PbP Question

[Synvallius]

I'm thinking of starting a new campaign using the PbP "feature" and since it would be my first time of doing so, I'm wondering if any other DMs who have run or are running a campaign on PbP have any tips for what specifically be prepared for by the DM (e.g. is it of any great importance to prepare entire maps of worlds and dungeons or can I go without? And other questions of that variety). Essentially, if any would care to relate what they have done in the past that has been of help to them when running their campaigns, it would be a great help. (Also, to be specific, I'm planning on running a rules light 3.5 campaign, if you need to know the rules system or whatever that I would be using, in order to relate necessary or useful information).

[CockroachTeaParty]

You seek to walk a dark path, Synvallius.

PBP is perhaps the worst way to play D&D in existence.

I have been playing PBP D&D since 2006, and the only reason I continue to do so is because I am an addict in need of serious help. I love to play D&D, such that PBP calls to me with its siren promises of 'always having a game,' one that you can play here and there as long as you have access to an internet connection.

Do not be fooled. It is a foul quagmire of undelivered promises, agonizing slowness, miscommunication, absent accountability, and unrealistic expectations.

My best advice to you is to abandon this project now, while you still have your dignity.

If you persist, if you take my warnings as the ramblings of a cantankerous fool, then the best advice I can give you is this:

Expect your game to die. It will likely not see itself to completion. The best you can probably hope for is a TPK. Most die a slow, quiet death. Players abandon the game without warning for no perceivable reason. Other players get bored, and bow out of the game. Perhaps just as deadly, you yourself will get bored, or overwhelmed, and will either abandon the game without a word or else put it out of its misery and close it yourself.

Understand the pace of the game. I run a pretty fast PBP game myself. At my very fastest, I can get through 1 round of combat per day. Over the course of ten months or so, I was able to get through a chapter-and-a-half of a Paizo Pathfinder Adventure path (and trust me, that was at break neck speed ). For comparison, a once-a-week group playing the same campaign at a table in RL got through three chapters.

Note also that the RL game had the same cast of players. My PBP game went through several, with only two players there from the very beginning. I had to replace two of them multiple times. You must be prepared to fill gaps in the roster, which can often stretch verisimilitude and credibility.

I suppose my final bit of advice is not to invest yourself too much in a PBP game. Don't make that world map, because chances are most of it will never see any real use. Don't flesh out massive NPC rosters, or design contingencies or branching paths, because the pace of the game is so slow that most will never see the light of day.

As the DM, it falls on you to keep the game moving and set the pace. If you can't keep interested in a game, if you can't update with any consistency or rely on constant feedback from unreliable players, you might as well kill the game in the womb.

Welcome to PBP. Welcome to Hell.

[Synvallius]

That is both a depressing and probably entirely correct point-of-view, and despite your warnings and discouragement, valid though they may be, I will still be going along with the plan. I'm hoping that I can find a less rules based way of resolving combat, because you're completely right in that combat drags down the game with just how lengthy it can become (that happens to me even in off-line games). If anyone has any ideas on how to get around combat without altogether removing it from the game I'd appreciate the input.

[CockroachTeaParty]

My own personal solution is to make it very clear with my players that I will be prone to 'taking control' of their characters in the name of speed. Let's say a fight is all but over, with little left but 'clean up,' taking down crippled or incapacitated enemies. Rather than waiting for everyone to post and roll actions, I'll just take the reigns and wrap things up on my own, allowing the game to proceed to new things.

As for something more 'rules light,' that's going down the path of home-brew, or else maybe you should seek an alternate rules/game system. *shrug*

[Faily]

I have a long record of playing PbP-games (6 years now?), but all of them have been based on systems that support more roleplay-aspects than your average D&D game.

IMO, PbP is best used for very social games that involve a large number of players. If the players are the kind who love to use hours and hours of socializing with eachother and NPCs, do daily chores, research and have deep conversations, then PbP is great fun.

[Synvallius]

For your games, do you generally prepare very much ahead in the way of plot and over-arching campaing? Or do you make most of it up as you go along? That's the main thing I'm wondering about, as combat will most likely be reduced in some ways (I'm entertaining the idea of having more problem solving/tactical insertion/special operations combat, rather than one-on-one battles), and I'll try to focus more on role playing aspects, and possibly some exploration. However, I've never done a purely (or at least 99%) role playing game, so I'm looking for any ideas or examples to keep a relatively combat free game interesting (which I'm sure won't be too hard), and what should planned for and what should be left blank for later development (in the sense of missions [or quests, or whatever you want to call them], and the main campaign, as I'm used to leaving most of the major choices entirely up to the players and just going based off of who they help and what they express and interest in [apart from the beginning of the game] and I am unsure as to whether or not that would be a sound policy to use in a PbP game).

[Faily]

Oh boy. Where do I start...

Is there much preparation for a game?
Yes, just like with any tabletop game. You get mechanics ready beforehand, and hopefully crunch the numbers ahead of time too incase it is a new homebrew mechanic that is supposed to add a small level of excitement from day to day. Like say a Gossip-mechanic.

Plot and over-arching campaign.
The games I've played, it's mostly been that one game can last somewhere between 1-2 months, in which there is one "adventure" so to say. These past years, we've been doing an over-arching campaign, but there has still been these "adventures" that add into the overall plot. Like, one adventure is to reclaim a lost castle from the demonic Shadowlands (Legend of the Five Rings), and once that time-frame of the game is closed, the results from that adventure is added into the story-arc of the campaign.
So let's say you want to run a campaign in Forgotten Realms. For your first adventure, the PCs play hopeful young adventures who are trying to gain audience with the ruler of Silverymoon (to further their own agenda, to seek to become a member of the Spellguard, seek to marry someone close to the ruler, etc). While alot of the game will be social interactions, you can spice things up with spell-duel events, or perhaps an attack from people seeking to disrupt the peace of Silverymoon's court (giving the heroes a chance to prove their worth when it counts)... really, the sky's the limit.
When you have concluded this adventure (the set time-frame for this "session" of your campaign), take a short break, write up a small blurb stating how the PCs actions have affected the greater whole where they were, and get ready for the next step. Rinse, repeat. I heartily endorse that both you and players take a few months to wind down after a game like this, since it can get intense with the focus of a game like that (the games I've played that I'm basing this on usually move an In-Character day every second or third day IRL).



While all my examples here are for the Legend of the Five Rings RPG, take a look and be inspired. This is what we call the Hollow Throne campaign, or storyline, and it's been going for a couple of years now. It's been like 40 players or so participating in this on-going storyline underneath our Evil Overlord GM. ^_^

Black Scroll (http://blackscroll.fallenash.com/) - a winter-gathering where the goal was to see a Governor's children wedded
The Topaz Championship in year 754 (http://topaz754.fallenash.com/) - the most prestigious tournament for young samurai
Shiro Hiruma (http://shirohiruma.fallenash.com/) - a combat-heavy game focused on reclaiming the ruins of an old castle from the demons
Nodoka Toshi (http://nodokatoshi.fallenash.com/) - a marriage-festival, where a snow spirit suddenly turn up to participate
Winter Court: Kyuden Agasha (http://kyudenagasha.fallenash.com/) - PCs attend the Emperor's winter court, vying for political favors for their clan and uncovering conspiracies

Hollow Throne wiki (http://hollowthrone.wikispaces.com/)

[Zubrowka74]

There a french site called Planete Roliste (http://www.planeteroliste.com) that developed a forum mod centered around Pbp. You have, for exemple, a statblock widget-thingy on the left of your screen that is linked to your chracter sheet and can be clicked to produce various rolls, init, attack, skills, etc... You can tag some text as being from another language and only the players that understand will see actual text instead of meaningless garbage. Since the mecanics behind the interface (like spell names linked to the srd for reference) are all in english I'm pretty sure somebody else has done this in english. I find this greatly enhances the viability of the medium.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I'm here just to say that is is perfectly possible to play a PBP D&D 3.5 game edition, I have proof right here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=298481), we have been playing since march last year and we are still going strong.

I'm not really sure if I was just lucky to get a really good DM/Group or something else, but from my experience with that game having a really active OOC thread to just talk about anything, not only the game, is the key. That way you keep players interested in the game.

[Athedia]

All you need is good players. I am in the PbP that Dusk mentioned above and another one which is approaching its second year. It may be slower, but you get so much more actual roleplay in. Not for hack and slash fans.

[Vedhin]

You seek to walk a dark path.
...
Welcome to PBP. Welcome to Hell.

I'd say that this about sums it up.
But from what I've seen, combat is definitely the biggest killer. It takes a long time in PbP, and ditching the normal Initiative rules for something different is almost required. It's also one reason I ditch the XP system for leveling when I say so-- it lets people level based more on advancing the plot, not on beating 13 1/3 encounters.

[GilesTheCleric]

If you're not dead-set on PbP, then a skype game is a viable alternative. There are many virtual tabletops available. Of course, such a game is subject to most of the same constraints (and benefits) as a face-to-face game.

[CoffeeIncluded]

I'm here just to say that is is perfectly possible to play a PBP D&D 3.5 game edition, I have proof right here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=298481), we have been playing since march last year and we are still going strong.

I'm not really sure if I was just lucky to get a really good DM/Group or something else, but from my experience with that game having a really active OOC thread to just talk about anything, not only the game, is the key. That way you keep players interested in the game.


All you need is good players. I am in the PbP that Dusk mentioned above and another one which is approaching its second year. It may be slower, but you get so much more actual roleplay in. Not for hack and slash fans.

Hi, DM of the game Athedia and Dusk Eclipse are playing in here, and also a player in the game Athedia's in that's been going on a year and a half. PbP is much more conducive for roleplaying than for hack and slash fans, and it's absolutely critical that you have a good group. But it's the DM's responsibility and the player's responsibility to maintain enthusiasm, and an active, engaged OOC thread. Allow double posting so that players can chat OOC about different subjects, anything under the sun, and get engaged with each other. Encourage players to talk IC and develop their characters and relationships. It's hard, but it is very definitely doable and oh so rewarding when it works. But you can't assume that the game will die, you can't resign yourself to it. You have to put the effort in, and so does everyone. Set rules. If someone doesn't post within 24 hours without a reason, skip their turn. If they're gone for a while, check up on them. If they drop the game, get a new player. You need to run a tight ship during PbP, more so than real life games I feel, but it is not hell at all.

[Angelalex242]

PbP...once you walk down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will!

There is a website called rpol.net. It's a good website, as PbP goes. But it is poison to any game that should be played tabletop. If your players level up even once, pat yourself on the back, for it is a great accomplishment, worthy of an epic telling. If you get through 5 rolled combats, the characters should be level 20 for doing so for the amount of effort it takes PbP.

In short, D&D, and any other game like it, White Wolf, The One Ring, GURPS, Rifts, whatever...none of it was ever designed to accommodate the slowness of PbP. Do yourself a favor, find your local gaming group, and join. Failing that, use MUSH format. At least that's real time.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Really? Because my players have gone from level 3 to level 5, and in my other game we've all gone from level 2 to very nearly level 8. Sure, it's slower, but we still got it done.