Should I try PbP again?

[Grytorm]

Hello, I've joined a few PbP games in the past. None of them have gone over the top in size and quality. The longest they have ever reached was about 10 pages excluding a Lords of Creation game where I was not very relevant. Generally I have felt inadequate in my role-playing in those games which is at least partially driven by lack of experience because I have no real life group and I have never had any real life D&D group.

In the PbP games I have played in I have only killed one game by leaving myself. I probably contributed to the death of some by not participating after only a short time. And at least a few games I stopped posting from a significant group of people entering a state of waiting for somebody else to post.

I'm wondering if I should join another game. Maybe it would click and become something really worthwhile or it might end quickly, partially from my own influence. Would it be rude of me to join another game even though it might end poorly?

[ngilop]

Yeah, give PbP another shot.

Go for one that is newbie friendly, one that advertises that its for people new to the system.


Id also suggest going to a PbP dedicated site Like RPoL (http://rpol.net/) (role play online) As its easier to game there than for example gaming on GiTP forums, after all, they are just forums and are not specifically created for PbP games.


The best peice of advice I can give you would be: Be upfront about your feelings and situations about PbPs, the gamesystem and everything else.

[CockroachTeaParty]

No. For the love of God, no. The best thing I did for myself recently was quit all play-by-posts and swear off them forever. No more worrying about them, no more wasting my free time putting energy into writing something that only a handful of people will ever see or care about, no more getting frustrated with the slow pace or DM/player shortcomings, no more, no more.

PBP is the worst way to play D&D or any RPG as far as I'm concerned. Find your local game store. Put out some ads on Craigslist or something. Do an online tabletop, like Roll20.net, anything, ANYTHING but PBP.

[Gnome Alone]

CockroachTeaParty: a) having typed out your name I feel compelled to congratulate you on it [to wit: nice] b) all of those are good suggestions but sometimes, depending on the particular variety of Middle-Of-Nowhere one lives in, PBP might be all one's got.

[Fouredged Sword]

Keep in mind that it's chess by mail. Be very zen about it. Set a schedule and keep it. Be ready for it to be about the long haul. Plan a short campaign and be ready for it to take a long time to finish.

On the other hand, I find it works well for more cerebral games that are heavily plot and light on rules. I have a vampire game running that the OOC thread is twice as long as the IC thread, because it is filled with speculation about the plot and the players figuring things out. In a IRL game, this tends to get sidetracked with actual play. In PbP, it happens seamlessly with the plot.

That isn't to say that there are not problems with PbP. It is ridiculously slow, and you need to develop a very long term thinking pattern.

[Marlowe]

There should be some sort of "How to play PbP" sticky, because a lot of people seem to play it...less than conductively.

In PbP you can't just sit there and wait for something to happen that interests you. You don't have your physical presence as a player to keep people clued in that "Yes, this person's still here and he's paying attention."

You have to post. You have to post something that gives the other players something to feed off. You have to make the other players want to keep interacting with your character. It's the player's joint responsibility to keep the game going in PbP to a much greater extent than an In-Person game.

I've seen a lot of PbP players do nothing out of combat but post interior monologues, chat to their familiars/animal companions or whatever, brood about their backstories, indulge their character's amusing personal habits. And do nothing to relate to the rest of the party or to the situation. Some won't even share information when directly asked.

That might just work over the table, because the other players are still there. It...doesn't work in PbP. You can't just clown or sulk around until combat happens. If other player are losing faith that your character is going to be anything more than a statline in combat, they're going to stop bothering with you. And if they have to do that, they're going to lose faith in the game. If the DM loses faith, then that's the end of the game.

[Person_Man]

PBP is the worst way to play D&D or any RPG as far as I'm concerned.

You are far too young to make that claim. The worst way to play role playing games is by mail. You literally hand wrote (we were kids - no one had a computer or typewriter and the internet did not exist) out what your character was going to do which was delivered by the post office to the DM, who read through the character actions and then mailed out the results to everyone.

That is the most painful way to play D&D. By thankful for your world wide web bulletin boards and your electronic mail. And get off my lawn, I guess.