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View Full Version : play by post strategies: help needed



classy one
2011-04-12, 05:57 AM
PbP games are great for people who, like me, have full time jobs and kids to take of. It allows the DM (me) to have time to think about how to react to players actions and repond in a setting compatible way.

I have a campaign I want to run invovling the Dreaming Dark but having never hosted a PbP before I'd like some advice:
1) drawn out encounters. I can only imagine battles will draw out since it is turn based, which means no one can do anything if one player stalls (or leaves). I was thinking of using an excel document on gmail to make it real time and more smooth.

2) How many encounters per day? if one encounter is a drawn out affair how can I even expect decent pacing if I have 4-5 encounters in one day? Of course if I limit it to 1-3 encounters then each encounter could encourage nova'ing... making conservation of resources meaningless.

3) holding interest? Most campaigns don't last, I can only guess it is because of the long wait times. But mandating 100 posts a day is counter productive since the reason most of us play PbP is because we can't devote as much time as we like due to RL stuff.

Anyone with any advice? Thanks in advance.

Sarco_Phage
2011-04-12, 05:58 AM
Keeping the player amount small helps decrease potential wait times, naturally.

Eldan
2011-04-12, 06:04 AM
Throw initiative together. Basically, let all monsters act on one initiative count, and the players all on one initiative count. Average works, as does "highest in the group", really. Most of the time, it only matters during the first turn.

Also, I'd recommend doing some rolls for the players. Because making a post "give me roll X", waiting for the player to do roll X, then replying about what roll X does, then waiting for the player's response can easily take a day or more, instead of just saying "I rolled a spot check for you, you see Y".

Sarco_Phage
2011-04-12, 06:06 AM
And you might want to simplify combat by either making up relative distances, locations, and positions (as long as you have a clear initial picture) as you go or using the crappy JRPG system where you have everyone standing in a row, smacking each other.

Eldan
2011-04-12, 06:07 AM
Eh. Most of the time "that guy behind the rock" and "that orc fifty feet away" are quite sufficient for distances.

Amnestic
2011-04-12, 06:21 AM
1) drawn out encounters. I can only imagine battles will draw out since it is turn based, which means no one can do anything if one player stalls (or leaves). I was thinking of using an excel document on gmail to make it real time and more smooth.

In addition to what other people have said, I generally give people 48 hours from the time I update a round to make their move. If they don't, I'll act for them. This might not be what players want to do, but I still act in their best interests. It means that combat will *always* (assuming I'm around to do the update) move at least once every ~48 hours.

potatocubed
2011-04-12, 06:37 AM
Group initiative is a small trick, but it works wonders.

Another piece of advice, which works for some systems better than for others, is to publicise the enemy's defences and hp. It leads to a bit of metagaming, but at the same time it lets players describe their actions and keep combat moving rather than waiting on your adjudication of their actions.

I also recommend using a system other than D&D. D&D is complex and combat-intensive, neither of which runs well in PbP.

Saintheart
2011-04-12, 08:42 AM
Aside from group initiative, do group rolls (like Spot, Search checks) for the party in one batch; it's purely mathematical, if you portray it as streamlining things and keeping them rolling, it'll go smoother. It's not like they can roll their favourite lucky dice to try and get a natural 20.

In terms of encounter numbers, ignore random encounters. To make up for the XP, give the set encounters more, or just throw out XP-based levelling altogether and just flip the party up levels once in a while.

On mapping and whatnot: RPTools is a viable choice for PbP. I know, I know, the learning curve is tricky at first, but it really helps.

ffone
2011-04-13, 02:27 AM
Throw initiative together. Basically, let all monsters act on one initiative count, and the players all on one initiative count. Average works, as does "highest in the group", really. Most of the time, it only matters during the first turn.

Also, I'd recommend doing some rolls for the players. Because making a post "give me roll X", waiting for the player to do roll X, then replying about what roll X does, then waiting for the player's response can easily take a day or more, instead of just saying "I rolled a spot check for you, you see Y".

Seconded all this.

For monster/NPc initiative I do one initiative roll (average if they're of approx. equal power, weighted or most important one's mod otherwise.)

For PCs I do do individual initiative - but I always point out that by using delay actions, they can post in any order anyway. Since the monsters all 'go together', the PCs will do (some PCs will get to go before the monsters' first turn, and then after that, they'll all have a turn). In effect the "end of a round" is when the monsters go, rather than initiative count 0.

Also I second the 'doing some passive rolls for the players' and acting for slower-posting PCs. If they care what you do with their PCs then they can give you 'algorithms' or 'guidelines' for how they react to various things.

Epsilon Rose
2011-04-13, 02:43 AM
I've heard interesting things about using Google Wave for rpgs. I don't know how/well it would work but it's probably better than excel on gmail.

As for in game time. I'd use a fairly fluid timescale and cut out most of the unimportant stuff. If you're really worried about novaing you could look into variant rules/systems that don't rely on the 4 encounter a day system (which is kinda silly) or ban casting classes and encourage the alternative classes that are meant to go all day any ways (this could do interesting things to the power level regardless but might cause some problems with healing [they wouldn't be particularly hard to solve though]) or use some other marker than 24 hours (maybe they're using up the local mana and have to move on, maybe the worlds magic is on a tide system and at some times it's harder for people to do magic [this one has some fun possibilities]).

Of course I've never run or been in a long running PbP so everything I've just said is conjecture.:smalltongue: