Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="catsclaw227" data-source="post: 3876534" data-attributes="member: 14197">Hello all!I am currently running the War of the Burning Sky via a PbP in a private forum and I wanted to comment on some of my experiences, get some feedback from you PbP DM Pros out there, as well as a player perspective about some things.First, I am an experienced DM (since 1978), yet this was my first PbP game as a DM, and I think I must've broken some unstated PbP rule because it is my first PbP period!  I have never played in one before, so this experiment was risky from the start.Second, I read through a few here, cribbed together some general PbP etiquette notes and rules for my players and while it seems to work well, I think that I made some things difficult.  <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I asked for players to use colors to represent different languages (and had a key for the language-color thing).  If one PC knew how to speak the language of the NPC, then the NPC text was in english, otherwise it was in gibber-speak.  The other PCs, who didn't understand the NPC, would metagame this as best possible, but in critical situations, failed miserably.  Wrong colors were used by accident, or none at all, and it became a huge problem -- so we dumped that idea.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There was always a flurry of private messages sent between DM and PCs, and it tended to lend itself to secrecy, hidden agenda, and other totally unnecessary intrigue. Granted I am not trying to dictate how the PCs interact or railroad them -- APs need some guidance -- I did tell them in advance that I didn't want to do this with the PCs plotting against each other.  It was a slipperly slope, to say the least.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Moving the story along was painfully slow, and the players would RP way more than normal.  I tried to move the PCs from scene to scene, but they'd post about the most mundane things. Yet I would get some IMs or private messages that they felt that the pace needed speeding up.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I kept combat easy, using DMGenie for the PC stats and that really helped, since we played it "diceless" (I would roll for them), and they would describe their actions one or two rounds at a time.  That was one of the only parts that seemed to go well, but it's tricky to describe a round or two of combat and help keep the "scene" consistent with what was in my head with what was in their heads.  Maybe I need to use more visual aids/maps....</li> </ul>Third, sometimes players (OK -- two specific players) would be lightning-fast posters and jump on every scene/item/goody/NPC before other posters because they didn't work or weren't as busy and always seemed to react before others.  I had generally 1 post a day rule, but more was OK, and every other day was fine especially if the player was busy or travelling.  The fast-players always demanded responses to their dialogue and wouldn't let the players who didn't post as quickly ever be first to speak in a social encounter.  This is tough...OK -- So I would love to get some feedback from everyone out there who has done this before...  What are your good/bad experiences running/playing a PbP?  How can I best deal with the situations noted above?  What other pitfalls might I expect?Also, what site seems to be best suited for PbP?  Here at EnWorld?  Private forums?  Other sites that might have dice tools or other PbP aids?Thanks in advance for any feedback -- it is greatly appreciated.CC</blockquote>

Verification