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Post-by-Post games. How do they work?


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Hi Grimmjow,

There's essentially 2 types of PbP here. One is the regular PbP, where DM's post whatever game they're looking to run here and how many/what they're recruiting:
Talking the Talk - EN World: Your Daily RPG Magazine

Typically, it will be either 4e or Pathfinder, and 4-6 players. They usually will list their source materials allowed as well. You'll make PC's and (usually) place them in teh Rogue's Gallery (Rogues Gallery - EN World: Your Daily RPG Magazine) and the actual game is conducted in the Playing the game forum. (Playing the Game - EN World: Your Daily RPG Magazine).

The other type is the "living" worlds, which essentially is a shared setting that all the DM's and players involved in contribute too. There are currently 4 Living worlds.

1) Living enworld - 3.5e ruleset - I'm not involved so can't comment too much
2) Living 4th - 4e rules - set in the Transitive Isle homebrew/shared setting
3) Living Eberron - 4e rules - set in the Eberron setting
4) Living Pathfinder - PF rules - in a homebrew/shared setting

These are slightly different as the characters can swap groups depending on available PC's in the "tavern" and DM requirements. If the DM was to disappear (a far too common problem in PbP) then someone else typically steps in to either wrap up the adventure or run it to its conclusion.

As to the nuts and bolts. Typically a DM will set expectations of posting requirements (usually at least 1 every two days or so) in order to keep the game moving. Dice rolling is handled via the Enworld dice roller or an offsite one such as Invisible Castle. Combat actions are noted and then adjudicated by the DM as normal.

One note, is that PbP is like a marathon. It's a slow process, a typical short adventure lasts 3-4 months easily (say what a LFR adventure would be). There's a high rate of attrition that occurs due to the slower pace. It lends itself well to some roleplaying as you can spend a fair amount of time narrating your PC's actions, but again, it's not for everyone.

I believe the Living 4th and Living Pathfinder are the most active ones depending on your preferred rules choice and would be recommendation for starting out.

If you have any other questions, let me know, I personally really enjoy it and PbP is (unfortunately) my only D&D gaming right now.
 

This is interesting. How does combat work? Could a person.. say.. run their own game for instance I'm a pretty big Dragonlance fan. I'd love to put my 3.5 modules to use and run the original campaign (in pathfinder).
 

This is interesting. How does combat work? Could a person.. say.. run their own game for instance I'm a pretty big Dragonlance fan. I'd love to put my 3.5 modules to use and run the original campaign (in pathfinder).

Yes, for sure. as the DL stuff is pretty tied to the setting, it might be best in the non-living worlds, else you'd have to hack the adventure to fit that setting.

Combat is typically handled with either a mapping software (I use Maptools as it's free and reasonably easy to use), or via something like Google Documents, which will let the PC's move on their own. Here's a sample of a Pathfinder adventure's combat rounds - http://www.enworld.org/forum/playing-game/317990-lpf-kostry-kopec-23.html

Just one suggestion with modules, try to cut out extraneous encounters and focus only on the core ones as too many unimportant encounters will kill the momentum of a game.
 



so lets say i make a sorcerer with the dragon soul. His goal is to find the dragon who gifted his line with the dragons magic in order to fully learn how to harness the magic within? How do i go about doing that on L4W?
 


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