How does Playing by Email work?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Specifically, the combat. Is it mostly just narrative with someone (the DM?) dictating who does what to whom and for how much? Is there die rolling? Is combat done on a round by round basis, or does everyone say what/how they want to do and then the DM just resolves it?

And how long does it take? It seems like this would be an extremely slow method of gaming (waiting for everyone to respond).

 

[IronWolf]

Play by Email is not for everyone. But if your schedule is packed or you are having a hard time finding gamers in your area it can meet the fix you are looking for. To address your specific questions regarding combat there are a couple of ways to do it.

I tend to handle all the dice rollling on my side (as DM). The players post a round or two's worth of action and then to make things a little easier list the bonuses in an OOC portion of the thread. Then when I have people's actions I roll the dice and put it all to words. This seems to work relatively well though the work load increases a touch for the DM. I try to move through combat relatively quickly with at least one round done per day. If someone doesn't post I generally continue their previous actions or decide for them based on how they have played the character in the past. Most times though people in groups I have been in have been able to keep pace.

The games are longer and one combat can at times take a full week to get through. It is sort of the nature of PBeM games though. It's not for everyone, but they can be fun. The descriptions and character interactions tend to be more in-depth as the veil of email helps people really roleplay. This pro helps make up for the con of slowness.

Other DMs have the players roll the dice themselves - either using the honor system or using a site like Irony to have the dice rolls emailed to the DM.

 

[The_Magician]

I DM and Play online for 8+ years and if you decide to engage in non-real time ronline roleplaying, like PBEM and PBP, you usually end up getting into multiple games, because it can be addictive and it is VERY slow. A good average posting rate for a PBEM game is 4 posts per player per week, and from my experience, in that rate, you take a full year to finish a 36pages adventure module. Give or take a few more months (usually give).

I will answer first about the combat. I have seen different approaches, but usually, the DM sends a post describing the combat scenario. Players reply with their own posts, describing teh actions of their characters. After all players have replied, the DM rolls the dices for the players , monsters and NPCs, then posts back a reply saying the results of each character action, then sending a reaction of the monsters and NPCs. Then players react to that by sending another round of actions.

Some PBEM portals are fully featured and allow you to send the dice rolls together with your post.

Generally speaking, this is how a PBEM/PBP game works. DM announces his game, with a introduction to the plot, followed by the character creation rules (Setting, ECL, Starting Gold, Books allowed, etc). Then players interested in the game submit their characters. DM chooses which characters he liked and invite those players to the game. From this point on, it is like in table top RPG. The DM begins describing the scenario, the situation, where you are, what you see, etc. Then each player posts in reaction to the starting post. That reaction causes a change in the scenario, which has to go through the DM. He then sends another post ot he players, painting the new picture.

Ex:

DM's starting post:

You follow your leader into the mist, until it engulfs you, blinds you, and you feel a warm sensation inside your chest that keeps pressing you forward, hoping that your leader will be somewhere on the other side. The thought of losing him again is despairing and depressing, but you get a hold of yourself and trot along with your fellows, without seeing them, but knowing by the sound of the horses's hooves that you are together.

Then the mist begins to withdraw, gradually dissipating and letting go of you, and for a brief moment you find yourself lost in an icy darkness, till the forest reappears all around. You can't help but feel perturbed by something you can't really grasp, but you can feel that chilling, unsettling in your gut that assures you something is amiss.

Where is he? Where is your leader? He is not there. You have missed him again! You look back to see if he's still coming out of the mist, but the mist is gone and there is no sign of him anywhere. Something is wrong. Something is really, really wrong...

Looking up you notice that the once starlit night sky now displays but cold pinpoints of light, and the full moon that used to reign over them is now gone. Your surroundings are different as well. The spaced out maple and redwood trees are replaced by a dark forest of gigantic, mossy gray firs and pines that hem you in on either side. The soft, earthen ground is now solid enough and yet you experience a moment of vertigo, as if it shifted underfoot. At the same time you hear a deep groan - a monstrous sound, as though some great thing lay dying, just inside the forest.

(That's the Introductory post from a game I am DMing. In reply to it, my players send their own posts. Will paste two of them here, so you see how it goes)

Savah's post:

"Too good to be true," Savah rumbles, mostly to himself. "I knew it. We should have delayed, waited, found out for sure that we were seeing what we thought we saw."

"We're a bunch of fools," he muttered to himself, swinging down from his horse, loosing his blade and his hammer. "The sky has changed. We aren't where we once were. We might be able to get back if we can track the route we took. But, from the sound of things, we might have something else to do first." He tried to track the monstrous sound with just his ears, unwilling to leave the group just yet...

Alshar's post:

Conflicting emotions cross Alshars face...disappointment and concern that there is no sign of the leader any more. But at the same time, interest and intrigue as her brain already is working on the puzzle of where they were now and how they got here.

Silently she curses herself for not having read the tome entitled "Planes - their order in the universe" back in old saveroks library. realising she can do little to help locate where they are in the short term she instead focusses, like Savah, on the sounds around them, especially the monstrous one, she holds krrk in her hands and closes her eyes focussing all her mind on determining the source of the sound and for some clue on the nature of its source.

ooc: listening...do you roll ref or show i?
Also...can we have a Name for the leader? seems weird always refering to 'The Leader' or 'him' perhaps put him/her in the NPC section so we do not forget.


(After all the players replied to my post, I sent another post, showing the result of their actions and painting the new scenario)

DM's post:

Maybe the image of your leader was but an illusion. Maybe the moon was covered by massive thick clouds. Maybe the several minutes riding blindly inside the mist have taken you to a different part of the forest, without you realising. Maybe the sinister sound you just heard was produced by your disturbed minds....maybe not....

A short time later the ground begins to tremble. The horses neigh, moving a few steps back and looking a little agitated. Just ahead, a rift opens in the earth like a deadly battle wound, about two feet wide and ten feet long. It is filled with a swirling grey mist that is tainted with the chill of the grave.

You catch your breath and turn your horses around, trying to understand... What the hell is going on? Where are you? What foul play is this?

All is silent for a moment, and then a huge tree whose roots have been exposed by the rift tears free of the soil and topples in your direction. The massive trunk, heavy enough to crush a house, is falling on you!

Jeddebai and Savah are quick on the act, pulling the reign of their horses, tuining them around and kicking their sides to get them out of harms way. Alshar takes a little longer to react, but safely dodges the falling tree. The others aren't so lucky. Aeron and Fearghus took a second too long to act and got their horses prancing in desperation, while Bison, seeing that his horse was too frightened to allow him to mount it back on, just slapped the animal on the rear getting it out of there, but joined Aeron and Fearghus's fate.

If trees could give a death cry, this would be the sound of it. The massive trunk fell mercilessly like a god's wrath, making a thunderous sound as it slams the soilid ground and bury half of the party under it.

Alshar, Jeddebai and Savay can't believe what their perplexed eyes see, but they soon notice that their friends are still conscious. Lucky enough, they were not hit by the massive trunk, but are trapped under the heavy, thick branches.

(and the game keeps going from there.... You will notice that I have decided in my post who escaped the falling tree and who didnt. That's because I would risk losing 24 to 48 hours, if I asked all my 6 players ot send their reflex rolls. Instead, I rolled those ref saves myself and used the results to describe the scenario in my post)

When there is a combat, it is always good to have the combat map uploaded somewhere for the players to see, and then you just keep posting the actions, with the DM describing the reactions and painting the new scenario, to which you react again. It is VERY slow, which is why those addicted to this sort of roleplaying usually play in multiple games. I know people who are playing in more than 40 games, DMing 8 and co-refereeing a few others.

I strongly advise you to lurk games to understand the process better.

 

[der_kluge]

I think it really varies from DM to DM. Either the DM assumes more control, or less control. The more the DM assumes control during combat, obviously the slower it can go. A PBEM I ran a long time ago, I basically said I'll run the character through combat, unless I get specific directions, I'll just move for the character.

Still, other PBEMs just try to avoid combat altoghether. This actually makes sense, since the medium allows for some great role-playing, and some really good political or intrigue style games.

 

[IronWolf]

I think it really varies from DM to DM. Either the DM assumes more control, or less control. The more the DM assumes control during combat, obviously the slower it can go.

The more the DM assumes control, the slower it can go? I think the more a DM is willing to assume control the quicker he can push the game past a slow point or avoid getting bogged down by a non-posting player. I tend to only handle the dice rolling, but if a player is not posting I will move the round past that point by either continuing the previously stated actions or making an assumption of what they would normally do in such a situation. This has always seemed to keep things moving. Other than that though players know that I like to move combat at one round per 24 hours and very few are unable to meet that during combats.

 

[Samnell]

I've been successfully running combats for between four and eight PCs in PBEMs for about five years.

My system is to have all the PCs declare their actions for a round upfront. Then I do all the rolling and resolve the ground. It's not perfect and from time to time I end up changing actions for the PCs because the combat changed or something like that, but it works very well for us.

I've been in another PBEM where in combats the PC on initiative declared. The DM resolved that action and any opposition until the next PC came up, then took a declaration, then resolved that, etc.

The difference between the two methods from a logistics angle is that with on the ball players I can resolve as many as four or five rounds a week. The poor DM who did things the other way I mentioned couldn't manage to resolve one round in three weeks.

The biggest speed issue is always the players and DM, though. If you've got a small, dedicated group, all online at once, you cna roll through combats in almost realtime.

 

[genshou]

I'm a long-time fan of PbEM. It's how Pledge of Tyranny is progressing until end of October. Sometimes the DM has to take a character over for a round or two during combat, but if you can find a set of reliable players, it's a lot of fun and very addicting.

The problem is in finding a set of reliable players.

Speaking of that, is there anyone in here who owns Arcana Evolved and would enjoy a PbEM?

 

[wingsandsword]

The only PBEM I ever played in was a Star Trek one, many years ago (circa 1997, "USS Devanchya" I think it was called, lasted for a few months until the person running it got tired and pulled the plug out of nowhere)

It was quite freeform, characters had their "personell file" which every other player had access to. Every day, each player made a brief narrative post to the GM detailing what they were doing, who they were saying what to, and other descriptive bits. Players based their posts around their own character, but could use other people's PC's as supporting characters (as long as they did nothing out of character, and generally had those characters only do basic reactions like open a door or so on). Combat was handled by describing how you were phasering the bad guys, or describing to everyone how you were getting beaten up by someone. The GM then took everybody's emails to him and compiled them into a big daily posting of everything that happens, reconciling conflicting accounts and correcting things where a character would do something impossible or out of character.

It was quite fun, but a completely different breed of roleplaying than tabletop RPG's.

As for playing-by-email for D&D, with loads of intricate rules, or tabletop RPG's in general with dice rolling and the like I can't imagine how you could do that without even a typical combat taking a days or weeks to resolve.

 

[genshou]

As for playing-by-email for D&D, with loads of intricate rules, or tabletop RPG's in general with dice rolling and the like I can't imagine how you could do that without even a typical combat taking a days or weeks to resolve.

The simplest answer is "You can't." That's the downside.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The simplest answer is "You can't." That's the downside.

Not necessarily. My first PbP combat as a GM took only a single hour. Now, I have been told that I am somewhat out of the ordinary due to fast posting on my part, but it still proves that it is possible.