Why do PbP games fail?

[Grumman]

I've been thinking about this for a while, and would like to find out what other people think about what appears to me to be the high failure rate of PbP games.

The first thing I was thinking was that since you face encounters far slower than in a real game you gain XP a lot slower, so you're stuck in the low levels (before you can start to customise your character with PrCs) a lot longer than anyone is willing to bear.

As an example, in one of the games I'm in has been running for three months, and we're only halfway to our next level. Extrapolating from this, we'd only be likely to level up twice a year, and it will take almost a decade to reach level 20. Obviously, this is about as likely as hell freezing over - it seems like I'm lucky if a PbP game lasts months, and quite simply can't see myself wanting to keep playing in this campaign when I'm in my 30s.

Thoughts?

[Math_Mage]

1. Non-realtime progress + irregular hours = slow pace.
2. Unfamiliar groups + low commitment = unreliable games.

[Aik]

Well, there's a bunch of reasons, but I think inappropriate systems is a good one. You just can't pick up most tabletop systems and try and use them in a PBP game and expect that to work well. These systems were designed with real-time communication in mind - a back-and-forth battle with dice rolls and the GM as the facilitator/bottleneck is just not efficient in this medium. Hell, it's barely efficient in real time.

(I've been talking to Samurai Jill about this recently in PM - check out this thread )

[Innis Cabal]

The main issue isn't

1. Non-realtime progress + irregular hours = slow pace.
2. Unfamiliar groups + low commitment = unreliable games

Its the systems that are used. Most games are not intended for PbP format. At all. Freeform games do just fine, in fact better then fine. Look at the Freeform section of this very forum, you'll find games that have gone on for years. Even with people dropping them.

D&D espcially is not made for a PbP game, -espically- 4th Ed which is tied so distinctly to a game board.

[PhoenixRivers]

+1. These games require constant updating, and more work on the part of all parties to accurately visualize where everything is in relation to everything else. IRL, you move a piece on the map. PBP, you update the Img file, upload it to photobucket, and provide a new link.

Also, the slower pace is frustrating for many.

[Talkkno]

Its the systems that are used. Most games are not intended for PbP format. At all. Freeform games do just fine, in fact better then fine. Look at the Freeform section of this very forum, you'll find games that have gone on for years. Even with people dropping them.

Also to add, rules light games like Maid RPG and Wushu.

[Neon Knight]

I am going to disagree with all of the posters above, except for one:

1. Non-realtime progress + irregular hours = slow pace.
2. Unfamiliar groups + low commitment = unreliable games.

This guy, I feel, has got it.

People play extremely crunchy, complicated, and involved systems like GURPS and Exalted (and nutty ones like RIFTS) online successfully, and I've seen Wushu, MAID, and freeform games all fail. Player involvement and interest is the only thing that really makes games work. Without it, even the simplest of exercises fails, and with it, the most "inappropriate" of systems may be employed successfully.

Maintaining interest, both as a play and a DM, is actually quite difficult. It isn't a flaw or a sin to lose interest and motivation; it just happens. Sometimes, a game doesn't even need to be really bad for it to happen. A perfectly competent game that is otherwise nothing special can be hard to have enthusiasm for. The thing is, you spend little chunks and pieces of time here and there on PBPing, but you don't ever really sit down and dedicate lots of time in one go to them. Face to face sessions can span multiple hours; I can sit down and play a video game, watch TV or a movie, or read a book as much as I want, but a PBP game can only be enjoyed at its pace, which can be highly variable and quite slow at times.

PBP games fail because they do; it's a risk you have to accept when you undertake one. If it works, it works, and you have fun. If it doesn't it doesn't, and you move on to something else.

[Aik]

A poor system for the medium will lead to an unnecessarily slow pace though, which you note as part of the problem. I agree that those things are a problem, but system is definitely one as well. Yes, you can do it, but it will be excruciating and missing the things that the PBP format actually does well.

I've seen plenty of freeform games fail too - but freeform brings in its own problem. Rules (assuming they're good rules) help along the game and keep it fresh and dynamic. They also control the pacing, and just like some systems can slow it to a crawl I've been in freeform games where a few players basically take over the game because they're in the same timezone and cover a huge amount of in game time where others don't get the chance to reply. A good PBP-specific system would fix that.

I agree with you in part - those things are the key problems, but system matters a lot when it comes to exacerbating or alleviating those problems.

[Neon Knight]

A poor system for the medium will lead to an unnecessarily slow pace though, which you note as part of the problem. I agree that those things are a problem, but system is definitely one as well. Yes, you can do it, but it will be excruciating and missing the things that the PBP format actually does well.

Unfortunately, this has not been my experience. I have had what you would call "good" system games move slowly while "poor" system games running at the same time moved at a swifter pace. And I've personally had more problems making posts for a freeform game I wasn't too interested in anymore while zipping along in a very crunchy game.

[Ichneumon]

I don't think it is a problem inherently lying with the systems used. True, many systems work less than moderately on a play-by-post medium, but good games can be played with whatever system you use.

The main problem with PBP-games is, in my view, that many are planned and played just like regular RL-games. Pasing is in most cases similar to a normal game. This is problematic as a regular campaign might take regular hours and hours of weekly play, a play-by-post game might take weeks to get to the point at which a regular game would be within 1 session. Combat could take weeks too and levelling is almost unheard of.

Therefore campaigns should be made shorter. Entire campaigns should be made to have a length of what would normally be 1 session.

Although I am still new to the pbp-medium as a DM, I try to make my campaigns not last longer than 2 months, max.

[Math_Mage]

I am going to disagree with all of the posters above, except for one:

You don't mind if I sig that, do you?

[Neon Knight]

Nope. Feel free.

[Tequila Sunrise]

I've tried pbp games, but I just haven't been able to maintain focus as a DM or player. It's like reading one page of a book every day, and nothing more -- I guess I just can't deal with the maddeningly slow pace.

[Kurald Galain]

The glacial pace kills it for me. You can spend weeks playing out a single action scene.

[Oslecamo]

The glacial pace kills it for me. You can spend weeks playing out a single action scene.

Indeed, it's quite easy to lose interest due to the slow pace

First you need to find a good active DM who's always there to reply to the player's actions. Many PbP games I saw die simply because the DM disapears, making the game completely stall, as the DM is the center piece of a campaign.

Then you need good active players. They don't need to be as active as the DM, but they need to be able to take iniative by themselves when it's their turn to move. Waiting for other players to act can be deadly. If nobody else speaks when there's need of making a decision, don't be afraid to take the leader position for the party.

Something that helps a LOT is making all players act in the same iniative during combat, as this way players can post their action after the monsters move whitout worrying about their own allies iniative. Players who take too long to post should be ignored for the turn, and recruiting new people as needed if too many people disapear.

[Eldan]

Interestingly, I've been on two other roleplaying fora, and the dying phenomenon only seems to happen here... I was on a german forum where we played through pretty much every Eberron adventure ever written in a year. On Myth-weavers, there are games going on pretty much forever, though not all of them.

[Tengu_temp]

There are two keys to a successful PbP game:
1. A strong, interesting concept. The game's theme must be something fun and unique, something that will attract people who'll be passionate about it. Generic Fantasy Group Goes Adventuring And Dungeoncrawling will die much faster than Teenagers With Superpowers Are Recruited By A Non-Government Organization To Fight Mysterious Aliens.
2. Activity. You need people who are willing to post often - at least once a day - and be one of those people yourself. One of my friends has the approach of "it's a PbP game, it's supposed to be slow, there is no need to hurry". All of her games died quickly. Coincidence? I think not.

[juggalotis]

personally every pbp game ive been in has failed due to one or 2 players just not posting for days at a time slowing it down or they cant post for several weeks due to holidays etcetc, other players get tired of waiting on them and just drop out.

[juggalotis]

There are two keys to a successful PbP game:
1. A strong, interesting concept. The game's theme must be something fun and unique, something that will attract people who'll be passionate about it. Generic Fantasy Group Goes Adventuring And Dungeoncrawling will die much faster than Teenagers With Superpowers Are Recruited By A Non-Government Organization To Fight Mysterious Aliens.
2. Activity. You need people who are willing to post often - at least once a day - and be one of those people yourself. One of my friends has the approach of "it's a PbP game, it's supposed to be slow, there is no need to hurry". All of her games died quickly. Coincidence? I think not.

personally id add a third in there, similar hours to play. the game moves so much faster if the players are on around the same time, instead of one post per day you can get in a bunch.

[Tengu_temp]

That certainly is an important factor too, yeah.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Things I've learned from my PBP experiences:

1.) If you're looking for a good game that will last long, avoid sandbox games, or games that seem to focus around player initiative (this often includes evil games, mystery solving games, and RP-heavy, character-driven games). Giving players control and immense freedom seems to lead to a general paralysis of indecision. A good PBP game will give players a few simple choices, and lots of exciting combat and interesting situations thrust upon them.

2.) A game will not survive if the DM is poor. Before even getting interested in a PBP game, look at a DM's recruiting thread. Is there poor spelling and grammar? Is the DM's writing style or general attitude disagreeable to you? Are they running a sandbox/RP-heavy/character-driven game? Chances are you should save yourself the trouble if any of the answers to the above questions are 'yes.'

3.) When you've been on the PBP forums a while, take notes. Note down who is active, who writes well, who has interesting ideas. Equally (if not more) important is to note who is a troublemaker, who's confrontational, who can barely write coherent English, who's playing in a million games but posting in none, etc. Add them to your own personal list of people to avoid, and you can save yourself some trouble.

4.) Avoid games that have more than five players. Anything more is beyond the ability of even the best DMs to handle, and usually reflects a DMs inability to make decisions and cut people from recruitment threads.

5.) Avoid games with massive, long, tedious, stagnant recruitment threads. If the DM running the game cannot make a decision within a decent amount of time, that tells you something. Throwing a character into competition with 20+ other submissions is likely a waste of your time.


In general, I find PBP games are at their best when the DM is throwing regular, interesting combat scenarios at the players. People fill out the character sheet for a reason: to use their spells, swords, and skills. A serious DM should take the time to make good maps, and upload them to the thread.

Also, DMs need to exercise their power better in PBP games. They need to be willing to move things along, even if that means taking temporary control of inactive characters, making tactical choices for otherwise nondescript or vague players, and knowing the rules like the back of your hand.

Always move forward. Stagnation is what kills PBP games.

[Volkov]

Things I've learned from my PBP experiences:

1.) If you're looking for a good game that will last long, avoid sandbox games, or games that seem to focus around player initiative (this often includes evil games, mystery solving games, and RP-heavy, character-driven games). Giving players control and immense freedom seems to lead to a general paralysis of indecision. A good PBP game will give players a few simple choices, and lots of exciting combat and interesting situations thrust upon them.

2.) A game will not survive if the DM is poor. Before even getting interested in a PBP game, look at a DM's recruiting thread. Is there poor spelling and grammar? Is the DM's writing style or general attitude disagreeable to you? Are they running a sandbox/RP-heavy/character-driven game? Chances are you should save yourself the trouble if any of the answers to the above questions are 'yes.'

3.) When you've been on the PBP forums a while, take notes. Note down who is active, who writes well, who has interesting ideas. Equally (if not more) important is to note who is a troublemaker, who's confrontational, who can barely write coherent English, who's playing in a million games but posting in none, etc. Add them to your own personal list of people to avoid, and you can save yourself some trouble.

4.) Avoid games that have more than five players. Anything more is beyond the ability of even the best DMs to handle, and usually reflects a DMs inability to make decisions and cut people from recruitment threads.

5.) Avoid games with massive, long, tedious, stagnant recruitment threads. If the DM running the game cannot make a decision within a decent amount of time, that tells you something. Throwing a character into competition with 20+ other submissions is likely a waste of your time.


In general, I find PBP games are at their best when the DM is throwing regular, interesting combat scenarios at the players. People fill out the character sheet for a reason: to use their spells, swords, and skills. A serious DM should take the time to make good maps, and upload them to the thread.

Also, DMs need to exercise their power better in PBP games. They need to be willing to move things along, even if that means taking temporary control of inactive characters, making tactical choices for otherwise nondescript or vague players, and knowing the rules like the back of your hand.

Always move forward. Stagnation is what kills PBP games.

I have had many, very long running RP heavy gmail chat games with a friend. Of course they were freeform....

[Xenogears]

The lack of direct interection prolly doesn't help either. Most people I know(though not all) people play DnD primarily as a way of hanging out with their friends. PbP (even with friends) just doesn't have the same feel as sitting down with your friends, chugging Mountain Dew, munching on Cheetos, and rolling dice for a few hours.

[CockroachTeaParty]

I have had many, very long running RP heavy gmail chat games with a friend. Of course they were freeform....

Bolded the keywords there. I'm not talking about chat games, IRC games, or freeform games. I'm talking about PBP D&D (3.5) with larger groups of people. You can have all sorts of great games with small groups, free-form rules, etc. etc. I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying what I think makes for survivable PBP D&D games, and what one should avoid.

[BooNL]

I've been around here for a while as well and to be honest, I don't think any of the games I've started have ever had a proper ending.

These days, I've basically given up on joining a random game with random people hoping they're any good. For a couple of months now I've been playing with a couple of regulars, who I know are active and fun to game with.

And that's the whole solution right there: commitment. I'm only in 2 PbP games now, one of them with a regular DM of mine, the other with Sliver (who I know is commited as well). I'd love to join another, and believe me I've tried, but most of the time I don't feel any spark or relation with the game or the DM, so I just drop out before the game even starts.

I agree with Ichneumon. The entire premise of the campaign should be kept fairly simple or short. The story and awesomeness of the campaign can be as complex as you want. But instead of building up to a major event, like you do IRL, you have to work in archs. Give the players something they can achieve in 2 months, if they're still there you can advance the story then.
Don't be afraid to speed up time. If the combat stalls and it looks like the players are winning already, just mop it up. No need to spend another 2 weeks rolling dice if you already know the outcome.

There has to be some bending of rules as well. Most 3.5 games I've played ended up pretty DnD Lite at some points. No AOO, no initiative, no complex things that mean 5 or 6 posts to resolve. Grease and Web may be wonderful spells, but they slow combat down to a crawl. Glitterdust et al work just as well.

[CockroachTeaParty]

There has to be some bending of rules as well. Most 3.5 games I've played ended up pretty DnD Lite at some points. No AOO, no initiative, no complex things that mean 5 or 6 posts to resolve. Grease and Web may be wonderful spells, but they slow combat down to a crawl. Glitterdust et al work just as well.

Bah, I say, bah. Only a weak or lazy DM can't handle anything you listed above in a PBP game. Sure, it means more work for the DM, but that's the DM's eternal responsibility and curse.

Consider the following: In an RL game, a spell like Web or Summon Monster might slow things down as people scurry to look up rules, stats, etc.

In PBP, you have access to all the rules you need, and can take your time looking them up, to make sure that each post is accurate. With the SRD, suddenly Summon Monster spells are just as easy to incorporate as Magic Missile or Mage Armor.

If any of the things you mentioned slow down a PBP game, they would slow them down in RL under the same DM. A strong DM knows the rules, and failing that, knows where to find the rule he/she needs quickly.

[ericgrau]

You're asking 4-5 random people you met on the internet to commit long term to a forum game involving complicated discussion. Why doesn't it fail?

[Akal Saris]

I'll chip in and say that player and DM lack of interest is the #1 killer. Winter holidays especially are killer, because nobody feels like sitting down and posting when you've got family over and travel and everything.

I started PBP games three years ago, and miraculously, the first game I joined is still active today, and the second game I joined took a 1 year break last January and we're just starting up again now (knock on wood).

When I DM'd a game myself, two players eventually quit because of the game style (and in part the system wasn't really great for PBP), and the other 2 PCs had a terrific time, but with RL commitments we all agreed to wrap the game up while we were at a high point.

As others have said, once you find a good group of people online, try to stick with them for other games, and you'll have far fewer games that fail rather than wrap up.

So far I've had one game complete as it was supposed to (joined in on the last year of a 5 year game!), and about 3 more wrap up somewhat suddenly, with the DM giving a 1 month to a 1 week warning that he was going to stop the storyline at the end of the current arc. Then...8 currently active games (3 of which have stopped and started again), and about 20 games that never got off the ground or didn't survive the 4 month mark, usually because the DM just disappears suddenly. After the 4 month mark, only 3-4 games have really failed on me.

[Starbuck_II]

Because the DM can't reward the players with snacks. Where are my skittles!?

[Tengu_temp]

2.) A game will not survive if the DM is poor. Before even getting interested in a PBP game, look at a DM's recruiting thread. Is there poor spelling and grammar? Is the DM's writing style or general attitude disagreeable to you? Are they running a sandbox/RP-heavy/character-driven game? Chances are you should save yourself the trouble if any of the answers to the above questions are 'yes.'

Disagreed with the bolded part. I'm currently participating in three long-running (from half a year to one and a half) games, and all of them are RP-heavy. Neither is sandbox, though.

4.) Avoid games that have more than five players. Anything more is beyond the ability of even the best DMs to handle, and usually reflects a DMs inability to make decisions and cut people from recruitment threads.

Disagreed again. Two out of the three games mentioned above have more than 5 players - the third one had 6 players, but one of them dropped off in the meantime. While it's true that a smaller number of players helps, player activity is much more important than the number of players.