What makes a successful play by post?

[Cithindril]

I've been running a successful PBP game for just under a year now and will second some of the comments above. Some observations:

Expect a slower pace; our typical combats take about 10 days to resolve with everyone posting every other day.

Be flexible with the initiative rules; to avoid having folks waiting on a busy player to take their actions, initiative in my game varies by round and is based on the order of posting (this also encourages guys to stay up to speed so they don't lose out ). The adversaries will act either before or after all the party members take their actions for the round.

Be prepared to NPC a character for a given round if the player is unavailable and it's holding the game up (fortunately I play with a bunch of friends and there's never been any heartburn with this - I DO try to remain consistent with the PC's past actions, tactics and style).

During combat, I will collect all of the player inputs, make all of the dice rolls and describe everything in a narrative and chronological format. I'll typically use a different color for the dice results to highlight them from the narrative descriptions.

I've seen good PBP games that are entirely textual but my group has always leaned a bit more to the tactical wargaming side in combat (out of combat, plenty of role-playing still goes on). For this reason, I created a .jpg combat grid that I update for each round's action. It is a bit time-consuming but it makes combat very straightforward.

One of the greatest positives is that the PBP format gives you plenty of time to perfect your narrative descriptions of locales, characters, etc. Ideally it should read very much like a novel.

To host the forum there are many websites out there that will provide a forum at no cost (we use www.ezboard.com).

All in all, it has been a great game and a very enjoyable change of pace (most of this group used to table-top every other week but we've all moved to other cities). As a GM I would anticipate a fair amount of work so you shouldn't underestimate the time committment involved (I spend about 1.5 hours a day updating the forum, answering rules questions, providing background, etc). For the players, the time requirements are much less. Most of my guys tell me they spend about 20 minutes a day on average.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[IronWolf]

I've seen good PBP games that are entirely textual but my group has always leaned a bit more to the tactical wargaming side in combat (out of combat, plenty of role-playing still goes on). For this reason, I created a .jpg combat grid that I update for each round's action. It is a bit time-consuming but it makes combat very straightforward.

Oh yeah, I did leave this out. I try to take the time to make a map with positioning on it for combats. It really seems to help and leads to much less confusion over who is where. The players seemed to have appreciated it.

 

[Erekose13]

There are a few threads in the Talking the Talk forum on these boards that give advice, though many of them tend to fall off of the first page. Best advice that any PBP DM can give is to post. Its that simple, if you keep posting so will your players. Try not to take any unexpected leave of absenses. You can let your players know you will be away for a bit, but without a word from you they may drift away.

 

[Bront]

Entirely true. If you don't keep them filled in, they will tend to think you've abandoned them.

 

[S'mon]

The best PBPs I've run and played in do indeed have 'adventures', but they're nothing like a regular D&D scenario. For instance, mapped-out dungeons are a disaster in PBEMs, the party can take days to decide which corridor to go down. It needs a far more literary style; a good PBEM dungeon is "Entrance encounter - middle encounter - climactic encounter"; Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar short stories are a great source of ideas on how to do this right.
Also, good PBEMs should be about the characters - PC & NPC. A 'generic dungeon' for 'generic PCs' does not work well in PBEM. Solo PCs or, especially, buddy teams a la Fafhrd & Mouser , work great. Events need to centre around the PCs and their motivations; don't create or buy a scenario and then advertise for PCs, create a setting, then get the PCs, _then_ work out plot ideas involving those PCs.

 

[S'mon]

PBEMs do some things great, like character development & interaction, and some things poorly - map-based tactical combat, for instance. It's good to bear in mind PBEMs' strengths and weaknesses. Although D&D can work ok for PBEMs, PBEMs do not suit a focus on combat that requires min-maxed PCs and optimal tactics. I would generally recommend a couple of levels slack - eg if a scenario were doable by 3rd level PCs round-table, best to use 5th level PCs in a PBEM. Because PBEMs are slow, advancement is usually slow, and I'd recommend starting PCs at above 1st level, probably 3rd is good for "experienced adventurer" types.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

I'd like to think my game is successful. It is still going, at least, and started back near the end of August '04.

As stated before, expect your game to go slow. I run a Buffy PBP and, after nine months, we're about halfway through our third episode. I generally run combats as a 24 hour per round deal (though I have been known to extend it to 48 hours in occasion). If a player doesn't post in that time period, their character simply doesn't act that round. They may be shocked by the horrors they face or got sucker punched/clotheslined by a some demon.

As for source materials, at least for my game, only one of my players actually has some of the books. It doesn't really seem to matter, so long as you can trust the GM to help with character creation and advancement. It does lead to a lot of questions on how things work. Still, if you don't mind this, it works out fine.

Don't be afraid to split the party. Due to different work schedules and time zones, you may very well end up with two or three different plots going at the same time. With my game, they're less of a solid team of demon fighting heroes and more of a group of people with their own plots and goals who occasionally work together. The slower pace and messageboard format will allow you to keep these different groups going all at the same time (Even if each of the players decides to go in their own direction).

More Plot, Less Dungeon. Since it is a messageboard, you've got a little more time to draw out the roleplaying. Hell, I've seen entire posts of just internal monalogue (No Rary's Telepathic Bond involved). Also, use the extra time to your advantage. Instead of the immediate responce needed at a tabletop game, don't be afraid to ponder your answer for an hour or two to get it right before posting. I've found my GMing has gotten a lot more insidious since I've started a PBP. This also allows you to think of ways to drop in hints for future plotlines along the way.

Having your own forum is nice. It is really nice to have all of your threads together in one place. If this isn't possible, keep a current and detailed index. It'll save you a lot of time.

Hopefully Silvermoon will drop in to give a more DnDish perspective than the one I can give. I'd call his pbp VERY successful. He has a very addicted little group of posters that have amassed 49 threads worth of 200 posts each over the past 9 months. I often find it very difficult to retain control of my computer when orchid blossom wants to check that game for posts.

 

[Silver Moon]

Good advice above, I totally agree with S'Mon's comment about using a literary style and Ao's about not being afraid of splitting the party. Splitting the part in fact helps if some players are around and others are not.

I've been running a very successful western PBP since last summer. A key to this is to be flexible. Not everybody will have the same availability so you need to adapt to that. One thing that we've done that helps with combat is that we have a regular weekly session where most players can log in, that speeds things along as I try to do the combat segments then rather than at the posts the rest of the week.

One other thing that we've done is to allow players and the DM to take minor liberties with the characters, occassionally inserting some dialogue or action for other players or NPC's in order to move the story along. But you'd have to be very careful with that as everybody needs to understand and respect each other's characters to make that work.

 

[S'mon]

One other thing that we've done is to allow players and the DM to take minor liberties with the characters, occassionally inserting some dialogue or action for other players or NPC's in order to move the story along. But you'd have to be very careful with that as everybody needs to understand and respect each other's characters to make that work.

I've seen this cause trouble if a player feels another player or GM is taking liberties with their PC. Generally I wouldn't recommend writing dialogue for another PC, but it's ok to do:

"Jon asks Kelli X, then when she replies, he continues and says Y" - this is almost always ok, unless Kelli's reply to X is "I am your father, Jon - join me and together we can conquer the Galaxy!" in which case Y may need reconsidering.

 

[Storminator]

To speed up my PBeM (which is basically the same) I'll make some assumptions for my players. Frex, if it's best to stand there and bash the monster again this round, I'll just roll the two rounds in a row and then post. I'll also assume my players are playing reasonably intelligently (avoiding AoOs if that's easy, taking them when offered, etc). In short, I make the obvious tactical decisions for my players, and I make them in the players favor. I find that speeds up the game considerably.

I also make all die rolls. Just easier.

PS