Tag Info

Play by mail mechanics vary immensely, to the point where there are probably as many possibilities for rules in PBEMs as there are in tabletop pen and paper RPGs. Some games use pen and paper rules sets, some use board games, others custom PBEM rules (or programs) and some no (mechanics) rules at all. What I have found from my experiences in both playing ...

Use Google Wave one of the appengine ports of wave like walkaround. Embrace multi-threaded actions. Assume competence on the players' parts. Avoid boring combats wherever possible. Have the players give commands as a group instead of individuals. Have a timeout on actions of whatever the group decides with assumed actions being whatever's "reasonable" for ...

The Style of Game is typically called Play By Mail or PBM. In the UK, it was also called Play by Post, but given the US domination of the early internet, PBP came to mean posts to forums or BBSs. Play by electronic mail is usually called PBEM. There are a few games I know that are suitable. Whether they truly cross all the way into "roleplaying" is ...

One thing that's really helpful for asynchronous online gaming is a system that allows players to (tentatively) take ownership of the entire world, not just their own character. If there's going to be a lag between player post and GM response, a system with a focus on collaborative storytelling that allows the player to write a paragraph detailing an entire ...

admin side The singlemost important rule of any forum is consistent moderation. Don't let someone get away with behavior X because they're your buddy. It's also useful to identify the status of copyright on the board: do you as board owner assert text contributed is: copyright the poster copyright the board (which may not be legal in some places) all ...

The best experience of playing over the internet is done through the combination of a voice chat program and a virtual tabletop. A virtual tabletop program is a specialized whiteboard software that allows the sharing of images, text chatting, and dice rolling. Typically they allows smaller images, known as tokens, to be placed on a shared image, and many ...

Don't force them into it. If you do that they'll have even less interest than they did when they bailed the first time. Offer to start it up and invite everyone, but make sure there's no pressure to join. Run it for the players that still have interest and replace the losses with new players. I say this because I'm of the opinion that some PCs are lost ...

Oddysey. I've run several successful PBPs and several unsuccessful ones. (It's been a very long time since I did PBEM.) These are based on my own experiences only. My advice may be incoherent as I'm going off the cuff and have taken a lot of allergy meds today. I usually set up a phpBB-based forum solely for use with the PBP, rather than using an area ...

I run (and play in) games like this based on play by e-mail, and log the results in a wiki. The largest concern is your rules- not your game rules, but the meta-rules to govern player interaction. There are several games that I have run and played in hosted on my wiki. Most of them have game logs so you can see examples of play. Also, my general rules, ...

The most important thing you must do is keep the games active - even before anyone else starts! It might mean that you have to have 2 or 3 NPCs that post regularly. Without some activity, no amount of promotion will get players to join in on a dead board. It might seem odd for them to join in part-way through an adventure but PBP can get away with that. ...

Code of Unaris was specifically designed to be played in chat across the internet. The rules even incorporate the ability of one player to "hack" the GM's typed messages by replacing single words under certain conditions. I don't think it's easy to get anymore, but you might find it around.

Here are some ideas: Bring in a new, enthusiastic member. New blood can kickstart anything. Get them to pledge commitments. Ask everyone (publicly) how much time they can commit to the game every week, and ask them to keep to it. Bribe them. Offer a cool magic item or other appropriate boon to each player who meets a certain time commitment for a ...

4e works quite well over Google Wave. The RPG-Bones applet has a very acceptable interface for a battlemap. Trust your players. Don't worry about cheating. Just agree on what level of die roll honesty the group wants at the start of the game. My preference is: "You may always choose to fail any roll" but some groups may choose to play "just call them as ...

It's important to note whether or not the campaign has stalled as the result of life issues or disinterest with the campaign itself. These can lead to completely different suggestions. But here are a few generic suggestions: Campaign reboot with new characters: As has been suggested, start over at a point further ahead in time, with as little or as much ...

One way is to move the timeline of the game forward to the cusp of something amazing happening, so the change of vibe at the table is mirrored by a change in the game itself. Change the world, kick it in the teeth in a way that gives the PC's and NPC's entirely new contexts but still leaves them with plenty to do.

I've tried to run a campaign via IRC, but it didn't work well. Players can be easily distracted and you don't even know until you notice they are lagging. They are also more prone not to take it seriously, not showing up at all. Finally, they can experience technical difficulties. I wouldn't ever consider it again unless I've really got no other option. ...

We tried this type of game over a BBS, way long ago, and it was challenging, to say the least. Now, you may not mean the slow-turn-around time that is BBS playing, but here are the problems that stick to memory anyways: The biggest challenge is the system's dependence on dice rolls for determining action results. Your best bet is to minimize the use of ...

Kazekami Kyoko Kills Kublai Khan is specifically designed for asynchronous online play. S/lay w/Me may also work. Personally, the lack of nonverbal communication in online play kills most "story" games for me. Conversely, D&D 4E, using appropriate tools, keeps the same feel online it's got offline (a very boardgamey feel, that is). Some friends of mine ...

Considering that the conversion/migration from www.avidgamers.com was to a subdomain of the original domain to ag2.avidgamers.com... it wasn't much of a migration. It's been 5 years... everything went dark in 2007. From the few posts I've read where people were asking about the site and where it went/why it went down, there doesn't appear to be any single ...

I ran a PBeM game for several years, and have done a number of successful and "failed" with others. I've only done free-form this way, though. (I call it "Collaborative Fiction" when talking to non-nerds.) One of the keys to keep things going is to be continually recruiting. New blood keeps things alive. For a free-form PBeM, I'd suggest at least 6 players ...

De Profundis 2nd edition is designed to be played online, making the text interface part of the actual game and character interactions. From the sales copy for the De Profundis PDF at RPGNow (emphasis mine): Blending the imagination of H. P. Lovecraft and other contemporary horror and conspiracy writers and themes, De Profundis is a correspondence-based ...

There's a fairly stable, medium-sized IRC network called Darkmyst that caters to roleplaying. I'm assuming there are others, but that's one I've been with for about eleven years now, and they've certainly got a lot of interesting games going on, as well as a service tailored specifically to help find games called RPGServ, a service providing basic dicerolls ...

Whoo, boy. I need to give a disclaimer first off: this is definitely self-advertising, although I swear I'm just trying to be helpful. :) I love IRC roleplaying, specifically because it (with the right group) allows you to create much more vibrant, detailed stories than you can in-person. You can write at your own pace, and the game is only as immediate ...

There isn't a name for the genre. Play-by-post used to mean that, but the term was taken over by the Internet-meaning at the same time that the popularity of play-by-post (paper mail) dropped off into non-existence. For a lack of common need, no distinguishing term has arisen. Rather than looking for a term to make searching easier, better to just ask the ...

There's always the very low-tech solution of ASCII text graphics. It's not terribly efficient, but it's doable. Sample 10' wide intersection in 5' grids + + + + + + + + + | T | + + + + + + + + + | | +---+---+---+ + +---+---+---+ Pl4 Pl1 + + + + + + + + ...

Absolutely. Diaspora is a Fate based system. Fate is "rule lite," story oriented, and uses minimal dice (called "FUDGE" dice) and character statistics. That makes it uniquely suited to online play. While there are still dice involved, the game does not revolve around your dice rolls and pure chance. D&D, Shadowrun, and other games that follow a more ...

I run a 3.5 game via a forum where we may not all be on at the same time, so your typical encounter might go on for a while. In this sort of setting, I highly recommend just trusting your players. Let them do their own rolls in encounters, it'll move the whole thing along so much quicker than waiting for you to roll everything out. Other than that, I use ...

Microscope I have played some quite epic games of microscope over wave and have found that it translates quite well online. While there are a few difficulties with scenes, the format of the game is such that it plays asynchronously quite quite well.

The Pool is good and simple. You can use a "describe what happens if you succeed/fail" etiquette to keep each turn fairly meaty. This game relies on a good common understanding of the setting from all players and GM.

I've actually had a great deal of success using Primetime Adventures (PTA) online. PTA uses cards and a form of chips, but no dice. Depending on how you handle it, you can have the GM use a webcam and show the dealt cards for conflict resolution, and each player can keep track of how many chips they have on hand. It really depends on your setup, but I've ...