters, and simply award the same xp/treasure that you would have normally. Combine encounters: have the Big Bad fight alongside his lieutenant, rather than making them separate encounters, and drop some of the mooks and henchmen to balance it. Be very cautious using traps; nothing will slow your party's posting rate down like the feeling that they have to specify all their movements explicitly and in detail.

 

[Theroc]

I won't go deeply into 1, except to note that the easiest way to screw this up is to take on too many games at once. We've all known, or been, someone who was having a great time playing or running a few games, and, having some extra free time, decided to fill it with more games, only to find that that free time disappeared a month down the road. That's a quick recipe for burnout.

Yeah... ~looks at his 17+ games he's struggling to keep up with...~

 

[Myth and Legend]

You are wise to learn from the mistakes of others My advice:

Recruit via your own biased opinion, don't do a first come-first served game, unless you want to run a very loose and fluid adventure where the main story progresses via NPCs/DMPCs and the PCs come and go. ENWolrd regulars with over 500 posts are less likely to go MIA than some brand new guy with 5 posts who does his PC sheet 30 min after you post the game, since he's so excited and all, and then gets bored out of his short attention span and leaves ENWorld.

Definitely plan out your adventure and stat out your NPCs long before the party encounters them. Otherwise you'll stall your game trying to figure out the mechanics behind your cool NPC ideas. (this is where i'm at right now)

Make sure to let the players know if this will be a hack n' slash or a RP heavy game. I advise RP heavy - roleplaying and long dscriptions/thoughts etc. are the forte of PbP. Combat is tedious at best.

Reward your players, and make sure the game is about your players. Don't get carried away with NPCs and don't try to force the plot on your players. Your ideas might be great, but the players are nuts! Literally! The will think of stuff you had never foreseen. Roll with it and adapt.

Don't try to "nerf" your players by denying them items/spells/classes. Just make encounters that would be hard for a regular party.

Don't allow things you can't balance against without making TPK-possible encounters that will be passed only if one (broken char) plays right.

Do not guard the party with a plot shield - they should understand that your world has consequences.

Don't pull stuff out of your arse if it will seem artificial and patched to the players.

There's more but i have to go Plus i'm pretty new at DMing as well!

 

[Dr Simon]

Reward your players, and make sure the game is about your players. Don't get carried away with NPCs and don't try to force the plot on your players. Your ideas might be great, but the players are nuts! Literally! The will think of stuff you had never foreseen. Roll with it and adapt.

A lot of your other points are equally valid for face to face gaming, but I would like to add to this point and say that PbPs are excellent for this style of play. IN face-to-face, if your players throw you a curve you have a few minutes at most to adapt. In PbP you can go away for a day, muse over the consequences and roll with it much more smoothly.

 

[renau1g]

Good point Dr. Simon. There's not a lot of advantages PbP has over RL gaming, but one of them is the ability to consider your actions (on both sides of the "screen"). Also, forgot to mention this, but it allows you to be more descriptive in your text also if you enjoy that part of the game.

 

[Scott DeWar]

Dr. Simon makes a great point, hoever some dm's dont have inter net access at home and can only do this at work on week days or just the oppisite, where they don't have acces at work and have to wait until they get home.

 

[Nebten]

Remove individual initiative. All it does is slow things down. I've seen DM's ask their players to roll initiative, then you have to wait for all the rolls to come in.

Next you have to wait for that one guy to get his one turn in, while others are chomping at the bit ready to post.

If you do group initative, it will keep the momentum going. Players go, monsters go, rinse & repeat. Some players already post out of turn. Then when their turn comes up in the initiative, the events have changed and they have to re-cont actions.

I would also auto-post for people who don't in a predetermined time frame. Remember as a DM, you are accomidating to all your players, not just one.

 

[Binder Fred]

I love the way Ryryguy is maximizing the use of Sblocks for perception and knowledge rolls in his Food of the Gods campaign (As explained here in Notes for Players, and demonstrated in the rest of the thread). Could be something to consider for other campaigns.

 

[covaithe]

I love the way Ryryguy is maximizing the use of Sblocks for perception and knowledge rolls in his Food of the Gods campaign (As explained here in Notes for Players, and demonstrated in the rest of the thread). Could be something to consider for other campaigns.

Yeah, I've been impressed by that, too.