How do you handle combat in a play-by-post game? (now with a follow-up question)

[haiiro]

I'm about to take my tabletop campaign online, and I've got most of the details worked out -- save for one: how to handle combat. I'm not talking about who rolls the dice, or anything like that. What I'm curious about is how to handle posting combat actions.

My initial thought was to put a time limit (48 hours) in the first post for each round, and then do a wrap-up post once everyone had posted their actions. The problem with this approach, it seems, would be that initiative order -- while preserved in the sense that a 19 goes before a 15 -- would pretty much go out the window.

If the PC with the lowest initiative posts first, that creates a situation that wouldn't come up in a tabletop game. The obvious alternative -- putting up the initiative order for round one, and then having everyone post in that order -- seems like it would really slow things down, and might be too demanding on a widely-dispersed group of players.

Any suggestions?

 

[Thanee]

Here's what I do, which seems to work fine.

I have one IC thread and an extra thread for posting combat actions.

Once a combat starts, the players only post into the combat actions thread (but write their posts IC style plus OOC action description). Once all actions are posted (or too much time has passed at which point I fill in the missing actions or simply let the PC delay), I post a complete description of the combat round in the IC (along with map and status (wounds, spell effects, etc)). If any actions become obsolete (i.e. the target is already down when the PCs initiative comes up), they are altered accordingly during the write-up. This way the IC has only one nice post per combat round and is not cluttered with OOC action descriptions (or any OOC for that matter, there's an extra thread for OOC, of course).

I also let the players react to actions posted already, even if the posted actions are for PCs behind them in initiative order, so better cooperation is possible between the players (i.e. if he is going to attack A, I'll rather move towards B (kinda the reverse of what would happen normally, where the player with he higher initiative chooses first, not the one that posts the action quicker, but the result is the same effectively)). It's just fair, considering, that they have to decide on their actions before any action is resolved (of course, they can give conditions under which certain actions would be executed, tho), which also normally is not the case, but individual action declaration and immediate resolve would be way too time consuming.

After the combat the standard posting procedure (IC posts to IC) is immediately resumed.

Bye
Thanee

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

I'm curious about this, too, as I'm pondering a play by post game.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

My initial thought was to put a time limit (48 hours) in the first post for each round, and then do a wrap-up post once everyone had posted their actions. The problem with this approach, it seems, would be that initiative order -- while preserved in the sense that a 19 goes before a 15 -- would pretty much go out the window.

If the PC with the lowest initiative posts first, that creates a situation that wouldn't come up in a tabletop game. The obvious alternative -- putting up the initiative order for round one, and then having everyone post in that order -- seems like it would really slow things down, and might be too demanding on a widely-dispersed group of players.

Any suggestions?

Sure. I've got four of these going on right now.

1. Limit group size! I can't stress this enough. Optimal group size is 3. Two is dealable and four is okay.

2. Limit responses to 48 hours from your post. Allow people to "post ahead" by emailing you privately or posting in a private DM/player only forum. Alternatively, you can allow people in a thread to post their action out of turn, with the understanding that they may have to revise actions after the person next in order before them goes.

3. Stick to initiative. It's a combat management system and it's a good one. It's okay to collect actions separately and then resolve with a post to the group though.

4. Keep on top of your responses. Players respond quickly when the DM is attentive and posts frequently. I found my attention lagged severely when the DM didn't post at least once a day. (If it was down to once a week, that was it, I was outta there unless there was some good RPing going on.) In combat, I think I check a thread at least once an hour, unless it's a players' turn that I know is in a different TZ (Time Zone) or only gets on evenings.

Have fun with it. It enhances roleplaying a lot and gives you a chance to shine with some good DM descriptive text. Oh, one last tip: end non-combat posts with a question or some kind of call to action by the players. It speeds up their response by giving a good cue.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

I agree with what has been said before - keep the group size down and allow a limit for the time to post. Those are perhaps the most important.

Three other things to mention. One is the option to post two rounds at once. It definately speeds things up and if something unforeseen should happen the DM can always toss the scene back to the PCs after one round of action has passed. As I said, this greatly speeds up the game time, though the players have to trust their DM somewhat to make any minor adjustments for the sake of speed.

The second, and definately the one that is less accepted, is to allow the DM to handle all of the combat. We had a game like this once. The DM was a great writer and understood our characters. We would let him write up three or four rounds of combat in one post and then just sit back and read. He's stop if anything big or unfortunately occured or just to give a break and allow us players to get a post in for some RPing effect.

And something else to consider is to meet once every two or three weeks for two hours to resolve any combat via a chatroom or one of the programs that provide maps and such (i.e. - OpenRPG.com). It gives everyone a chance to get together for a while but people can be missing and it can be hard to get a date/time down that is good for everyone.

 

[haiiro]

I love this board.

Thanee, your point about allowing people to post in any order as a substitute for table talk and the fact that no actions are actually resolved until everyone has posted is an excellent one. I like this justification, and it makes sense to me now. I knew there was a reason a lot of people used this approach.

For my style, I'm not so sure about conducting all combat in the OOC thread. It's food for thought, though.

As for limiting group size, Dingo and Varianor, I've already got a group of six. We'll just have to see how it goes!

I'm glad the 48 hour time limit seems reasonable to people -- it sounded like the right thing to do. And Varianor, your tip about ending non-combat posts with a question/call to action rocks! I would never have thought of that on my own.

Thanks for the great responses, all! And keep them coming -- always room for more ideas.

 

[Silver Moon]

I'd say that it also depends upon the game system. I'm running a D&D/Boot Hill hyrbrid game set in the old west. My style as DM is to keep the action moving along even if a player may miss a posting opportunity. So far it has worked. If somebody knows they won't be around to post all they need to do is to send me a Private Message in advance to cover their moves. I also have a list of pre-rolled dice rolls from each player that I can refer to, which also helps to move things along.

I find the group size discussion interesting. Right now I have four active and two occassional players. So far that has worked fine, although the players do have a tendency to break up into smaller groups so I usually have two simultaneous sequences going on at once.

 

[Type2demon]

When I was running a Traveller 4 PBEM (It lasted about 2 years), I would have the player post 3 combat rounds at a time.
This would be a post that included what actions that they were attempting to acomplish durring that round.
For example, a player might post:

"I'm going to shhot at the man in the tower, If he falls or is incapacitated, I will run to the ladder and climb the tower"
or
"I will shoot at the nearest enemy, unless one of our group is severely injured or incapacitated, at which I will try to heal him."

I would then handle the initiative and combat results and process the results of those 3 rounds. It worked pretty well.

 

[Imagicka]

Greetings...

Well, first...I'm sure you know about the online dice-roller for PBeM/PbP, yes? Well, if you do, great, if you don't, three can be found here: PBeM Emporium. (for those reading this post)

Well, there are a number of ways you can go, and I think you've pretty much have laid them out for yourself. I personally like to set up the situation, and then call for actions, and if there is anything that needs to be done/clarified during that round, I do so via email/messaging back and forth with the player, and then clarifying the whole combat round with a public post. -- As a result, my tabletop game started to take on characteristics of my online gaming...

Some options you can do with initative:

The 24 (48, whatever) Time Limit: If the players don't send you their action by the deadline, then their character didn't take their action that turn. Or you wait until each player posts their actions.

I like to have each player ideally send their Initiative Roll, Attack Roll(s), and Damage Roll(s) all in one post. It doesn't mean that they are going to hit and do damage, but if they intend to hit, at least you also don't have to wait for them to roll damage.

You could also have them include Saving Throw(s) in each of their posts. But the problem there is some players can feel like they are just 'wasting luck' by including something in a post that really isn't needed.

Another way of doing Initiative is that it's FIFO. The first person to send you a post, (or the first one you read) is the action that goes first. Or base it on the hour in which you received the email. Player send email at 3:34pm, his initative is 15. Of course there are two problems with that... using the feat Increased Initative and also players who are restricted because they couldn't get home before 7pm to post their replies.

 

[haiiro]

Well, first...I'm sure you know about the online dice-roller for PBeM/PbP, yes?

I like Kevin Savage's dice roller (http://www.kevinsavage.ca/pub/dir_rpg/DiceRoller.html), but this one's also pretty neat.

Lurking in the Talking the Talk forum, I just discovered Dungeon Crafter -- damn, but that's an awesome little program! It'll make mapping a breeze, which I was concerned about, and it's free. (http://www.dungeoncrafter.com/)