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View Full Version : Roleplaying The advantages of Play by Post



Teapot Salty
2014-07-06, 05:22 PM
Hey guys. So, it's generally agreed that playing tabletop games on tabletop is considered the best way to play. But, have you considered the advantages of playing by the post. The biggest one I can think of is how you can flesh out your characters way better. Thinking about what they would say. It seems I make a lot more roleplaying discisions while play by posting. What are advantages that you guys can come up with?

Tengu_temp
2014-07-06, 06:29 PM
Different pacing. Instead of a single several-hour session once every week, you play a PbP game all the time, slowly and steadily. This is a good thing for some and bad for others.

Since you have time to think about every post, you can make sure they're polished, thought-out and flavorful. And in combat, you have more time to think what to do next.

PbP games limit you the least when it comes to who you can play with. With normal tabletop games, you're limited to people from the local area, and scheduling a real time online game can be a pain if people live in different timezones. With PbP, there's no such problems.

Anxe
2014-07-06, 11:10 PM
PbP is also way easier to have secret conversations between players and the DM. Just a PM away. At the tabletop its always obvious that a secret conversation is taking place.

jaydubs
2014-07-06, 11:41 PM
High book-keeping classes work better in PbP. Or if you have a lot, lot of actions.

Some of theoretical animal menagerie stuff, for instance, would work much better in PbP. But if you try to do it in real time, turns would drag on and on.

You could similarly run games where each player had 3-4 characters. Or fully fleshed out followers. Impossible grinds in real time.

You could also RP stuff that requires specialized knowledge that you don't have IRL. For instance, play a scientist of some sort, and actually be able to look up and post concepts you are unfamiliar with with some accuracy.

Fiery Diamond
2014-07-07, 12:35 AM
If you're the type to want to keep a record of what's happened, in PBP you already have it, no making notes and going back and summarizing after the session necessary. It's also possible to have good prose in PBP, something that is likely to grate on people's nerves in an in-person or realtime game - not only can a GM have elaborate, lengthy descriptions without coming across as purple or boring, but players can try their hand at it as well.

ElenionAncalima
2014-07-07, 08:26 AM
I haven't participated in a Play by Post, but as an outsider looking in, I would say the biggest advantage is character development.

It seems like you can add a lot of nuances to a character that would be difficult, if not tedious, to describe in a live game. I think it also allows people who have strong character concepts, but might be shy or awkward in person, to roleplay a character the way they want.

Eldan
2014-07-07, 08:32 AM
Instead of acting out your character, you write them out like a novel. That meas that you can give them an internal voice. Thoughts, even. That's not really possible at a table. Saying "My character thinks that this is really stupid" just doesn't flow as well as "Malgar just ever so slightly rolled his eyes. This is stupid. This is so stupid, he thought. But he had to go along with this."

Jeff the Green
2014-07-07, 08:56 AM
It's much more suitable for sandbox games where characters might spend weeks (in-game) working on their own sub-plots and schemes and only join up for certain events. (If you want to see how this works out, see the Ravens Bluff game in my sig. I think it's the longest-running PbP I've even heard of.)

It's also considerably more forgiving of first-time DMs who aren't used to the organizational challenges, aren't as good at improvising, or aren't as familiar with all the rules. It made it so I could allow all sources in my Ravenloft game even though I wasn't familiar with all of them in depth.

Finally, there's the fact that it's much easier to find players and DMs with tastes and assumptions similar to yours. In part because there's more variety since you're not restricted by geography, but also because people tend to gravitate towards communities that already conform to their preferences.

CarpeGuitarrem
2014-07-07, 10:07 AM
Yeah, I don't have much new to add, just to highlight that advantage of being able to polish posts. You lose the immediacy of F2F gaming, but you also gain the ability to infuse a lot more nuance and detail into your gaming.

weckar
2014-07-07, 11:13 AM
Although all of the above is true, I personally can't take the generally low pace and lack of real human contact.

Terraoblivion
2014-07-07, 11:18 AM
Hey guys. So, it's generally agreed that playing tabletop games on tabletop is considered the best way to play.

It is? Of the three ways I've tried playing I'd consider it the worst. The limitations of physical presence and tools and hearing everything in the voice of real people are really bad, along with the lack of time to polish things that even real-time online games have, makes the actual roleplaying kind of awful in my experience.

Fiery Diamond
2014-07-07, 12:47 PM
It is? Of the three ways I've tried playing I'd consider it the worst. The limitations of physical presence and tools and hearing everything in the voice of real people are really bad, along with the lack of time to polish things that even real-time online games have, makes the actual roleplaying kind of awful in my experience.

1) Physical presence is the opposite of a limitation, it is a positive thing.
2) Hearing real voices is also the opposite of "really bad," hearing actual voices is infinitely better than reading text.
3) Real-time is real-time, you don't get extra time just because it is online unless you have a different definition of real-time than I do.
4) Living in the moment is the heart of what makes roleplaying something other than freeform good, so limitations on time is not going to "make the actual roleplaying kind of awful."

Face-to-face interaction is infinitely better than text interaction, and real-time interaction is infinitely better than time-delayed interaction in fluid conversation and interactivity; this is true of all things, not just roleplaying.

Necroticplague
2014-07-07, 01:40 PM
1) Physical presence is the opposite of a limitation, it is a positive thing. Um, limitation and positive thing aren't opposites, limitation and permission are. Anyways, physical prescence greatly limites what and who can be there. Half my characters would probably be unplayable in person, due to carrying the resources required to play them would be prohibitively difficult. And obviously, it liits you to people within a resonable distance.

2) Hearing real voices is also the opposite of "really bad," hearing actual voices is infinitely better than reading text. I dunno, hearing the players voice can make it kinda hard to take them as a character. It can be a bit odd to think of a character as a tough barbarian when you hear all his actions in the high-pitched, nasally voice of someone who can't run a mile. With text, the description itself provides the voice.

3) Real-time is real-time, you don't get extra time just because it is online unless you have a different definition of real-time than I do.
Thats the point. PbP does give that extra time, which the other two methods (face-to-face and real-time online, such as roll20 or skype) lack.

4) Living in the moment is the heart of what makes roleplaying something other than freeform good, so limitations on time is not going to "make the actual roleplaying kind of awful."
Except not everyone is spontaneous, or easily thinks like their character. If you force me to have to suddenly think of the response of a 1.5 tall salamander-death-god, I'm mgonna have a hard time without thinking for a little bit. In real time, this means My dialogue would come across as stilted and not really in character, while a slow pbp lets me more thoroughly think about how they react, and make characterization more consistent.


Face-to-face interaction is infinitely better than text interaction, and real-time interaction is infinitely better than time-delayed interaction in fluid conversation and interactivity; this is true of all things, not just roleplaying.
Like with so many other things, this depends on the people that you're with and where their skills lie. After all, for anything where records would be wanted, text is better, because it acts as the record itself. Or how this conversation can be kept civil because we are both remote and having time to think about our responses, instead of how real-time, in person arguments typically end up.

That's not to say PbP is perfect, but it does have its benefits compared to meeting in person.

Terraoblivion
2014-07-07, 02:04 PM
Even real-time online, if it's a textbased format like irc or aim, allows you to edit what you're writing before hitting enter. Not just that, structuring things in text tends to improve clarity a lot over people talking, stumbling through their words, correcting themselves half-way through the sentence. Similarly, OOC banter can be cordoned off where it doesn't disturb things. And yet it's also fast enough that you have to be pretty focused and spontaneous and can't sit around polishing for hours on end and develop performance anxiety over whether the post is perfect the way pbp can lead to.

Similarly, I've found that people tend to be more self-conscious about their roleplay when you're actually there listening to them and watching them act things out, making them less daring and confident. The more limited information that can be conveyed and the clear layer of the player being clearly visible between you and the fiction. Fumbling around for lost dice or people causing disturbances by going to the toilet creates distance as well. Also, being Danish I have the added nails-on-blackboard experience of hearing five different people have five different pronunciations and ways of applying grammar to setting and system terms that are in English. The net result in my experience, based around multiple different groups including people who have RP'ing as their primary hobby is that you end up with flat characters, half-assed descriptions and plot progression and lots of pauses to work out just what was actually said and what it means. I've just never seen decent characterization, including from myself, from classic tabletop RP'ing, nor vivid descriptions or, for that matter, tactical clarity.

I'd just prefer getting my socializing doing something that isn't impeded like that and keeping roleplaying to a format where people actually gets in character and things actually seem to have weight and things don't get interrupted by people calling out to pass the tea or to say they're going to the toilet or whatever. However, I'll readily admit that I'm very sensitive to being around other people and I'm easily distracted by people talking to me and similar, so the added pressure that makes it harder for me might not be there for other, more extroverted people.

Also, I have to ask...You do realize that you just said that lectures are a better format for conveying dense, technical information than books, right? And that explaining complex directions of where to go is better than drawing a map. Or, for that matter, that town criers are a better way of informing the public of news than newspapers. There are a lot of things that text is better for and I'd personally very easily rank roleplaying there.

Tengu_temp
2014-07-07, 02:24 PM
True fact: every time someone says that one of the three most common styles (real-time tabletop, PbP, real-time online) is objectively the best one, they are either lying or delusional. It is a matter of preference and, often, availability.

Zanos
2014-07-07, 02:31 PM
True fact: every time someone says that one of the three most common styles (real-time tabletop, PbP, real-time online) is objectively the best one, they are either lying or delusional. It is a matter of preference and, often, availability.
The only real way to roleplay is via direct neural connections mediated by an advanced holoprojecter that creates partially real visuals of your combined hivemind in realtime.

I find the pacing of PbP and Chat games to be frustrating. When people aren't all in the same room they tend to get up and leave or otherwise multitask in ways that they aren't entirely focused on the game, making people wait for them. Text mediums are frequently better for roleplaying, but they make resolving combat an absolute nightmare. It's not uncommon to spend weeks in a PpB game in one combat, and in my Roll20 text game we just recently spent two 5+ hour sessions resolving an 8 or so round combat.

Text games are great if you're a DM or heavy roleplayer though. You're never really caught pants down without a reaction to something that's going on. I don't agree that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages, but the advantages do exist.

tensai_oni
2014-07-07, 02:36 PM
I like sending letters (paper, not email) personally.

Tengu_temp
2014-07-07, 02:37 PM
The key to keeping a good pace in a PbP game is the same as the key to having a good group in general: don't play with random people you barely know. Play with friends, or friends' friends, or other people you trust.

Jeff the Green
2014-07-07, 02:44 PM
I like sending letters (paper, not email) personally.

:smallconfused: People actually do that? I thought snail mail died in like 2000.

Terraoblivion
2014-07-07, 02:44 PM
:smallconfused: People actually do that? I thought snail mail died in like 2000.

I'm pretty sure it was a joke. I know there was no smiley, but still.

Jeff the Green
2014-07-07, 02:52 PM
I'm pretty sure it was a joke. I know there was no smiley, but still.

As was mine. I probably should have blue-texted it, but I'm pretty sure most people hadn't actually switched over to email by 2000.

Terraoblivion
2014-07-07, 03:00 PM
As was mine. I probably should have blue-texted it, but I'm pretty sure most people hadn't actually switched over to email by 2000.

I'm 28 years old and I've never even seen a letter that wasn't official paperwork, handed out in person, Hallmark card or really old and kept by old people for sentimental reasons. So in Denmark at least, people really did switch over to e-mail that early. Or just never sent letters.

Vitruviansquid
2014-07-07, 03:01 PM
I really think the only reason Play-by-Post is often seen as an inferior method of gaming is because there aren't any RPG's designed and optimized for play-by-post.

valadil
2014-07-07, 03:03 PM
It's asynchronous. I no longer have the ability to devote a 4 hour chunk of evening to gaming. I do however have the ability to check a forum and write posts several times a day when I happen to find myself with a spare moment or two. That said, I haven't done any PbP - I spend too much time on the internet already.

tensai_oni
2014-07-07, 03:11 PM
I received a physical letter just yesterday so yes, people still send those.


I'm pretty sure it was a joke. I know there was no smiley, but still.

It was a half joke in that I am familiar with some play by mail (physical is their intention, though they work good for emails too I suppose) RPGs and they are quite fascinating for me, though I never got to actually play any of them.

Jeff the Green
2014-07-07, 04:37 PM
I'm 28 years old and I've never even seen a letter that wasn't official paperwork, handed out in person, Hallmark card or really old and kept by old people for sentimental reasons. So in Denmark at least, people really did switch over to e-mail that early. Or just never sent letters.

I'm 26 and roughly in the same boat (though I did have a nominal penpal as a 1st grade project). But I know a pretty large number of people of my parents' or grandparents' generation who didn't even have email by 2000. I remember being distinctly frustrated that I couldn't send 'thank you' notes by email; my penmanship and writing speed both took a nosedive in 3rd grade when I could submit assignments typed.

Angelalex242
2014-07-07, 09:08 PM
Play By Post also makes romance feasible, where it otherwise is not. Granted, Realtime online also makes romance possible, but romance is generally limited to online play only. It's a whole lot easier to declare your undying love in text then to say it out loud to people you know personally and game with and can tease you about it for months to come.

Fiery Diamond
2014-07-09, 04:56 PM
Even real-time online, if it's a textbased format like irc or aim, allows you to edit what you're writing before hitting enter. Not just that, structuring things in text tends to improve clarity a lot over people talking, stumbling through their words, correcting themselves half-way through the sentence. Similarly, OOC banter can be cordoned off where it doesn't disturb things. And yet it's also fast enough that you have to be pretty focused and spontaneous and can't sit around polishing for hours on end and develop performance anxiety over whether the post is perfect the way pbp can lead to.

Similarly, I've found that people tend to be more self-conscious about their roleplay when you're actually there listening to them and watching them act things out, making them less daring and confident. The more limited information that can be conveyed and the clear layer of the player being clearly visible between you and the fiction. Fumbling around for lost dice or people causing disturbances by going to the toilet creates distance as well. Also, being Danish I have the added nails-on-blackboard experience of hearing five different people have five different pronunciations and ways of applying grammar to setting and system terms that are in English. The net result in my experience, based around multiple different groups including people who have RP'ing as their primary hobby is that you end up with flat characters, half-assed descriptions and plot progression and lots of pauses to work out just what was actually said and what it means. I've just never seen decent characterization, including from myself, from classic tabletop RP'ing, nor vivid descriptions or, for that matter, tactical clarity.

I'd just prefer getting my socializing doing something that isn't impeded like that and keeping roleplaying to a format where people actually gets in character and things actually seem to have weight and things don't get interrupted by people calling out to pass the tea or to say they're going to the toilet or whatever. However, I'll readily admit that I'm very sensitive to being around other people and I'm easily distracted by people talking to me and similar, so the added pressure that makes it harder for me might not be there for other, more extroverted people.

Also, I have to ask...You do realize that you just said that lectures are a better format for conveying dense, technical information than books, right? And that explaining complex directions of where to go is better than drawing a map. Or, for that matter, that town criers are a better way of informing the public of news than newspapers. There are a lot of things that text is better for and I'd personally very easily rank roleplaying there.

Hm. Good refutations. I concede. Your experience is completely contrary to mine. I've never experienced many of the things you have and see some of those I have as positives rather than negatives. What I said is still true of my experience, but I must concede that it is apparently not true for at least some others. For me, socializing isn't socializing unless you're face to face with the person/people you're socializing with. I don't consider this conversation to be socializing, for example. Heck, I don't even like using the telephone. (Skype and other video-chat is better for long-distance socialization).

Regarding the last paragraph: mere conveyance of information is not what I mean by interaction. Interaction implies back and forth, to me. Yes, in conveying information from one person to another, with no actual interaction involved, a (semi)permanent medium is definitely more useful in many cases. That's because you aren't going to remember all of it all at once, permanently. I'd still rather have a lecture than a book for conveying less dense information, however, and rather have a series of directions listed out (albeit either on paper, or said to me in realtime as I was traveling, like from a GPS) than a roadmap. And the primary limitation (besides impermanence) of town criers is that not everyone is going to be able to hear whatever relevant bit of public news that they might want to hear (either because they aren't present when the crier is, or because the crier has so many things to say that the important stuff gets lost in the middle, or because the crier doesn't have enough time to say everything of importance).

Tengu_temp
2014-07-09, 07:14 PM
Some of us are readers, not listeners. Even by reading a book just once I learn more than by listening to a lecture, when it just enters through one ear and leaves through the other. And I prefer to have subtitles in my video games and movies even when I can perfectly understand what is being said, for the same reason.

As for socializing - the best friendships I formed are online. I've seen love bloom online. You certainly don't need face to face contact to have meaningful interaction.

Eonas
2014-07-09, 09:27 PM
I agree with most of what's been said - intense roleplaying, character development and tactical thinking is possible in PbP, and characters with a lot of minions or attacks or whatever don't slow the game down any more than it already is.

I'd also like to add that as a (admittedly fairly mild) stutterer, I find text-based roleplaying extremely liberating. I can express myself clearly, which is huge.

On the other hand, PbP roleplaying takes forever to get anything significant done, and has a high dropout rate. Oh well.

Jeff the Green
2014-07-09, 09:52 PM
I'd also like to add that as a (admittedly fairly mild) stutterer, I find text-based roleplaying extremely liberating. I can express myself clearly, which is huge.

This. I'm not a stutterer (well, I do on occasion when I'm flustered, but only slightly more than the norm), but I have really bad social anxiety. When there's wires between me and someone I don't get the anxiety and I can focus on role playing and not worrying about my breathing and heart rate. Without PbP I'd have to dragoon my few friends into playing with me, and for the most part they're not that kind of nerd. (Though I apparently will be DMing/teaching in real life for my brothers and cousins in the next couple weeks.)

ChaosArchon
2014-07-10, 04:30 AM
It's also considerably more forgiving of first-time DMs who aren't used to the organizational challenges, aren't as good at improvising, or aren't as familiar with all the rules. It made it so I could allow all sources in my Ravenloft game even though I wasn't familiar with all of them in depth.

As a new GM/DM myself whose only experience has been doing so through PbP I cannot agree with this statement more than possible. PbP is a great way for people who want to try their hand at DMing to do so.