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<blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 2880228" data-attributes="member: 11760"><p>I've been running a pbp for a group of friends since January and getting into ENWorld games that mostly seem doomed to stall out, sometimes for reasons the players never hear about.</p><p></p><p>My advice:</p><p></p><p>1) Roll all the dice and simplify where you can. The battlemat-level of D&D doesn't really work when slowed way down, unless you want to have one adventure a year. Likewise, I toss out initiative, since what I think pbp does best (roleplaying) doesn't really need it, and it's just one more set of dice to roll. And waiting on the first-in-initiative to post holds up the game unnecessarily, and it'll be slow enough already.</p><p></p><p>2) Play with folks who are really committed to playing and have an adventure with jumping on and off points to dump characters and pick up replacements when people can't play. I broke my campaign into smaller adventures to aid in this as well.</p><p></p><p>3) Post regularly. The lower you set the bar on post rate, the further people will push it, and the more unexpected delays you'll have. If you get enough, the game will be over. My players post at least twice a day, and once a day on weekends. We're finishing up our third adventure currently.</p><p></p><p>4) Don't start off ambitious. Start small. Smaller than that, even. Games take a long time to play out, especially combat. You don't want the group fighting 500 goblins, you want them fighting nine, at most. (My first combat in my pbp featured 16 combatants total and it took two weeks to resolve and I was about out of my mind at the end.)</p><p></p><p>5) Have supplemental material. If you're using the Web, use it to its best effect. Create a player's guide, link to evocative images, post logs, etc.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Whizbang Dustyboots, post: 2880228, member: 11760"] I've been running a pbp for a group of friends since January and getting into ENWorld games that mostly seem doomed to stall out, sometimes for reasons the players never hear about. My advice: 1) Roll all the dice and simplify where you can. The battlemat-level of D&D doesn't really work when slowed way down, unless you want to have one adventure a year. Likewise, I toss out initiative, since what I think pbp does best (roleplaying) doesn't really need it, and it's just one more set of dice to roll. And waiting on the first-in-initiative to post holds up the game unnecessarily, and it'll be slow enough already. 2) Play with folks who are really committed to playing and have an adventure with jumping on and off points to dump characters and pick up replacements when people can't play. I broke my campaign into smaller adventures to aid in this as well. 3) Post regularly. The lower you set the bar on post rate, the further people will push it, and the more unexpected delays you'll have. If you get enough, the game will be over. My players post at least twice a day, and once a day on weekends. We're finishing up our third adventure currently. 4) Don't start off ambitious. Start small. Smaller than that, even. Games take a long time to play out, especially combat. You don't want the group fighting 500 goblins, you want them fighting nine, at most. (My first combat in my pbp featured 16 combatants total and it took two weeks to resolve and I was about out of my mind at the end.) 5) Have supplemental material. If you're using the Web, use it to its best effect. Create a player's guide, link to evocative images, post logs, etc. [/QUOTE]
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