PBP advice/discussion

[Krug]

Starting this thread to discuss PbP issues. How to sustain them, what works, advice and so on.

For a start, I would just like to say I think 4 players is the optimum size for most PBP games. The larger the party the slower things go. Moreover, decisions can be made quicker. I think party size is one of the CRITICAL issues in PBP campaigns and their survivalibility.

 

[Thanee]

Well, it's important, that there is a continuous flow.

Players should know about their responsibility to keep posting (and checking IC every other day at the very least, more often during combat, if possible) as much as the DM to keep things running and interesting (and check IC daily, if possible).

Even if there is not much to say for your character, if you havn't posted an action for your character lately, just post something, so the others know you are still there and interested.

The DM should take care to involve every character, if one character seems to be left out a bit, involve him or her more, by including situations specifically aimed at him or her.

I think a party size of 5-6 works good, since it isn't so bad, if someone is missing for a while (holidays, RL issues, etc), to keep things going.

You don't always have to wait for a response by every player, as long as there are some responses, just get on with the story and if the players who havn't posted yet wanted to do something, just let them do so retroactively (i.e. just adding in past tense before the next post what they had done there, if it is of any importance to them or anyone else).

Waiting kills PbP games!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Telsar]

Starting this thread to discuss PbP issues. How to sustain them, what works, advice and so on.

For a start, I would just like to say I think 4 players is the optimum size for most PBP games. The larger the party the slower things go. Moreover, decisions can be made quicker. I think party size is one of the CRITICAL issues in PBP campaigns and their survivalibility.

The game I took over, Puppy-Kicking PCs at work, has 8 players, and its working well, especially when they split up. It's kind of like running 2-3 games, although in the same general location with the same general theme. But you can't wait on everyone to respond to every DM post before continuing. If someone is supposed to respond, I wait a day and half, then if the character could reasonably 'do nothing', that's what I say he/she's doing. And even if it's a critically needed response, if the group is split up, you can usually continue with other people's stories.

But I do see that with a large group of characters, it takes longer to get a consensus on what a group wants to do. Also, my style of play is rather open, so it's easy for different characters to do different things. For something like a dungeon-crawl, a large group might make it more difficult. I'll probably find out, since my party wants to check out some ruins, when I was expecting them to stay in an open city and pursue seperate goals. (This is not meant as criticism for my players... the ruins should be fun. For the monsters inside it, at least )

A DM's job is to keep the game moving. Try not to wait on any one character too long. But I'm a PBP newbie, so what do I know?

 

[Orvallon]

I've got 7 in my game, more from miscounting on my part than anything else, I'd planned on 4-6. Not that I'd want to lose any of my players, mind. Things are going well so far, but we haven't gotten to a point yet where it's convenient for the group to split off. I'll be interested in seeing what happens then.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Starting this thread to discuss PbP issues. How to sustain them, what works, advice and so on.

Help yourself. Talking PbP is almost as much fun as actually doing it!


Now since I've never ran a PbP game you'll have to realize that I can only comment on trends. Hopefully no one will object to me commenting on the trends I've seen.

I think party size is one of the CRITICAL issues in PBP campaigns and their survivalibility.

Important, yes but I would hardly call it critical.

There are few keys to a game but without dedication from the DM the game is over before it begins... We've had a very nice trend of people DMing games that they didn't start. (like Telsar stated and also demonstrates in his wonderful run Puppy kicking game)

To a lesser extent you need dedicated players, I rank it as high as the DM but lower it at the same time cause your always one critical away from being rid of a troublesome player.

The next thing is that RL sucks… No other way to say it something will come up and either you will need a break or one, or more, of your players will need a break…

This leads the topic that is most often forgotten but is insanely important… trade email addresses* with your players. I have the email address of every DM I play for, I cannot imagine playing in a game without one. (Sometimes things needed to be said in secret, sometimes ENworld hates people… etc.)

* It need not be your primary email address but it’s only as good how often you check it.

To be honest, that’s the only two keys that matter; Dedication and communications, after that everything else will fall in line.

Patience, as they like to say is a virtue, but I’ve seen more than a few games survive a month or more delay, it just takes dedication.

 

[Krug]

ok.. anyway how do you guys handle combat? I've found you can use excel to do pretty decent maps. I've also found less combats, the better. Just make sure the encounters bear some relevance to the plot.

 

[Orvallon]

ok.. anyway how do you guys handle combat? I've found you can use excel to do pretty decent maps. I've also found less combats, the better. Just make sure the encounters bear some relevance to the plot.

So far, I've been going pretty much mapless. I'm not quite sure how you'd use excel to do a map, really.

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

ok.. anyway how do you guys handle combat? I've found you can use excel to do pretty decent maps. I've also found less combats, the better. Just make sure the encounters bear some relevance to the plot.

Excell works pretty well, I know alot of games are mapless it really depends upon the DM...

Comabt seems to be d20 lite cause of this... AoO seem to be over looked, etc...

Fighting really slows the game down, I've seen fights drag out for months and at the end few players now what’s going on… :\

Keep them fast, and I've never seen it done but I almost think that doing it via scripts would be better... Much like you use to do via BG and other PC games...

So far, I've been going pretty much mapless. I'm not quite sure how you'd use excel to do a map, really.

Just make the grids really small and make the columns the same size as the rows.

 

[Telsar]

ok.. anyway how do you guys handle combat? I've found you can use excel to do pretty decent maps. I've also found less combats, the better. Just make sure the encounters bear some relevance to the plot.

I've probably used more combat in my 2 months of PBP DMing than other DM's do, but I've always been a fan of tactical combat. And when the party is split up, some can be fighting while others are roleplaying (Hey, Brother Shatterstone. Just realized you've never been in a solo fight. We need to change that ). We've had one big fight that involved everyone, and that slowed things down a bit. When they are all grouped together, I'll probably do less combat... maybe.

I make simple, ugly maps using Paint Shop Pro; useful since everything can be done as layers and with objects, so things can be moved around easily when you make updated maps.

 

[Thanee]

ok.. anyway how do you guys handle combat? I've found you can use excel to do pretty decent maps. I've also found less combats, the better. Just make sure the encounters bear some relevance to the plot.

Combat is the most work-intensive part, I think, but it's quite some fun, too.

Combat should not be the main focus, and yeah, relevant combats are better than random ones.

HERE's how I do the maps now.

Bye
Thanee