PbP Advice Collaboration

[Deepblue706]

Those of us involved in Play-by-Post are well aware of how hard it can be to maintain a game for long. Over time, people lose interest, for varying reasons. Maybe the Recruitment Thread made the game seem much more appealing than it really came to be during play. Maybe there's poor resolution of in-game conflicts. Maybe the party just doesn't work well together. Whatever happens, it's another game in the crapper, and you never got a chance to play your awesome PC/run your awesome Campaign to the fullest. PbP games differ from live games because of a different pace, a different layout, and a different presentation. While it's no secret that tabletop games fail too, I think PbP games are more likely to fail due to the fact that it can be hard to fully appreciate what kind of situation we all find ourselves in when playing through a medium other than a gaming table.

I've lately been considering writing, in the spirit of our Guide to DMing (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76474) (provided by AKA Bait) a resource of advice for DMs and Players alike to help increase the longevity of their PbP games. I'm unaware of any already-existing guides, and I think this sort of thing might be in demand. So, I figured it may be appreciated, if at least just in our community here at Giant.

But, because I don't think I have all of the wisdom of the ages, I was curious if anyone else wanted to help with the enterprise. Although if interest is relatively small, we could do this via email and PM, I figured a thread on the topic itself might serve useful enough if all who were interested merely posted details of games they've participated in, that contributed to its continuation and enjoyment. Whether it be one of a long line of successes or one strong breath of life into what might be a dying game, I think all PbPers would benefit from knowing what kind of conduct encourages continued gameplay, and what conduct might prove more troublesome in a PbP environment.

So, if you'd like to participate, don't worry about any real quota of information. Any aspect of a game you particularly liked to see (or didn't like) in a PbP environment is fair, whether it be a DM keeping diligent on his posting schedule (allowing players to anticipate response), or players remembering that the ability to give themselves more descriptive text (due to time to think it through) doesn't permit them narrative authority (God-Moding, Really Long Speeches Without Giving You A Chance To Respond, etc), or perhaps just a DM remembering that each of his posts need to have some importance to them, to really deserve response (avoiding the The Blacksmith says, "Hi." posts).

Perhaps, with consolidated information on What's Good and What's Bad in the PbP realm of gaming, we can help all PbPers get a little bit more out of their games. I look forward to your response.

[Nice_Hat]

First and foremost, remember the objective: having fun telling a story together. Try to keep the party cohesive which allows freedom and creativity to flourish without ripping the thing apart. Opposing character alignments etc. are not a problem if the players remember it's about "us", not "me alone". Don't get bogged down to mechanics and dozens of rolls unless you are clearly into that kind of stuff and don't mind a single combat taking weeks. Usually, avoid non-meaningful combat and focus on the story.

ALWAYS REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN

[Keld Denar]

One of the biggest things that seems to slow down PbP games is when both players and DM are expecting the next to respond to something. Like...the DM posted something that may have been descriptive, but not really prompting player response. The players have no input concerning the situation and wait for the DM to post more. Both parties sit there until someone speaks up and asks whats going on. An example of this would be if the party is traveling. The DM provides descriptions of stuff to help the party imagine the travel, but leaves off any indication that the party actually gets anywhere. The DM is waiting for the players to react to getting there, and the players are wondering why they aren't there yet, and a lul is created which CAN lead to loss of interest.

Also, puzzles that require a lot of short questions to figure out can really bog down a game. Something like a puzzle with 4 buttons. "I push the red button" - "nothing happens", "I push the blue button" - "one door opens", "I push the yellow button" - "one door closes, and another opens" and such as puzzles should be avoided. Either you get 1-2 active posters and the DM overcoming it without much input from the rest of the players due to posting frequency, or people get confused as to whats happening and deem that its too much work to overcome or whatever.

[Hzurr]

First off, there's already a thread about this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=119856). It is, however, slightly 4E specific, so maybe this is broad enough to be considered a separate thread.

Regardless, I'm going to post here what I posted there

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Some general advice for PbP games:

1) Ways to uniquely identify each poster/character at a glance. - Since the PCs don't have faces or voices, sometimes it can be easy to loose track of who is playing who (especially if a poster uses a lot of pronouns). I recommend doing two things to combat this: A) At the start of every post, have each player put his name, race and class. Ex: the first line of my post might have something like Tordek - dwarf fighter. That way you know instantly who is posting without having to remember which character Hzurr is playing. B) Give each character his or her own font color when they speak. This also helps to identify the various characters, but it also helps solidify what is said out-loud vs. internal monologue/flavor text. Assign a unique color to each character (for example, Tordek may get red), so that when a character says "I think we should kill the goblins" You can instantly see what he says, even if it's buried within a wall of text.

2) Determine in advance how combat will be run - Will you be rolling, or will the PCs be rolling? (I recommend having the PCs do it, using the GitP dice roller). Will you be going down each person in order of initiative, or at the top of the round will you have each person declare what they intend to do that round? (Having everyone declare in advance makes things go faster, but it can be a little tricky if the fighter declares that he'll attack the zombie, only to have the wizard kill the zombie before the fighter's turn comes up. In situations like this, you need to decide in advance if the player will choose his new action, or if the DM will choose).

3) PbP games offer some of the best roll-playing possibilities, and some of the poorest combat possibilities. Be very careful of running combat heavy games, and give the PCs more of a chance to interact with one another and with the NPCs. This for me is the highlight of PbP games, is because everyone has more time to think about their character and how he/she would respond. Some of the best RPing I've ever had has been in PbP games (and because of it, my all-time favorite PC I ever made was from a PbP game)

4) Determine posting schedule ahead of time, and stick to it. Be clear with the players about how often you expect them to post, and what happens if they don't post (will you assume they go along with what the party does, will you NPC them, will they more or less just "disappear" for a few rounds, etc.)

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Also, one thing that I found very helpful (back in the days when I DMed a couple of PbP games), was to have some sort of map the players could look at. I'm sure there are all sorts of awesome map-making tools available now (I used Paint.net back in the day, and did it all by hand, which is pretty time consuming). At any rate, having something that players can look at to see the layout can be super-helpful, especially in combat. This is also nice to help clarify the description you gave of a room or cave or something like that, because you will always have people who have a tough time visualizing things, and if you can provide some sort of visual guide, it can save you a lot of time from having to go back and re-explain your description 5 times.