How to run a pvp

[TechnoScrabble]

I'm thinking about making a big team battle PVP game, but I'm wondering how I can do this and allow things such as sneaking without relying on easily by passable spoilers and annoying back and forth messages?

[Baconated]

So, your PC group would be in a big FFA against each other?

[TechnoScrabble]

There would be some teams.

[blackjack217]

using pbp and pms is one option.

[TechnoScrabble]

using pbp and pms is one option.

Play by post is what I'm doing (how else would I use spoilers?) and I dunno what pms is in relations to a PBP game. And like I said, I want to avoid use of spoilers and messages.

[Doc Roc]

So, the test of spite is a useful resource here. We found that a live chat was virtually essential to getting PvP to run at a reasonable speed. Scheduling is tremendously helpful, and you should talk to your players.

PvP is hard and timestaking, and you should definitely be very careful allowing it in PbP.

[Arceius]

OK, I have done this before and it's somewhat involved. It will take a LOT, and I mean a LOT, of work on your part. There are several things you need first.

1. You must share an instant messenger with every party member. AIM, Yahoo, MSN whatever. The point is to have a quick, easy private line of communication.

2. Decide what sort of PvP your talking about. Large scale PC brawl or clandestine behind back sneaking.

3. Make sure your party knows, exactly, what is going down. No one likes getting stabbed in the back when they though they were playing a team game.

4. Put on you Evil GM face. Screwing over players in PvP games is the most satisfying thing because they always assume it was in some way related to the other people and can really get things under way.

Now that you have all of that, you have two very well defined Arenas of interest. The public and the Private ones. In the Public field should go everything that the entire party can see. So if Player 1 fails his sneak check to get away then you can post him sneaking off in the main forum. If not, then it never gets mentioned until someone specifically looks for him. Etc, Etc and just run a normal campaign with sneaky backstabiness.

Really, I find this works best in a chat type setting rather than Play by Post. Because there is so much going on (all of the players are almost always acting independently) it can be a nightmare to keep it all correct in the main forum. However in a chat setting, everything always moves at the same pace. (Even better, is when you get to do this in person. Everyone has a laptop and their Messengers open and whenever someone starts typing all the head turn and look. O_O "Whatcha doing over there?")

I very much agree with Doc Roc though. Live chat is the way to go.