Lemunde
2013-09-24, 02:51 AM
So I did a lot of thinking today at work about how all of the PBP games I've played here fizzled out before they really got started. And I think they all fizzled out for similar reasons. Mainly there's a lot of waiting involved, especially during character generation and combat.
Now the character generation part isn't as much of a big deal because people really do enjoy making their characters but with most systems this part can be very complicated which makes generating a character take up to a week. The frustrating part is when you spend all this time making a character and it turns out the game dies just a few days later.
The combat is where everything really slows down. You take your turn and then you have to wait for all of the other players and NPCs to take their turns which makes a single combat round take several days, and the battle itself could take up to a month.
If you're lucky you can find a group who is more devoted to posting multiple times a day and you can set it up where players can conditionalize their moves in advance to speed things up, but it still takes a while.
So I started building a system in my mind that's optimized to be used for PBP games. It's a lot more simplified than what a lot of players may be used to but theoretically it should make for a lot faster gameplay, at least where combat and character generation and development is concerned. Ideally it should be adaptable for any setting (much like GURPS) but initially I'll be focusing on a typical fantasy setting.
I'll start with describing the combat system. The first thing that will make or break this system for a lot of people is there is no movement during combat, at least not in the traditional sense. Players and NPCs can target anyone (or anything?) in the general area with some exceptions which I'll get into later.
The other primary change in combat is everyone moves at the same time. On each round each player and NPC chooses a single action then rolls their initiative. The initiative roll determines the order in which actions are performed each round. The GM would probably choose all the actions for the NPCs first and keep them hidden then the players would post their actions, probably spending a little time strategizing with each other. Ideally a typical combat round should last only one day and an entire combat encounter should last less than a week, assuming each player posts once per day.
There is some positioning involved in combat but it's more abstract. Instead of attacking a player or NPC may choose to move to some feature that's specific to the area they're in. For instance there may be a large pit that characters can force opponents into or there could be tables that offer ranged advantage for characters standing on them. These features have anywhere from 1 to an infinite number of slots that can hold characters. In the previous example each table might have only 1 or 2 slots but a massive chasm could have an infinite number of slots.
I'm still working on some specifics to handle certain situations that might increase the time it takes to complete a combat round but these are more suggestions for the GM to keep things moving.
Character generation is vastly different from what you might find in DnD or Pathfinder. There are no character classes and no levels. Instead players spend experience points on specific feats, stats, abilities and spells. Players start out with a specified amount of experience that they can spend during character generation.
There are still a lot of details I'm trying to work out but I wanted to gauge the community's interest in this type of game. I realize it doesn't have the same level of tactical gameplay as other systems but for overall roleplaying I feel it could work quite well in maintaining the pace and keeping players interested if they can get past the simplified elements.
Now the character generation part isn't as much of a big deal because people really do enjoy making their characters but with most systems this part can be very complicated which makes generating a character take up to a week. The frustrating part is when you spend all this time making a character and it turns out the game dies just a few days later.
The combat is where everything really slows down. You take your turn and then you have to wait for all of the other players and NPCs to take their turns which makes a single combat round take several days, and the battle itself could take up to a month.
If you're lucky you can find a group who is more devoted to posting multiple times a day and you can set it up where players can conditionalize their moves in advance to speed things up, but it still takes a while.
So I started building a system in my mind that's optimized to be used for PBP games. It's a lot more simplified than what a lot of players may be used to but theoretically it should make for a lot faster gameplay, at least where combat and character generation and development is concerned. Ideally it should be adaptable for any setting (much like GURPS) but initially I'll be focusing on a typical fantasy setting.
I'll start with describing the combat system. The first thing that will make or break this system for a lot of people is there is no movement during combat, at least not in the traditional sense. Players and NPCs can target anyone (or anything?) in the general area with some exceptions which I'll get into later.
The other primary change in combat is everyone moves at the same time. On each round each player and NPC chooses a single action then rolls their initiative. The initiative roll determines the order in which actions are performed each round. The GM would probably choose all the actions for the NPCs first and keep them hidden then the players would post their actions, probably spending a little time strategizing with each other. Ideally a typical combat round should last only one day and an entire combat encounter should last less than a week, assuming each player posts once per day.
There is some positioning involved in combat but it's more abstract. Instead of attacking a player or NPC may choose to move to some feature that's specific to the area they're in. For instance there may be a large pit that characters can force opponents into or there could be tables that offer ranged advantage for characters standing on them. These features have anywhere from 1 to an infinite number of slots that can hold characters. In the previous example each table might have only 1 or 2 slots but a massive chasm could have an infinite number of slots.
I'm still working on some specifics to handle certain situations that might increase the time it takes to complete a combat round but these are more suggestions for the GM to keep things moving.
Character generation is vastly different from what you might find in DnD or Pathfinder. There are no character classes and no levels. Instead players spend experience points on specific feats, stats, abilities and spells. Players start out with a specified amount of experience that they can spend during character generation.
There are still a lot of details I'm trying to work out but I wanted to gauge the community's interest in this type of game. I realize it doesn't have the same level of tactical gameplay as other systems but for overall roleplaying I feel it could work quite well in maintaining the pace and keeping players interested if they can get past the simplified elements.