High Level DnD PbP: Can it be done?

[Psion]

Has anyone run any successful high level D&D Play by Posts?

I have been through some both as DM and player, and my experience is that they bog down very easy. Does anyone have any techniques to deal with this? I'm thinking letting the DM handle all combat rolls and just having players declare actions would help minimize the back-and-forth.

I really want to run City of Brass and/or Empire of Ghouls, but it's not in the cards for my home group.

 

[A'koss]

I'm just going to ramble off some of the tricks I've learned along the way...

1. Run fewer, but more impressive battles. Take the time to make each combat encounter a memorable one. Find ways for the combatants to take advantage of/interact with the battlefield. What you don't want to do is grind out every little battle or you'll burn out.

2. Divide and conquer. The greatest advantage of PbP is the ability to do things with individual PCs (or small groups) that's impractical to do in a F2F game. You can split off the party into a couple of small groups or run little solo side-treks that can really help speed things along (especially plot-wise). Bring them together again and the PCs will have all sorts of things to talk about. Then they can march on and face the big threats.

3. Secrets. Being able to deal privately with a PC at any time is a great tool to be able to really keep player interest high in the overall plot. Players with critical knowledge in plot elements, questionable alliances or things that are happening to them specifically (that they would be reluctant to share) are all good ways to keep them coming back.

 

[doghead]

general - high level pbp

I would suggest having the players declare intentions and objectives, rather than actions. Situations change rapidly, so often specific actions become pointless or even impossible. So you are left with a choice - go back and check with the player (which is time consuming), decide on a new action for the PC (which can be hard without knowing what the player wants their PC's to achieve), or have the PC do nothing (which is what I intend on doing).

I have just started a new pbp game. I am aiming for one summary post per round - all the players post, then I post the round summary. Ideally, turn around is 24 hours, although 36-48 is more common. It prevents players waiting to see what has happened before they post their actions and reduces the players fine control over their character's actions, which not everyone likes. So I outlined clearly what I was intending in the recruitment process.

I have used the 'one round, one summary' system in a couple of games. It takes some time to get used to. I those, when I was in the situation described above - PC's actions were pointless or impossible - I tended to check with the players or decide on a new action. Neither was particulary satisfactory. The former slowed the game down and undermined the approach, the latter left me making decisions for the PC's. So this time I am going for option 3. Hopefully, as we go along, we (the players and I) will get better at it - I will get better at giving the players the information they need, the players will get better at framing their responses so the PC is not left with nothing to do.

It might be a bit rocky for a while, but I think in the long term, it will lead to a much more fluid game, and one that can cover more territory.

doghead
aka thotd

 

[Graf]

You'd probably just go really really slowly, no?

 

[Le Noir Faineant]

Over at the Fraternity of Shadows, we had a long-running epic level game called Reckonings.

Worked pretty well for some time.

 

[Psion]

Over at the Fraternity of Shadows, we had a long-running epic level game called Reckonings.

Worked pretty well for some time.

Wanna give me the reader's digest version of techniques used?

 

[TerraDave]

Funny, I have some pcs headed (back) to the City of Brass right now in a play by post.

A'koss makes some good points, and I think I have been playing like doghead (all the pcs post then I do a summary/npc action. I roll all dice).

I think PBP lends itself to high level play in that it gives the DM some time and room to adjudicate, and you can handle pretty much anything, inclunding some things that are harder to handle normally (like splitting up and secret communication, as noted above).

BUT, PBP can't handle too much. Less is really more. That campaign where you might have 15 combat oriented encounters...try 5, or 3. That detailed palace with all sorts of space for exploration? Focus on a few things, and handwave/improvise the rest. And push things along. Push. Push. Push.

Another big problem I have seen is inter-player communcication. I mix pbp and face to face, and I litteraly had one decision that was blowing up in a big mess online resolved in about 3 minutes of the players talking to each other when they got together. Here, I don't have any brilliant advice. Maybe try to get the players to communicate in post, while understanding the need to be to the point (ie if you make a long post, the other players won't read it) and don't discourage out of charecter discussion, even if it may seem like "cheating" under some circumstances.

BUT, don't allow a percieved need to "coordinate" slow things down (I should note, this is very particular to the players involved). You are looking for a balance here.

 

[Pinotage]

I've just recently finished Goodman Games' Crypt of the Devil Lich (for 15th level characters), and that was fairly straightforward and easy to run through PbP. As others have said in this thread, the one thing that you have as a PbP DM is time. You can easily adjudicate actions and evaluate rounds of combat if you have all the time in the world.

The one thing I also learnt is that few players are good players at high levels, and that they are prone to mistakes. Having some way of letting players know when something is wrong and correcting it quickly is useful (some kind of offline notes system or e-mail). It also helps to push them if needed it they get bogged down.

We played 6 characters in Crypt of the Devil Lich and characters did all their dice rolls and actions themselves. I generally quickly asked for clarification if I didn't understand an intent or action, and rolled any missing rolls myself if required. We easily managed a 24 hour turn-around for a round of combat.

I've run an Epic Game, but quickly came to realisation that Epic play was awful, and that while it could be done via PbP, it wasn't worth playing at those levels.

Pinotage

 

[Voadam]

I recently turned over the reigns in a co-DM'd pbp (it was on yahoo groups) and the party is now 17th level.

We have the DM handle all rolls.

No retroactive posts, you can only change your mind if the DM has not yet resolved the round and it is undersstood that the DM might be resolving your action as you type in your change and he might run the round based on your originally posted action.

It is a group where we have all known each other since preschool and are close friends. Usually everyone gets in a post a day for combats if not more.

We assume the most straightforward, no complications action (full attack, no power attack or fancy maneuvers) or no actions (unsure of the situation Ragnar looks about in confusion) if no post for a day during a combat.

We work really hard to not split the party.

 

[moritheil]

Darimaus had an Epic PbP here for a while. One thing I noticed was that in epic, a lot more time goes into rules discussions and character sheet checking.

If you are willing to put in the effort, I see no reason why not.