Questions tagged [play-by-post]
For questions primarily about play-by-post gaming, a game format where communication is handled asynchronously in text. This includes playing by post (aka "snail mail") as well as email, posting boards, forums, blogs and other asynchronous text mediums.
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Paranoia Play-by-Post GMing Techniques
I am planning on running a play-by-post (pbp) Paranoia Troubleshooters game. Due to the nature of a pbp, we may lose out on the dramatic tension of a proper Paranoia game.
What are ways to increase ...
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How were play-by-mail quest tournaments judged?
The January 1984 edition of Dragon advertised the "SILVERDAWN Quest Tournament". The ad features a $5,000 cash prize. In a previous question I was introduced to the mechanics of play-by-mail ...
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What online guides are there that can aid someone to start a forum roleplay? [closed]
I am not sure if this is the right exchange to ask and I am not sure if the wording will be correct but here it goes.
I am quite fond of Post by Play forum roleplays where I can post whenever I feel ...
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How do I get my BEM game up and running? [closed]
We (Bob & John) have spent the last 10+ years writing, polishing and testing a multiplayer game we are calling ANTIQUITY. We feel like it is finally ready to fly, so how do we get this off the ...
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How can I set up interactive spoilers for a PBP?
I am setting up a Play by Post forum to manage a large mystery/exploration based campaign. But I want to set up a way to give the players a direct response when they perform a suggested action that ...
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How can I make initiative useful as a stat, when I'm removing it from combat?
I'm running a D&D 3.5e game over a private forum. In order to keep combat moving, I've decided that each combat round will be "resolved" once a day (or more often if everyone posts). The players' ...
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Where did the writing-focused roleplaying forums go?
Asking on behalf of a friend. She writes:
One of my first experiences with text-based roleplaying was on an anime AU (alternate universe) forum. While they accepted people with all levels of literacy,...
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How to certify a secret decision revealed on a delay in a play-by-post game?
In a play-by-post game that requires a player to commit to a secret decision and later reveal that decision publicly, how can a player certify that they did so honestly without relying on good faith?
...
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How were play-by-mail games played in the 1980s?
I recently purchased several copies of Dragon magazine from the early-to-mid 1980s. They contain several references to fairly large play-by-mail games that I haven't heard of before. How were these ...
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Handling Sleep in Competitive Play-by-Post RPG
I am running a play-by-post RPG. This game is competitive, with players competing for a goal in teams of two. After a few days of play I have realized that handling sleep will be difficult. Because if ...
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How can I handle a maze in a play-by-post game?
So, I'm going to be running a classic Mutants and Masterminds adventure next week, "Toys will be Toys". The crux of the game is the players racing their way through a series of rooms connected by ...
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Dice Rolls for PBEMs [closed]
Is there an online dice roller that has some kind of confirmation mechanism so it can be used by forum/PBEM games?
For example?
Bob: "I kick open the door"
MC: Roll here [gives link]
Bob: [...
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What to do with a fellow player who tries to control NPCs I introduce?
I'm doing a text-based freeform roleplay with just one other person right now and there's couple of things that they do that bothers me.
They started controlling an NPC I introduced without even ...
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How can you play Archipelago III as a play-by-post RPG?
Archipelago III has ritual phrases other players can say while you are narrating. With a live (or even virtual) tabletop, where the interaction is real-time, this works fine. But some of the phrases (...
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What's the largest PBM RPG ever run?
What play-by-mail (or email) RPG had the largest number of players?
I've recently been looking into "Net Games", play-by-post (not email) RPGs run by a company called Youentai in Japan in the 90s ...
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Can RPGs be played "offline" or "asynchronously"? [closed]
Is it possible to play RPGs without all the players meeting physically, or even playing at the same time? For example, the GM might provide a description of where the players are and then the players ...
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Role play by WhatsApp [closed]
Although I haven't tried it myself, I've heard about people who played RPGs by email and forums. Of course, these modes involve different dynamics than tabletop games, but they seem to be plausible ...
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Accidentally made player too powerful [closed]
I'm running a homebrew dark fantasy play-by-post game, which is highly narrative-driven.
As such, the players were given plenty of freedom designing their characters and abilities. One of the players ...
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Player abusing narrative freedom
I'm running a play-by-post homebrew game. The game is narrative-driven, so naturally I allow players to make up their own races, backstories, abilities etc., as long as they "don't overdo it" (as I ...
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What is equivalent to an hour of "table time" in a play-by-post environment?
I'm currently playing GURPS on a play-by-post system, and one of my characters has an ability ("Luck", allows me to reroll an attack or ability check and take the better of the two results) that can ...
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How do we attract playtesters for our online superhero game platform?
My friend and I are building a CMS specifically designed for online roleplaying. For the playtest we are using it to run a superheroes-themed game. We've built in-site tools to help making posting and ...
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Play-By-Post - On Races and joining [closed]
I’m pretty new to PbP so please bear with me if I screw up in what I wish to ask. I am wondering if someone could help/advise me on a few questions I have.
Though I am relatively experienced at PbP ...
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Meaningful Combat in Pathfinder Play-by-Post
Some friends and I are planning a play-by-post (using a forum, not physical mail) game using Pathfinder. Although we are fairly comfortable with role playing online out-of-combat, we haven't been able ...
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How can I adapt fourthcore to play-by-forum?
Fourthcore adventures have an ingrained time limit that puts pressure on player action and prompts fast, dashy solutions rather than overcautious approaches (or at least has the players chose which ...
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Where can I find CLEAN play by post games? [closed]
I haven't played in years -- online or otherwise -- but I'd like to give it another try, and maybe find a good, consistent Play by Post game.
However, I'm one who prefers to avoid swearing, graphic ...
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Can you play pen & paper roleplaying games over the Internet?
I'm sad to say that I have absolutely no friends who would like to play D&D with me however I would love to play. I know about Neverwinter Nights and I've played quite a bit of it, but I'm looking ...
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Play by post mapping system [closed]
I'm looking for a means of having a battle map and tokens for a play by post game. Something that doesn't require anyone, except maybe the DM, to download software, and functions perfectly well, even ...
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Are there any good online dicerollers similar to the now mostly defunct Invisible Castle? [closed]
I used to use Invisible Castle's roller which was based off of OpenRPG. Worked great, but it looks like the site has been pretty much gutted and is mostly defunct. The roller still works but I'm not ...
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How to deal with a player in a large forum game who constantly fights in-game and OOC?
I'm currently engaged in a Pathfinder game online, on a forum. I've been playing on this forum for a year now, and this is my second (third if you count IRL) RPG campaign. Never had a problem, since ...
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How can a player in a PbP D&D 5e game ensure the health and fun of that game?
I recently found this question which has a lot of good advice for things that a game-master can do to ensure that the game is successful and fun for everyone involved. However, it doesn't say anything ...
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Roleplaying play-by-post game for one [closed]
I spent quite some time trying to come up with such concept. By play-by-post I mean some kind of game of fiction, in writing. For the single person. What I'm looking for is some set of rules so that ...
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Roleplaying online without having to post in public [closed]
I've recently tried Hero Central for running a Hero System campaign. We have two problems with Hero Central though: it requires posting in English (our group is German-speaking), and campaigns are can ...
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Too Many New Posts when I Log into my Roleplay Thread [closed]
I roleplay online sometimes, but everytime I run into the problem where there's at least 20 pages worth of new posts and it takes me a long time to catch up on a daily basis.
Is there any online or ...
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Free RPGs that work well on forums [closed]
I am looking to play an RPG in my forum with some friends of mine. The forum is mine, and I came up with the idea of playing an RPG. I want it to follow the following conditions so that it works on my ...
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Where can I play D&D 4E by forum? [closed]
I would like to play more Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition besides the campaign I run as a DM. But due to time constraints it would be best if I could find an asynchroneous game played by writing, a ...
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Where can I advertise for players for my play-by-post game?
I just started a roleplaying site that hosts my play-by-post game of Prometheus and want to attract players. The sites I've found that allow game advertisements want to be paid, they don't even allow ...
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Good sources for creating a poison and blackmail-based character? [closed]
I am in the process of creating a character for Pen & Paper roleplay, and I have decided to play a more complicated character whose skills I am far from having or understanding fully, yet, and I ...
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How to deal with session-based effects in play by post?
Some systems have effect whose length is based on a number of sessions. For example:
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying has a Refresh of Plot Points at the beginning of every session
Fate Core has a refresh ...
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Are there any pbp sites left? [closed]
I was once a regular user of RPOL.net. I left for several years and came back to find it a fraction of what it had been. And not a very large fraction at that. Are there any good play-by-post sites ...
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Fate (or Fudge) by e-mail
Are there any rules adaptations out there for Fate (any variation, including Fudge) by e-mail? Or has anyone played by e-mail with any house rules?
I'm looking to run a pbem, and wanted to adapt the ...
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What are some fun play-by-mail/email games? [closed]
Me and my friends work office jobs and hence are in front of a computer all day. I thought a fairly slow-paced text game we could play asynchronously over email throughout the day would be a lot of ...
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Running a play-by-post game over Facebook
I'm wondering if anyone has any experience running games over Facebook, successfully or otherwise. When I search on Google, I tend to get back info about Facebook single-player or MMO RPG apps/games, ...
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How is a play-by-email game actually played?
I'm currently interested in learning more about play-by-email RPGs. Searching the Web, I've found many forums and sites promoting PbeM campaigns (Aelyria and Blue Dwarf, for instance), but nothing ...
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Recommend a web-based narrative RPG [closed]
I have played forum based RPG before. Posting is something like once per day and nothing is required other than text-writing capacity. I would like to try that again, but in English. It should be a ...
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Running a dungeoncrawl with several game systems at once
I intend to run an experimental play-by-post dungeoncrawling game where different player characters can be played with different rules sets. E.g. there can be a Pathfinder Gunslinger, Burning Wheel ...
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Where has the community from Avidgamers (1 & 2) migrated to?
Where has the community from Avidgamers (1 & 2) migrated to?
The original Avidgamers.com was teeming with personal RP site. There was a conversion/migration to a new ag2.avidgamers.com site, but ...
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Is Diaspora suitable for forum play by post?
I bought Diaspora recently, having very much enjoyed Don't Rest Your Head and being a huge fan of harder Scifi. I'm curious how well it holds up to play by post gaming compared to something like ...
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How do I promote my gaming campaigns?
I have two campaigns on two different sites and I need players. So how do I promote my games in order to get more players?
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How do I, as a player transition my group from Play in Person to Play by Post?
We've just finished our 8 week slot at my local university gaming society, and I feel like events were unresolved. I'd like to transition the game into a play by post option on the society forum so we ...
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Rules for a play-by-post forum?
With my RPG group we decided to setup a private online forum to play in differed time together (and other reasons that are not the subject of the question).
Installing and setting the forum itself ...