Advice for Play-by-post Roleplaying

[TheUdjat]

Over the years, I’ve slowly learned and developed my personal preferences for play-by-post gaming. It’s not as intuitive as it seems—slowing a game down from a few nights spent around to table to a few months (or a whole lot more) online can be vastly different. Changes to play/DMing style must be made to smooth things along. There are other complications.

It’s taken me a long time to figure out what I have, basically via trial and error, and I’m sure that I haven’t learned all that there is to smooth and easy play-by-post gaming. Nobody ever sat me down and said “okay, this is how to make things easier in play-by-post” or “this is what your DM would like you to do” or anything like that. Then again, I never asked. I was a roleplayer and a writer. I figured I could handle it.

I probably could’ve saved myself a lot of hassle…

In any event, I thought it’d be a good idea to start a thread of tips and advice for new players, or even experienced players that are curious to see what other people have picked up over the years. I encourage all players and (especially) DMs to drop in here and throw down some of their own observations and acquired wisdom. Maybe we can all help each other out a bit. Even if there’s some disagreement in perspectives, at least we’ll know where each other are coming from.

As I’m getting the ball rolling here, I’ll take my turn first. For sake of ease, I’ve divided my tips/advice into categories:

“Basics of Play-by-post” – Kind of a general overview of the differences with play-by-post vs tabletop, meant mostly as an introduction to new players. But the terms will be referenced in later sections

“What your DM wants you to know” – Things I’ve picked up from my time running games that I really, really like to see players doing, or feel they should come to the game well aware of. Also just my general philosophy/approach to online games

“What your Players want you to know” – Things that make games fun for me, or that I’ve particularly enjoyed/not enjoyed about a game.

And a disclaimer, before I get into the thick of this. All of this is purely based on my personal opinions and observations, and should in no way be interpreted as my attempt to lay down the law of How to Play-by-Post. That’s not what this is. It’s just a collection of potentially useful tips and observations, and in some cases a little bit of blunt honesty about what works for me personally—and what doesn’t. Please don’t take offense. Nothing is meant to be offensive, merely illustrative.

Also, I'm probably guilty of most of these errors at some time or another, so please don't think of me as hypocritical. Rather, I think making a lot of these mistakes has helped me to learn not to do them, though in some cases, I am sure I still slip up and do them as well. None of us are perfect.

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Basics of Play-by-Post

A lot of this kind of goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway. Sometimes even the obvious needs to be pointed out.

• Play-by-post is slow. It really, really is. A typical campaign takes somewhere from 1 to three years. The time goes surprisingly fast when one is doing their regular day-to-day routine and just drops into the forums regularly, and it can build some awesome stories, but it’s ultimately a very slow medium for roleplaying. This is at the root of most of the style-changes, because…
  
  
• Time kills games. That is to say, the longer something lasts around the forums, the more likely it is to collapse and fail. But more than that, the more time that passes from one post to the next, from one player to the next, increases the odds of nothing happening. There’s a losing battle at war here with the attention spans of anywhere from 4 to 13 people, depending on the size of the game. It will really, truly only last as long as people remain interested in it, and people lose interest when there’s less activity. The thing to take away from this is…
  
  
• Do what you can to move things along. I’ll go into further detail on down the line, but this is the core principle to take away from here. Games are slow. Time kills games. So try to keep it moving, or it will probably die. There have been over 50 games run on KMan’s throughout the years, but you can probably count successful campaigns on two hands (by successful I mean having reached its natural conclusion through steady roleplaying). Maybe one hand. Point being that though you can have a lot of fun in a campaign that doesn’t technically finish, I personally like to reach the end—and to do that, you have to be aware that time is not on your side. Which brings me to the paradoxical advantage of play-by-post:
  
  
• You have time. It’s all about scale. PbP’s biggest weakness is also its biggest advantage. You can take oodles and oodles of time to think about what your character will do next, to fine-tune their dialogue, think about their actions, consequences of those actions, etc. Posting regularly is very important to keeping up the pace of a game (see above), but in the same spirit, taking your time to think about posts before rattling them off is just as important to ensuring a successful game. Hasty posts neglect to provide valuable information, or sometimes you forget something you wanted to do a couple of posts ago. Take your time. Think about it. Just don’t think about it for, like, days, or you run into trouble from the above.
  
  
• You’re gonna forget. Even if you think carefully over each post and are in only a single game (or just running one), you’re going to forget things. With weeks or months between game events, this shouldn’t be surprising. We all have other things going on. My advice: notes. Notes on your character thread, in the gaming thread, or in an out-of-game post. Anything you can do to make the information available to yourself. For my own games, I use a lot of Microsoft Word notes, everything from the plot of a game I’m running to a character’s projected level progression, reminding me just how I planned to level when I started out. But these note are only as good their updater, and I’ve seen many such lists and references in the community fall away in disuse. So, again—timeliness.
  
  
• Be realistic with yourself. Consider this a final point on the basics. Play-by-post has its strengths and weaknesses (generally Time and Time). It can be easy to rush into a slew of games with eagerness when you first join up (or periodically thereafter…), but try to be honest with yourself. Will you still be interested in running 5 games simultaneously in 6 months? Will you have the time available to do so? Life happens, we all know that and understand it completely, but it can be mitigated by a measure of moderation. Don’t get attached to too many games before knowing what you can manage during your busiest week. Online roleplaying can be a great way to spend one’s time, but it can be a massive waste of other peoples’ time if you commit and are unable to follow through.

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What Your DM Wants You to Know

Okay, so this is less ‘your DM’ and more ‘me as a DM’, but for some of you that’s the same thing. Still, it’s important to note that this is merely what works for me, though I’m curious to see what other DMs would like to add.

• If you help me, I’ll help you. We’re not talking bribes here, but generally speaking, I am in a more forgiving disposition to those players that make the game easier for me. Pretty much everything on this list is a means of making things easier for me. If you do even some of them, I may be more inclined to listen to your crazy tactical plan or look on your comical bluff with a little more leeway. Roleplaying works best when DM and Player meet each other halfway. We’re all doing this for free and want to get enjoyment out of it, so give a little to get a little. To that end…
  
  
• I hate book-keeping. Seriously, it sucks, especially bearing in mind that You’re gonna forget and Time kills games. I’m pretty sure nobody likes book-keeping, but a certain amount of it is necessary in roleplaying games—tracking spells/day, HP totals, even ammunition if one cares about it. This sucks. I cannot properly convey how much I dislike keeping track of these nitty gritty details, nor how I view them as fairly essential to the realism of the game. A DM is expected to keep track of these things, and in your typical tabletop experience, this isn’t so rough. But with a day or more between combat rounds (let alone combats in the same day), this can be difficult, monumental even. You can do me an enormous favor by simply tracking these things yourself. I want to hug the players that post on the bottom of their combat line HP totals, AC, buffs in place, negative statuses, etc. I generally still try to track my own, but if there’s a discrepancy I can address it. Spells/day are even worse, though. There’s nothing I hate more than digging through a dozen previous posts to see what has been cast that day. So please—help me out. Keep track of your character, at least.
  
  
• Interaction skills < Roleplaying. This is a contentious issue for me in tabletop, too, but even more so online. In real life, I can be a bit forgiving of the guy that can’t think up the right words to say on-the-spot, typically because I am forgiving of anyone pretending to be an elf (or whatever) in a fantasy world acting on spur-of-the-moment improvisation. It’s hard to do. But even in those cases, a Diplomacy +21 or whatever is only as good as the player’s actual words. In play-by-post, a player has hours, sometimes even days to think about precisely what they want to say, so I’m much less forgiving. If you want to be a social character, expect to type up some dialogue, and to put some thought into it. Also bear in mind that social characters tend to have the burden of leading, at least in non-combat situations, and other players will often look to that individual to get things moving. So there’s a bit of a burden here.
  
  None of this is meant to imply that there’s no reason to drop skill points into things like Intimidation, Bluff, or what-have-you, because I still very much look at the skill bonus to gauge NPC reaction. However, the advice given in the SRD for DCs and such is not typically what I use (if I use anything other than my own judgment). But in the end, even an uncharismatic character has a shot of making a good impression or a convincing argument, provided the player is up to the task of roleplaying it out. That’s why we’re all here, after all, isn’t it?
  
  
• Please don’t test my limits. I think I’m guilty of this as a player sometimes, too, and it’s hard not to do, but as a DM I tend to dislike it if I feel a player is looking for a loophole. This seems to occur most frequently during character creation. DMs lay out rules for creating characters, generally tweaking things with a certain style of game in mind, and a player may come up with something that fits the letter of those specifications, but not the spirit. Sometimes this is incidental. Usually it looks more suspicious. Either way, it’s just annoying. I hate telling someone ‘no, don’t play that,’ because I want everyone to enjoy playing their character, but there needs to be balance to it, and if one character has a significant edge over the others, it causes problems.
  
  
• Please Keep Infighting and Splitting Up to a Minimum. Here we confront a couple of strengths/weaknesses of play-by-post again. Online gaming is unique in that a group can split up and still be doing things. Multiple objectives can be tackled at once, and often this is the best way to save time and resolve issues. However, needless splitting up gets annoying, time-consuming, and ultimately slows things down. Running a game is already pretty taxing, but when all six of the characters are doing their own thing, it becomes a lot like running six games. A lot more of a headache. Infighting can be just as bad. I like a little, don’t get me wrong, because tension and conflict lead to good roleplaying experiences, but there are generally plenty of obstacles and challenges to overcome without overcoming each other. And I say this as someone just as guilty of bad inter-party strife—sometimes one must learn the hard way. Sometimes splitting up or infighting seem like the only way to properly roleplay a character, and while I understand that concern, it’s important to note that good games sometimes requires players to…
  
  
• Find an excuse. Feel like your character doesn’t want to get along with that guy? Or maybe he doesn’t have the motivation to fight for this general? Or maybe, just maybe, he decides it’s a bad idea to creep into a dark cave with just a flashlight and his wits. Tough. Sometimes to play in the kind of game you’re in, to Do what you can to move things along, you have to fake it a little. Invent a reason why your character wants to travel with that annoying rogue, or that belligerent half-orc. Make it work. If you’re in a horror game, don’t be surprised if the only way to advance the plot is to investigate the haunted mansion, an act that is sure to result in badness for all involved. If the crux of the plotline is ‘you’ve accept a mission to travel to the far reaches of the north to blah blah blah,’ then give your character ample motivation to do so. Certainly don’t create one with an aversion to cold climates.
  
  These are all little things you can do to make things easier for me. I love that. I can respect a player taking a bit of a hit to their wants and aims in the interest of the game. After all, we’re all in this together. And—
  
  
• If all else fails, reconsider your character. I’ll be honest—I detest this step. Since it’s very much about the story to me, I get annoyed when characters drop out, are replaced, mysteriously return, etc. It’s a pain to forge a cogent, believable story with that kind of stuff happening. But if you’re really not enjoying your character and it’s making you slow to post, not putting much into each one, and generally bringing you down… ask to make something new. I guarantee you, I will be happier with the honesty than you forcing yourself to work with a character you don’t like. That way, shoot, you could even arrange a climactic and heroic death for the old character, or allow the DM time to write that character out in some other way—and write a new one in. Communication is key. If you’re not having fun, you’ll bring less fun to the game, and that’s bad for everyone.
  
  
• Try to predict what’s coming next. ] In a typical tabletop game, the exchange between DM and players is pretty straightforward:
  “You see X in front of you.”
  “Okay, well I do Y. That should work just fine.”
  “Y? Okay, that means you need to make a skill check.”
  “[Rolls] I get a 17.”
  “I’m sorry, that’s not enough. What would you like to try doing instead?”
  “Well, damn, I guess I’ll try…”
  This is all well and good for tabletop, but in play-by-post, the same exchange could potentially take a week instead of 30 seconds. Now, a DM can speed a lot of this up by making the roll and pushing things along in other clever ways, but it really, really helps, at least for me, if the player tries to do a little fortune-telling:
  
  “I’m going to try and throw a grappling hook up there and climb up via a rope. I don’t really trust my climbing ability without the rope, though, so if I can’t get the hook set up, I’m going to search the area and try to find a secret entrance or something else.”
  
  This is considerably better. You’ve given a basic approach, what you’ll do in the alternative—and, importantly, why. Depending on the situation, you could probably even offer more. In combat, you can give several rounds of general tactics, at least enough to give the DM an idea how you will adjust to unforeseen events. Really, anything you can do to theorize on what you’ll have to do next has the potential to speed things up. It could be the extra information is unnecessary and gets tossed, but it’s better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.
  
  
• I don’t like animal companions. Okay, yes, I’ve killed a number of them in the past, but this isn’t specifically why. Companions of any kind tend to be a headache, whether they are familiars, animal companions, celestial mounts, followers, or cohorts. It’s all much the same to me—a free mini-character that must be monitored by me. In other words, more book-keeping. Which I hate.
  
  Unfortunately, companions have gotten kind of unavoidable in the roleplaying experience. So here’s my advice to any player looking to have them: keep track of them. Be diligent about updating their stats. Know where they are in-game. Accept that their decisions are ultimately in my hands. Know that they are mortal, and generally weaker than your character. I am not afraid to kill them, but am not looking for an excuse to do so. Try not to go overboard with them, or maybe I will. On the subject of additional party members…
  
  
• If you summon something, give me its stats. All of them. I can just delete/ignore what I don’t need, but you save me digging through the SRD/sourcebooks to try and figure out what this thing can do. As added incentive, I tend to forget about things like Augment Summoning if I’m forced to figure out stats on my own, so it’s often in your own interest to give me everything I need. Which, really, is kind of a general rule. If you’re doing something abnormal, please give me the damn write-up for whatever it is.
  
  
• Fights may be very difficult, or very simple. I don’t do a lot of in-between. This doesn’t really come up much anymore, I guess, but it’s worth mentioning. As we’ve discussed, Play-by-post is slow, so that means putting in the same number of combat encounters as a tabletop game is overkill. To mitigate this, I tend to do encounters for one of two reasons: to challenge the party, and to progress the storyline; or both. That means there may be some fights that are abnormally easy to overcome because I’m not as worried about whether the characters overcome it, so much as how they do it, and what they learned from the encounter existing at all. On the other side, a fight might be extraordinarily challenging, with the very real risk of character death, because it is a serious challenge to overcome. These fights are more memorable, and more useful to me in telling the story.
  
  
• Don’t make secret rolls for yourself. I cry a little for players when they make that beautiful natural 20 roll on their Hide or Move Silently, and I have to ignore it because they’re not allowed to see the outcome of their roll. Disguise is another great example. There are some rolls you don’t get to know the outcome for! If you’re unsure, assume the DM will make pertinent rolls for you. I know, it kinda sucks because one of my favorite moments in tabletop is throwing my dice down, but it’s just not as feasible in a play-by-post environment.
  
  
• If there’s a problem, just tell me. ‘Problem’ is intentionally vague. If you’re going out of town, if you fell down a mountain, if you don’t like your character, if you don’t like somebody else’s character, if you don’t like the game… whatever it is, just tell me, and we’ll all get along easier. I can’t do anything about something I don’t know about. Unexplained absences, inactivity, or other things just frustrate and anger me, and tilt the balance of the game away from those that remain, and in some cases leave gaping plotholes (my worst enemies). So if there’s some reason you can’t/won’t post, just tell me! If it can be resolved, it will; if not, at least I’ll know about it and can react accordingly.

I think that’s a hefty sized list for now.

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What Your Players Want You to Know

Actually, I’m going to leave this section blank, and hope that some others will chime in to fill it. I may add some thoughts later, but I tend to think of optimizing/improving gameplay from a DM perspective, not a Player perspective. So please, share your thoughts, fellow-players! Let me and the other DMs know what you’d like to see, or hope to see/encounter in gameplay.

[VemuKhaham]

Amen and halleluja!

That's a good list that sums up pretty much most of the things I'd think of off the top of my head. But I'll try to add a few, esp. from the player's perspective, as that list is empty and I do think I'm a more experienced play-by-post player than DM.

• Money stinks. Bookkeeping of character sheets might be annoying, to me personally, the worst part of it is shopping. I enjoy it much more when a DM gives me better equipment by having my character find a new magic sword than when the game has to halt down in order to built in a shopping scene. Neither does it appear very nice storywise when this occurs, and usually such matters are simply resolved through out-of-game discussions. To make matters even worse, in play-by-post, different players might have different sourcebooks, and it is sometimes frustrating to know you are limited to what you can find in there, simply because these are the only items with a price tag. DMs should invent flavourful items that enhance both the power and the flavour of characters possessing them.
  
• Use PC concepts. This is both to players and DMs alike: the best games, I think, are not made by DMs, but by the interaction between DM and PC. That means DMs must be able to expect their players to add to the game, not just to play in them. Likewise, players should feel like whenever they give original input to a game, the DM will incorporate it in the game. This is especially relevant in a play-by-post environment like this, if only because, with so many games available, there is a strong tendency to play in or run many of them. Even if you have the time and energy to play in them/run them, do you still have what it takes to really add to all those games? I feel this strain myself with 3 characters and 1 game I run, and still remember fondly the days when I was just 1 character on these boards that I could fully dedicate myself to. In other words, generally (though there are exceptions), the more games you run or participate in, the less developed your contribution will be to each individual game - or so it works for me.
  
• Pictures? I'm actually torn on this issue. There have been DM's on this forum using pics, for example character portraits or other visual aids to help the imagination, and I must say I liked the effect. There are of course numerous sites where we can look to for art that reflects what we encounter in our games, and so play-by-post provides an easy opportunity to use this. However, I don't think it's good to overuse it. Too many pics quickly crowd a game post and limit the free imagination.
  
• Lay-out/Style: there are several ways to alter the standard lay-out and style of posts, so why not use them as DM. Be consistant and clear though: don't use italics once for speech and then suddenly for thoughts. Try a change of fonts or vary with the colour and size of texts to get a different feel.
  
• Whisper! Ideally, I would run a game with as many whispered messages each game update as there are individual players, because only then can you recreate the different perceptions and experiences different individuals have, even when together in the same place. Of course, this is too much work, but still, I find a regular whisper from a DM tuned to me specifically with specific information only for me greatly enhances the sense of drama, as well as possible player interaction opportunities. In tabletop games, it can be hard to separate what each player knows, as you're all round the same table. On this forum, the whisper feature is an easy way to add to the game.
  

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[TheUdjat]

Good input, Vemu, and interesting points in some cases. I wanted to respond with some questions/comments on them, perhaps to inspire a little discussion about preferences and such.

Aug 4, 2009 18:28:14 GMT -5 VemuKhaham said:

Money stinks. Bookkeeping of character sheets might be annoying, to me personally, the worst part of it is shopping. I enjoy it much more when a DM gives me better equipment by having my character find a new magic sword than when the game has to halt down in order to built in a shopping scene. Neither does it appear very nice storywise when this occurs, and usually such matters are simply resolved through out-of-game discussions. To make matters even worse, in play-by-post, different players might have different sourcebooks, and it is sometimes frustrating to know you are limited to what you can find in there, simply because these are the only items with a price tag. DMs should invent flavourful items that enhance both the power and the flavour of characters possessing them.

This is interesting, because I've never been quite clear what the preference here is. I don't like keeping track of money, either (you'll note that I don't watch inn/mount prices in general, and gave up my one ill-fated attempt to try and do so with Dark Sun). This is one reason the Wealth roll appeals to me, though I've never had an opportunity to test it, and may never have one.

I digress. I like the idea of inventing game-specific items, especially stuff that has no precedent in the existing game. Things like your added touches in Rinascimento are nice (albeit these are abilities, not items), or the starting items in Dark Sun, and the 'notoriety' abilities gained later on. These are cool, but a lot of work, and they come with one problematic element: balance.

Or, maybe more appropriately, the perception of balance. One of the first comments I got when I gave you guys your new abilities in Dark Sun was from TTC, which amounted to "Mine seems less powerful." He seemed okay with that, but still, it's a common danger. If a DM is handing out rewards, there's always the possibility of someone feeling they got the short end, and I hate to run that risk. Which is why I think the 'here's a bunch of money, go buy something' solution has been opted for in so many cases. KMan's done it. Shakes has done it. I followed their lead. It just seemed liek a good way to keep everybody happy, or at least avoid perceptions of unfairness, but as you point out there's a flaw in that plan, too. Availability of sourcebooks--and, to another extent, familiarity with them. Just because everyone has access to the books doesn't imply they know what to get to optimize character abilities. (On a related note I won't delve into yet, character creation runs much the same problem)

So I'm curious about other players out there--which do you prefer? Assigned, story-related rewards that you don't get to pick, or money/points-based magic items or abilities (in the case of CP) that you have to take the time to pick and budget for and such?

Use PC concepts. This is both to players and DMs alike: the best games, I think, are not made by DMs, but by the interaction between DM and PC. That means DMs must be able to expect their players to add to the game, not just to play in them. Likewise, players should feel like whenever they give original input to a game, the DM will incorporate it in the game. This is especially relevant in a play-by-post environment like this, if only because, with so many games available, there is a strong tendency to play in or run many of them. Even if you have the time and energy to play in them/run them, do you still have what it takes to really add to all those games? I feel this strain myself with 3 characters and 1 game I run, and still remember fondly the days when I was just 1 character on these boards that I could fully dedicate myself to. In other words, generally (though there are exceptions), the more games you run or participate in, the less developed your contribution will be to each individual game - or so it works for me.

This segues nicely into a counter-point from the DM perspective: Give me something to work with. I don't know about others (okay, actually I kind of do), but I really like to see this very kind of participation from PCs. Give me storylines to build off of. The DM tends to have a core plot in mind, but it's always nicer to add touches to it, to structure something around the character's ambitions, flaws, hopes, aspirations, and personal background. In other words, the more you give, the more you get. This, I think, helps to keep DMs as interested in the goings on as players, since the really cool thing about DMing is not being able to predict what the players will do.

But I accompany this suggestion with a caution: Don't get too crazy. Games tend to have a theme and general aim to them, and an intent that the DM has in mind. Personal storylines are well and good, until one player starts getting too much attention, or forces the game into the above splitting up/infighting problems, or just takes things in a direction far from the originally intended campaign. Personally, that sort of thing annoys me. I want to see a player look at my setting and build their character into that, with personal ideas and innovations building off of that, which I can then use to make the setting and storyline even more richly detailed, and back and forth in a consistently, mutually beneficial cycle.

An example (though I'm hesitant to single someone out): menatkhufu. It doesn't seem to matter what game Menat is in, but he always seems to implement new concepts. He created a tribe and an entire mythos for them in Dragonlance, and did much the same in Dark Sun with Per-Wadjet's yuan-ti, and did much of the work on Bedai-Lihn before I even offered mechanics for it. But it's more than that--in character dialogue, he drops references to 'old sayings' and such that I've never even made any attempt to define, allowing me to then build around them. It's a small touch, but a nice one.

A lot of this depends on the game being run, of course. A pre-published module is obviously not going to come with a great degree of personal touches (though they theoretically could be added). An open-ended game like IGTBE actually requires more input from players, since it depends more on them driving the plot than on a pre-designed storyline objective.

Pictures? I'm actually torn on this issue. There have been DM's on this forum using pics, for example character portraits or other visual aids to help the imagination, and I must say I liked the effect. There are of course numerous sites where we can look to for art that reflects what we encounter in our games, and so play-by-post provides an easy opportunity to use this. However, I don't think it's good to overuse it. Too many pics quickly crowd a game post and limit the free imagination.

Okay, this is why I don't use pictures: It takes time. I have to hunt for them, save the ones I want, and then upload them to a free-photo site, and then remember to use them. Further, it tends to be a dead giveaway whether a character is important or not, as I have little desire to round up a picture for each and every character. Even further, I'm rarely pleased with the pictures I find online. Too picky.

Last of all: My work blocks most of those sites, so I can't go hunting for them during my active online hours anyway. End result: no pictures. So yeah, they'd be kind of cool, but they're kind of impractical, at least for me.

I did have a loophole with Dragonlance and Masks of Nyarlathotep, however. As these were published campaigns, they came with pictures, so I could just clip them out of the campaign books and post them! I didn't do this as often as I probably could have (again, time), but it was pretty cool to have an option to do so.

Lay-out/Style: there are several ways to alter the standard lay-out and style of posts, so why not use them as DM. Be consistant and clear though: don't use italics once for speech and then suddenly for thoughts. Try a change of fonts or vary with the colour and size of texts to get a different feel.

I'm actually beginning to see the wisdom of this. I don't know why it never occurred to me before, but beyond spoilers, bolds, and brackets, it never struck me to use different fonts. Then again. I don't prettify my regular writing that way, so maybe that's it. Still, for online gaming it could be kind of cool. I've watched Bad* and yourself use different fonts and it has a pleasing effect on the story. I've also watched Harknail use Green for his out-of-game text, which is a bit more clear and obvious than my own use of brackets, and I've been thinking of changing over to that style. Hell, I've even noticed Shakes using different colors for the characters' scenes, drawing attention to them, and am sorely tempted to duplicate this for Ars Magica and GFYD.

But I was never sure how much people cared. Your comment here suggests that it improves the experience. Do others feel that way, or do they not care? Tell us!

Whisper! Ideally, I would run a game with as many whispered messages each game update as there are individual players, because only then can you recreate the different perceptions and experiences different individuals have, even when together in the same place. Of course, this is too much work, but still, I find a regular whisper from a DM tuned to me specifically with specific information only for me greatly enhances the sense of drama, as well as possible player interaction opportunities. In tabletop games, it can be hard to separate what each player knows, as you're all round the same table. On this forum, the whisper feature is an easy way to add to the game.

Staunch disagreement! At least to your ideal category (as I agree whispers do have a definite way to enhance gaming--see below). Giving each player a unique way of viewing a situation is cool for them, but follows the same problem stated above re: splitting up (as you noted). Impractical. But, on another level, it makes casual reading by outsiders completely impossible. I don't know if other people read games they're not in, but I sure do! Hell, I cruise over to the archives sometimes and read over old adventures. It'd be terrible if everything were in whispers! I'd never get to be a proper spectator.

It'd be cool if there were a function to send a message to 'everyone except these individuals', but I doubt that's possible. Still, as I said, I agree, whispers can be used to enhance a game's experience--and I've used them in precisely that way. This is one of play-by-post's big advantages. If only one character notices something (and I feel it's significant or they might want to hide that info), I whisper it. Or I do when I remember to. Later on, maybe as that story arc finishes or the information is dramatically revealed, I'll un-whisper everything so a spectator (or the players) can go back and see what really happened! It's just more interesting to me that way.

But at the same time, whispering really critical information contains with it a certain risk: it relies heavily on that player to use the information, and not lose it to inactivity or a sudden disappearance. This has made story arcs difficult for me in the past. I'll give a character an important role in the story with important information, and poof, gone. So whispers can be cool, and they can also backfire.

Good input Vemu! Thanks for sharing.

[TheUdjat]

I moved this thread as its old location didn't allow non-DMs to post. Sorry about that! My mistake. All may post now.

[Yakumo]

There is a lot of good advice here, I'll pop in to add my two cents when possible.

As a player:

Commitment: This is a big one. I need a game where everyone wants to play and is willing to post with regularity and even barring that, with quality. Know your schedule and commit to it, don't hold up or kill a game because you know you won't be able to post and you don't want to tell people. I am horribly guilty of this - I have such a schedule that when I am most active I'm at work and unable to sue a computer, when I get home in the morning I want to sleep and don't bother with the boards. As it turns out this doesn't work to well and I hold up some games as a result and much to the dismay of my fellow players and GMs. If you have a 20 minute window to post, use it. If you want to play a game that requires posting regularly - and GMs will often tell you how often they expect to update - then make sure you can because players bowing out hurts a game, but players staying in and posting so infrequently hurts it more.

Much more forthcoming.

[Badasterysk]

Some (most) of this has probably been addressed above, but here’s my two cents anyway.

For GMs:

- Roll one initiative for NPC combatants. Sure, different initiatives add realism and a dynamic to combat, but they break up PC posting and force a GM to update more frequently. It makes for much more work for little payoff, imo.

- Monitor lengthy encounters. As I've seen 'Shakes post before, there are only so many ways to say you hit or you miss. I know in tabletop it's fun to roll dice, but there is no quick turnover in PbP. Encounters (combats) need to progress the story and not be included as an opportunity to roll dice or space out the PRing. In short, remove random encounters from PbP games-- they need to be relevant.

- Vemu mentioned fonts, and I'd like to comment. Changing fonts is a relatively easy way to add depth to your game, whether it be descriptions or a character's voice, changing the font adds a sort of uniqueness and rememberability (is that a word?) to situations and characters. My original intent in Age of Heroes was to utilize a lot of different fonts (particularly where onomatopoeia is concerned- it's a comic story, after all!), but that quickly grew unfeasible as I found myself spending too much time trying to create an effective... effect.

- Progress the story. The impetus is (and always has been) on the GM to keep the game moving forward. GM posts should invite PCs to take action. Nothing is more frustrating for a player than to feel like the story is slowing and it is somehow their fault, and they need to do something just for the sake of doing it.

- Maps. Sigh. My bane. Some games (D&D 3.5 and 4E) pretty much require a tactical map for combat (especially in PbP format). Even a thorough description leaves much room for discrepancy, and can lead to game-halting misunderstanding. In my short experience, making a map for PbP is time consuming, to say the least, and absolutely essential. At first, I thought it an unnecessary bonus, but such is not the case. Granted, some games don’t require a map, but a lot do. Make sure you’ve at least toyed with map making before you begin again.
I’ve been lucky in my games- one doesn’t require a map (Age of Heroes), and one does (Dark Sun). Unfortunately, I have been unable to produce my own maps. Fortunately, TheUdjat was kind enough to whip one up for me (and the other players). I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t overlook the need for or time required to include a map. If there’s anything I’ve noticed is that it only helps. Give it due diligence when planning to run a PbP game.

For Players:

- Give the GM something to work with. If you want your character to be a large part of the story, participate. If you don’t’ feel drawn in to the story, immerse yourself in it. Write about your character’s thought processes and feelings, draw the GM (and other players) into your character.

- Update your posts. Even if it’s only to say you haven’t the available time to post presently. Keep in communication with the GM. Otherwise, the general assumption is that a non-updated post is a lack of interest on the player’s part (which is frequently not the case).

- Be specific (especially in combat) with your character’s actions. We all know how much GMs like to take liberties (and rarely to the PCs’ benefit), so why give the opportunity? Be concise. Not only include what your character is doing, but telling why can go along way (and reign in a bit of that GM leeway). Again, the default for most GMs is to view indecisive posts as a lack of interest.

- Ask questions. One of the quickest things I learned in playing PbP is that it is much easier to ask a question (no matter how inane) rather than proceeding on an assumption. Believe me; asking is much more conducive to PbP than backtracking or editing actions that were based on poor assumptions.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something I intended to mention (it happens when a 4 and 3 year old are playing ‘let’s use daddy as a jungle gym’), but that’s it for now!

[TheZebraShakes™]

(This should probably be in the Getting Started board, I didn't realize that it was DMs only, but It might be better here anyway for the time being while people are still responding. Maybe even in the community section, it would work anywhere)

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First, to answer some questions/provide feedback that TheUdjat is curious about

MONEY: As a DM and player, I think it's best that a player decide what he/she wants to buy. It is easy on everyone. The DM doesn't have to worry about having to pick all of the right items that all of the characters will be able to get use out of, and the player doesn't have to worry about getting stuck with items that are worthless to their character. If one doesn't want to scour the books and find items, that's fine, don't do it. I personally keep it simple, choosing mainly the stuff listed in the SRD. But some people like to look for new items and put their books to use, that's fine too, but no one should feel obligated.

LAYOUT: Personally, I don't see a need for changes in fonts (aside from maybe a note that the characters might come across or italics for the grammatical use of italics), and to constantly remember to change colors for certain NPCs talking is more trouble than it's worth. Though I do appreciate the distinction between speech and story. Even if it's as simple as making one bold and the other normal. It makes it easier to find what you're looking for.

Also, the main reason that I use different colors for each individual character is because I am aware that there are many players out there who will only read their own section of the game (I am amongst them), and because of this, I want it to be as easy as possible for them to find the sections which I am expecting them to read rather than having to resort to typing their character's name into the "find" feature in their browser or something like that just to find the stuff which they need to know. Like this, all you will have to do is scroll down until you see your character's color and there you have it.

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And now my

ADVICE FOR PLAY-BY-POST

(I will try to stick to what has not yet been addressed)

DON'T TELL ME HOW I FEEL: This refers to the DM's role as an author and the liberties he/she may take in terms of suggestive narration as far as the characters are concerned.

Example:
Somewhere in the distance a wolf howls and it sends shivers down your spine. The rain falls steady and you long for a nice warm place to rest your weary bones. The fear and uncertainty cause your heart to race with the knowledge that a ghost could appear at any second.

Players don't like to be told how they should be playing the game/reacting to the story narration.

Of course, as DMs, it is easy for us to let the writer inside take hold and it is only natural that we would write this way as we feel that the descriptive text adds much to the overall flavor of the points that we would like to get across, but this issue was raised by one of my players in the first game I ran here, and though I knew that I felt the same exact sentiment, I just assumed that it was one of the features which came along with play by post RP. I know now that this style of writing can be avoided and I try to steer clear of it as much as possible, never even referring to the characters as "you". Also, it does save the DMs much time in terms of writing, and it keeps the amount that players will have to read to a minimum.

Alternate Fix:
Somewhere in the distance a wolf howls. The rain falls steadily as (insert character proper name) waits for the ghost to appear.
(and of course we already know from a previous player post that the character is waiting for a ghost.)

This gives the players free reign to decide how their characters will act/react in their own posts and words as opposed to having to defy the DM statements or just being forced to accept them as they are.


WRITE A POST, NOT A SCRIPT: This is not aimed at those players who tend to write lengthy posts, but rather to those who may jump ahead of the DM and the other players when writing up their character reaction posts. As mentioned numerous times, play by post is slow and in order to be successful as a player, you must accept that. Write your posts in the "now" insofar as the DM's narrative and the other player posts. Try not to jump ahead of the DM and your fellow players by assuming reactions and formulating responses for everyone in the scene regardless of whether they have posted or not. Getting too far ahead of oneself is likely only to slow things down by creating confusion amongst the other players and the DM alike. There will be MANY more chances to post, so don't feel like you have to cover all of your bases by getting everything you want to do/say all out at once. In the end, it is usually only going to amount to a wasted effort.


IT'S NOT FOR EVERYONE: : Play by post, that is. I always tell newcomers who find the boards and are excited to play that they should first take a look around. Read through the games and get a feel for how things work and what might be expected of them as a player or DM. It's no big surprise that Play by post is not everyone's cup of tea, and this is evident in our low member retention rate. A potential player may be excited and enthusiastic about starting up or joining a game during their first few days or weeks involved with the boards, but then disappear without warning, never to be heard from again.

To gauge interest, we try to encourage new players to first get involved with a Short campaign rather than jumping headlong into a long-running one. This isn't always possible, so when accepting new players into a long-running campaign, the DM must keep in mind that Play by post isn't for everyone, and you cannot continue your campaign under the assumption that this new character will be in it for the long haul after only a week's play. Hell, I've lost newcoming potential players during the character creation process, which I do encourage DMs to try to drag out a little longer than usual just to test the player's patience with message boards and what is likely to happen in PbP.

I also utilize the PbP ability to split up groups in order to let the new player test his/her hand and interest without the other players before introducing him/her to the campaign proper. This can often help to weed out those players who are likely to lose interest and quit after a week's time. It also helps the player to get a feel for play by posting and determine how much they might enjoy it and whether they will have the time/interest/patience to keep up with it all while not interfering with the campaign and potentially hurting/hindering the storylines of the other long term characters.


COMMUNICATION IS KEY: As a DM, I am constantly letting my players know that they are free to ask any questions or address any concerns that they may have. If something's bothering someone with the way I'm doing things or concerning the other players, I want to know about it so that it may be addressed in whatever fashion is appropriate.


LESSONS IN SPOILING: Using the "spoiler" feature is fine, but keep in mind that when you use spoilers, certain people should have the option or expectation NOT to read them, therefore: adding a random spoiler at the bottom of a post or simply posting ONLY a spoiler message clearly defeats this purpose. Either no one will read them , or everyone will be forced to.

So remember to label your spoilers. Just a quick one or two word header so people get the gist of what they will be seeing or who should be seeing it when/if they choose to click to reveal the hidden text.


If YOU'RE HAVING FUN, I'M HAVING FUN: I've noticed that whenever DMs seem to be having fun with the campaigns, the players are as well, and vice versa. So keeping in mind everything that's been and will be listed here in this thread, do whatever it takes to make sure that you're having a good time with your campaign(s).

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(this is all for now. I hope everything was clear and concise enough.)