How best to Play-by-Post?

fireinthedust · Mar 25, 2013

What are your tips, tricks and best practices for playing RPGs on forums like here at ENworld?

I've been at it for a while (first post back since the Hack!) and I've never seen a straight discussion of PbP gaming itself. Yes, rules for RPGs, but never a direct discussion of how PbP games work best, and moreover what they need to be better.

I'm wondering if a game like Marvel heroic Roleplaying wouldn't be the best way to do pbp, as it's rules lite. I mean, you don't need as many dice, or referring to character sheets.

Thoughts?

Whizbang Dustyboots · Mar 25, 2013

I've been running my 3E, then 3.5 and soon to be C&C Midwood game as a play by post since Feb. 2006.

Some basic tips:

1) Roleplay moves a lot faster than combat and, given that people can take their time writing, it really shines in the PBP format.

2) Combat is slow, confusing (as it's spread out over days, weeks or months). You can't avoid it in most games, but make it worth the hassle. (I'm currently running a big end-of-campaign epic battle and it's painful, but nothing else really will work.)

3) Likewise, things like dungeon exploration works best in short bursts. I ran my group through the Goodman Games Sunken Ziggurat and it was painful dealing with all the rooms and levels. I now recommend the 5 Room Dungeon model. This can take place inside a larger dungeon -- I ran it inside the local mega-dungeon -- but it lets the players deal with dungeon exploration in reasonable bites.

4) Have all the necessary game material accessible online, via a wiki or other site. Expecting everyone to be able to tote around character sheets or access game books, or what have you, is a recipe for delay. (Note that running your own wiki server is kind of a pain in the ass, if you're not someone who runs websites for a living.)

haakon1 · Mar 27, 2013

I've been doing play by email since 1993 or so . . . current campaign of 3.5e since 1998.

I second everything Whizbang said.

For campaign resources, I've moved to using SkyDrive to share documents - simple if you're not an IT guy and works from any device. Not fancy, but gets the job done.

For maps, I use Excel, and format it like it's graph paper. Again, crude but effective.

How I do it is by writing "Chapters", which are the story compiled from what everyone posted, and put together in some semblance of an "in character" view of what was said and the action.
-- I roll all the dice except hit points for leveling up and character creation (if people roll stats).

Other bits of advice:

5) It really helps to have players who are friends of yours in real life. People flake more on "e" campaigns than live ones. It helps if they care about you and the other players to get them to post and participant for the long, slow process this is.

6) Strongly consider what to do if someone stops posting. It's a huge pain when you're in a month long battle and someone stops posting for a week or two. I've experimented with having a designated "deputy" player and doing it myself. Waiting is not a great option.

7) Strongly consider a DMPC. I used mine as a "Basil Exposition", mostly reminding them in character of things the PC's know but the characters might forget as it moves so slow. "Hey, isn't that guy the same one the baron said was his old friend", as the PC's heard 30 minutes in game time, but 3 months ago in real life.

SkidAce · Mar 27, 2013

The wiki is important. My characters research info and add it into their RP unexpectedly, so that's a good thing.

See http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/unconquered-kingdoms for one of my wiki sites, and chouck out the forums, main adventure arc for the pbp posts.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Mar 27, 2013

haakon1 said:
-- I roll all the dice except hit points for leveling up and character creation (if people roll stats).

Yep, I roll the dice and we use averaged dice for hit dice, so no one's tempted to fudge. (d4 = 3, d6 = 4, d8 = 5, d10=6, d12=7)

5) It really helps to have players who are friends of yours in real life. People flake more on "e" campaigns than live ones. It helps if they care about you and the other players to get them to post and participant for the long, slow process this is.

6) Strongly consider what to do if someone stops posting. It's a huge pain when you're in a month long battle and someone stops posting for a week or two. I've experimented with having a designated "deputy" player and doing it myself. Waiting is not a great option.

We have a husband and wife who will occasionally post turns for each other, and a pair of good friends who'll do the same. Otherwise, if someone knows they're going to be out of pocket for a bit, they often ask someone else to just do some general sort of tasks for their character ("Have Emus follow along and defend the group if anything happens.")

7) Strongly consider a DMPC. I used mine as a "Basil Exposition", mostly reminding them in character of things the PC's know but the characters might forget as it moves so slow. "Hey, isn't that guy the same one the baron said was his old friend", as the PC's heard 30 minutes in game time, but 3 months ago in real life.

We do "recap posts" on the OOC thread for each adventure whenever asked. It definitely can be needed, particularly after the holidays. One side campaign I play in is an urban police procedural set in Ptolus, and some of the mysteries can be pretty opaque otherwise.

Nytmare · Mar 27, 2013

haakon1 said:
-- I roll all the dice except hit points for leveling up and character creation (if people roll stats).

I never got to use it because the two times I tried running a play by wiki game, it fell apart before we got out of character creation, but I cobbled together a quick program that would generate a die roll based off of a chunk of text. The idea was that a "rolled for you" die was less fun than one where the player had some kind of (albeit meaningless) input.