Tips for pbp engagement?

[BobMacBobson]

I've tried my hands at pbp a few times, but fairly consistently the games end up dying. (For fairness' sake, I'll point out one time I dropped out of the game back when the gitp servers went down). Now if the game dies because the DM calls it off or stops posting, well hey, tough luck, there's always next time. I'm posting because quite often I've had games die on me where players seemed fairly engaged at first but then just sort of bled out one by one over the course of one or two weeks.

I tend to believe that twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern. I'm quite confident in my skills as a DM in person, less so when it comes to play by post games. So, to those DMs who have managed to run at least semi-succesful pbp games, what's your advice on keeping your players engaged in written format? What's a sure-fire game-killer? What's a must on either player or DM side?

[The Big Bear]

Both the DM and the players need to be committed to the game and expected post frequency should be clearly communicated. If anyone is unable to post for a few days for whatever reason it should be communicated to the rest of the group so that they know that said player will be unresponsive for some time or to wait for the player.

I had a pbp game that I DM'd that died because the players weren't committed to playing. Players would just stop checking in on the game and would stop posting until I asked them if they wanted to keep playing. These were IRL friends that all wanted to play but eventually stopped posting. I may try to DM another pbp game someday with IRL friends but will make sure they know to communicate when they will be absent for an extended time and that they know they will have to be engaged to a reasonable extent.

There was a different campaign I was involved with where I was a player. All the players and the DM seemed interested in the game for some time...then the DM simply stopped posting. One of the players messaged the DM but I do not believe they ever heard back. Not sure why the DM dropped the game. This game is still one of the reasons I haven't joined another pbp game; I don't want to get invested in a game only for the DM to go silent.

Ultimately, you cannot force people to be committed to a pbp game. You can only hope that everyone stays interested in continues posting. I tried my best to keep my friends interested in the game I DM'd but I don't think they were really into the format after they had some exposure to it.

[Batcathat]

One thing I think might help, especially if it's a group of strangers, is to have a Discord channel (I prefer text but voice is also an option) or something like that. Not only does it, in my opinion, make planning stuff a little easier than just an OOC-thread but it also makes people a little more socially invested in the game. It's one thing to disappoint a bunch of strangers and it's another thing to disappoint your friends, y'know?

I also think it might be good to aim to have more players than in a IRL game, not only in preparation for the almost inevitable drop-outs but also to keep up the posting pace.

Other than that? I don't really know. It's absolutely a common problem, that I've experienced both as a player and a GM.

[Lacco]

As someone with really bad track record, I'd like to provide my experiences:

Why Players drop at the start?
For some players the character building is where the fun is, after the game starts they just don't know what to do with them anymore.
There is also the start game paralysis - the character that seemed cool on paper is not as cool when they enter the imaginary tavern. There are too many options, not really a way to start.
Some just don't have the energy after recruiting to put in the effort to the posting. Or there is a lag between recruiting and starting as the GM tries to build the world and prepare.
In some cases this is because there are more and more games they are participating in. There is also the rush of new build & the rush of getting picked. Combine this with multiple recruitings... and while the dopamine you get from being picked is good, a drop quickly follows - the games need serious effort and the effort brings often less dopamine than the "new char new char new char".

For me, the main solution is to pick the players together with characters - it's a matter not only which character fits, but also which player. Not that I get too many players for my games - my games are pretty niche.

Slow recruiting and especially slow start is a game killer. What to do? Have the start prepared. Give the players clean direction, clean objective for the start. Start as soon as possible - even if the characters are not all finalized. Why? They can start bonding already. If things are moving, people will try to stay in more often - but don't move too fast. If you do, some players may get lost. Reading two pages of discussion which you did not participate in tends to get people miss some important facts that were stated along the way. Align the pace amongst the group.

Keep open communication. Pbp comes with a special fun package: reading in irritated/angry/emotional voice. You write down a funny sarcastic remark. *Player has left the chat*. Except the information about player leaving is not provided. Oftentimes the offense is only a perception. Not that it's not valid - but if you feel like something has been done you don't like - communicate it. Be polite, play nice, but be open and honest.

That goes also for feedback: you want to motivate people to continue the game - it's not only the GM's job - so you should communicate with the other players, motivate them. If someone gives you a pat on the back for your roleplaying, you'll do more, try more. Get to know the players, after all it's a social thing. The game can be grimdark, but the players should be full of energy and feeling good, wanting to continue.

Pose questions. Most of us here respond well to questions - after all, oftentimes we are here to either ask or answer - so ask. Don't spam, but ask questions about the characters, their decisions. If your game allows it, provide players with means for creative input - so they can choose the scenes/stories they want their character to be in.

Why do Players drop during the game?
Communication is the main offender. The GM or other players say something they do not like. They do not want to crash the game, but their enjoyment is gone. Or they say something and the thing is not handled well by the others.

Enjoyment and energy is the other. Find out what fuels the others and use it to prolong any game you enjoy and want to stay alive.

Now oftentimes you fall for advertisement and end up in completely different game than you expected. There are several possibilities how to deal with it - one is to walk away. One is to endure. One is to discuss stuff and try to make it enjoyable. Guess which one works best?

If you expected a different game - let the GM know it. PMs are a good thing to use - but OOC can work too. Depending on how good you are with giving constructive feedback. My example: I tried running a Traveller game. I expected high-detail game, where players will basically view also their ship as a "dungeon" - after all, they don't know it by heart - and will explore it, will try to mingle with the passengers, tell me how they spend the week and where we'll spend some time on the way to the jump point just doing the "exploration & mingling" part.

Next thing you know is the pilot just flat out telling me they just "go to the cockpit" and "okay, course is set, I rolled well, jump is prepared...".

And that killed the game for me. We had completely different expectations. And of course, following my own advice, I just tried to endure it and the game crashed soon after - yeah, should have gone with clean expectations and discussion.

Why GMs drop?
For the same reasons as players. Communication, energy, expectations, enjoyment.

Now, what to do? What works better (if not exactly the best)?
Pick your table (GM & players) carefully. Go for interesting players you want to game with, not only characters. Seeing someone building a character without one question or any discussions is usually a good telltale that they'll quickly drop - not always, but they are not engaging from the start. Try to engage them. And for the player - ask questions about the setting, the expectations of the GM. Don't build for yourself, build for the game.
Go short-term. Don't plan a campaign, just an episode. You can still add episodes or switch GMs between episodes.
Go in without any expectations (whatever goes on is good), or set clear expectations for the game. From both sides.
Communciate early, communicate often. Communicate openly and honestly. As a GM don't be afraid to nix ideas you see as counter-productive, but at least ask why the player wants to do that (goes for character generation and for game itself). As a player don't be afraid to give feedback, but focus on how we can continue instead of just letting emotions into way. Remember: written text has no emotion except for the one that is clearly communicated (try reading parts of this text in voice of sarcastic Eric Cartman, calm Morgan Freeman and then the robotic emotionless voice to feel the difference).
For GMs: engage your players, not only their characters. Ask questions about their characters, give quizzes for metagame currencies, ask players to describe their view of other characters from their character viewpoint, then from their player viewpoint.
Engage the characters with stuff they expect from the game. Find out what they like - if maps, provide them. If jokes - provide them. If you can not, delegate. Ask your player to draw a map, but be ready that it will differ from what you have in your head. Accept it and move on, or discuss it.
Don't make them lose due to miscommunication - feel free to retcon or make a deal, but if their characters perceive the situation differently, it's up to you to straighten the perception - after all, you are the characters' eyes, ears, ... they make decisions, but the information they get from you should be exactly what the character perceives. You represent their whole nervous system, but they are the brain which sorts out info and makes decisions. It goes both ways - you should be able to say they feel cold, that they have goosebumps, or that they feel pain - they can do anything with the information (shiver, turn around to check surroundings, or grit teeth to soldier on), but it should be based on what they perceive.
Don't bite off too much. Make small episodes, work on the following episode. Keep notes (keep them safe, I've lost my campaign notes during one of my games and it cost me a game as I was not able to reproduce anything from memory as fast as I needed). If you are stressed, talk to the players. Keep them informed. After all, it's a social thing.
Have a way to reach players outside game - Discord has been mentioned.
Set post frequency that is acceptable. I know, few posts a day are best, but if it's not sustainable, keep your pace. Just inform everybody.
Be nice and polite to each other.

...oh, and formatting. So it reads well. Don't forget about that :smallbiggrin:

[Batcathat]

As someone with really bad track record, I'd like to provide my experiences:

Good summation. A lot of it matches my own experiences and some of it is stuff I haven't thought about but seems reasonable.

[DataNinja]

One thing I think might help, especially if it's a group of strangers, is to have a Discord channel (I prefer text but voice is also an option) or something like that. Not only does it, in my opinion, make planning stuff a little easier than just an OOC-thread but it also makes people a little more socially invested in the game. It's one thing to disappoint a bunch of strangers and it's another thing to disappoint your friends, y'know?

This is absolutely my experience. I was in a PbP community a few years back, and I saw a drastic reduction in the amount of immediately-dead games once we normalized Skype chats. Many of the people that I met are still my friends. Whereas before that sort of stuff, we were just... text names occasionally posting.

It really does mean a lot to just be able to... chat more casually. Especially since it's not fully public, so you can get to know more private details over time.

[TaiLiu]

Oh, wow, here's a thread where my narrow experiences might be helpful! I agree with what everyone's written already. Some of the specifics of my experiences running PBP games might come in handy.

I ran a D&D 3.5e PBP game, Lightning Rails and Whispers of the Vampire's Blade, for a year and three months—from May 2017 to August 2018. It concluded successfully. It is the only PBP game that I've ran or played in that actually ended instead of fizzling out, and I think that was the case for my players, too. It was a lot of fun. I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot.

I learned that a steady posting tempo is key. I had a very involved player leave after I took a two-week break for unrelated reasons. They just ghosted. I'm guessing that they fell out of the groove and didn't want to get back on it again. So that really is important.

I learned that PBP game are slow, and therefore have to be small. What I ran was a one- or two-shot game, but it took over a year of PBP play. Maybe with really dedicated players and a really dedicated GM, you could run a massive epic adventure. But I think the strength of PBP games lies in the small details that you and your players can savor. Unlike playing in real-time, you can re-read, edit, think.

I learned that variety is important, in a way that isn't true with real-time games. You can spend a fortnight on a small fight. You can spend a month trapped on the Moon Palace. I think it's important to change the scenery at a pace that would be ridiculous if compressed into a four or five hour real-time session. The fact is that the actual pace of posting rate does affect how it feels in-game. I've never run a PBP dungeon-crawl before, but I can't help but think that those games die out at higher rates than games that involve traveling to diverse places.

I learned that you should love writing and reading, because that's what PBP games are—a massive collaborative writing exercise, with dice and system as structure. This is really basic, but I think it's a different psychic desire than real-time games. Humans love storytelling, but the ways you tell and "listen" to a story in PBP games are really specific. If you and your players don't have that desire, it's hard to sustain a game.

I learned that it's a marathon. Real-time games can sustain interest more easily because it's a relatively compact amount of time. The highs and lows are compressed together. In PBP games, they're stretched out. You can spend a couple of hours a post, and that post advances relatively little, in contrast to what a couple of hours of real-time gameplay might represent. So you and your players also have to be the kind of people propelled by more than quick gratification. I genuinely felt exhausted after ending the game. Having to remind people to post, posting at a regular rate, keeping the mechanics straight for extended periods of time... Weaving a game together is satisfying, but it's somewhat retrospective. It's not the same pleasure from real-time games.

I hope at least some of this is helpful! Good luck with all your games, PBP or otherwise!

[TridentOfMirth]

In general, it all comes down to engagement. The DM and the players all need to be engaged into the campaign and posting regularly. Intermittent posting quickly leads to the death spiral of campaigns. One of the best ways to avoid this is to find people who you like, people whom you want to play with.

one thing that I have found works pretty well with PbP campaigns is to shoot for shorter adventures/stories, that can be reasonably resolved in a few weeks or months. This will give the players a sense of accomplishment and help keep them involved in the campaign.

[Bugbear]

Lots to unpack.

It needs to be understood that a PBP game is very different then a real life game. It's going to be slow. And it really, really, really needs an active and firm GM.

1.The GM must make and stick to hard firm posting rules This makes or breaks a PbP right here. You can have a game where each person makes a post every week or two that maybe works out. Or you can have harsh rules. It should not be too much to ask that each person in the game post at least once a day. Unless a meteor hits your house you should be able to log in an post at least once every 24 hours.

Having a simple "GM takes control of your character" or "other chosen player" is a game changer. If KoolPlayerDude68 does not log in for 30 hours, someone else takes control of that players character an acts.

Same way if KoolPlayerDude68 ghosts three times in a row with a reason like "oh I was playing Fortnite", then they should just be kicked out of the game.

Post length rules The GM really must require players to not only log in, but to make a post of at least a paragraph AND take some action in the game. Too many players will log in and post "my character says cool" and then ghost for days. a one paragraph post is not too much to ask.

Action order rules The GM needs them. A quick and easy action order, so everyone knows the order and when they can act.

Everyone must over describe things This puts a lot of work on the GM...as always. The GM must make a supreme effort to describe everything in lots and lots and lots of detail. The GM should try to describe things so players have no....or very few questions.

And even better the GM should ask each player what typical question they will "always" want answered.....and then the GM can pre answer them in the set up description. A good example here is Player Bob always wanted the 'back door', if there was one, described. So as GM I just added this to my area description.

This also goes for the players, as everyone must describe what they are doing in detail. Lots of detail.

Everyone must use TV Speak So TV shows and movies have very short times...and if you have payed attention, you will often see characters speak oddly. The obvious example is seen all the time when a character just randomly explains something. You know....to the viewers at home. This also counts for things like simply saying a characters name and job and family or whatever.

As much spoken information as possible mush be in every speech box.

Repetition Again, more of a burden on the GM...but for everyone too. Things need to be repeated...nearly every post. Copy and paste is a thing so this is not a big deal.

[Batcathat]

1.The GM must make and stick to hard firm posting rules This makes or breaks a PbP right here. You can have a game where each person makes a post every week or two that maybe works out. Or you can have harsh rules. It should not be too much to ask that each person in the game post at least once a day. Unless a meteor hits your house you should be able to log in an post at least once every 24 hours.

Admittedly, I have never played a PBP game with rules that strict but I feel like it might create a "all or nothing" situation where a lot of players might just leave (or get kicked out) from stressing over posting.

I suppose it could be argued that losing the players who can't keep up is a good thing, but I'm not sure enough players would remain in most groups. Not saying it's impossible, of course, just that it would probably require the right type of players.

[Lacco]

Additional suggestion for the GMs: Delegate, delegate, delegate.

You don't have to double-check everything, assign a person responsible if necessary - a quartermaster to check if all the inventories line up/keep the list of resources and supplies, a spymaster to keep all the important information...

Give out roles, most people will take them. Don't overwork yourself.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

As the DM, do NOT wait for the entire group to weigh in on a decision or answer a question especially if said decision is fairly trivial. If you ask the group ‘right or left?’ and Players 1 and 2 both say ‘left!’ with no response from Players 3-5, you go left. For more important decisions (EX: ‘is everyone ready to spring the trap on the BBEG?’) give a deadline (‘let me know any other preparations you make by Friday, otherwise we’re moving on’).

(Side note: DO let people know if you’re going to be away from the game for more than a few days. This goes for players as well as the DM.)

Do minor things in parallel; if Player 1 wants to shop for new equipment and later in the day have a romantic dinner - these two things are unlikely to interfere with each other, do both at once.

As the DM if a player freezes up in combat (I’ve seen this happen if they think they’re outmatched), poke them OoC, then give it about a week, then if they still haven’t done anything give the bad guys a free round. Either they’ll realize they’re screwed if they don’t act and try to do SOMETHING, or the bad guys will kill them and then you don’t have to write them out. :smalltongue: And actually this works in most situations where the game is held up by a player not posting: tell them when the deadline is, and if they don’t post by the deadline proceed without them. Above all, DON’T let one player dropping kill the game for everyone else.

Split loot among the people who participated. Don’t reward people for not showing up; they might have already dropped the game (in which case they won’t care) and if not then they have incentive to participate next time.

And DO let the group (not just the DM) know if you yourself are dropping the game for any reason. That way the remaining players know not to try engaging with your character when they effectively don’t exist anymore.


It should not be too much to ask that each person in the game post at least once a day. Unless a meteor hits your house you should be able to log in an post at least once every 24 hours.

I’m going to disagree here; people have jobs, family emergencies, loss of internet, homework and any number of other real life commitments. I’ve had lots of players unavailable during exam week who where otherwise good posters.

(Side note: don’t start games during exam week or major holidays when people are likely to be visiting family.)

I would aim for everyone posting at least two days a week, with the caveat that the DM should be available more than that at the very beginning of the game (to help the players get invested, meet each other) and during high action or major plot developments. DO poke players over PM if you don’t hear from them for a few days.


Having a simple "GM takes control of your character" or "other chosen player" is a game changer. If KoolPlayerDude68 does not log in for 30 hours, someone else takes control of that players character an acts.

This I have done (albeit on a more forgiving timeframe); I usually limit it to having the AFK character following the party around unless there is combat (I feel it’s generally unfair to let the players who actually show up get ground into paste just because someone else didn’t) and then write the auto’d party out once it’s convenient.

[Bugbear]

I’m going to disagree here; people have jobs, family emergencies, loss of internet, homework and any number of other real life commitments.

My point is more everyone must agree on a set game pace. If you want a once a week slow game that is just fine. Though such slow games often fail simply as people don't log in and post as the time is so long.

Most games will need a post at least every couple of days to stay active. Logging in to see "last post 2/3/21" does not move the game along.

And people should be willing to commit....even if things happen...to logging in for the whole five minutes it would take. No matter how busy and wild your life is, if you can't find five minutes to post, you really should not join a PBP.