I've played in a couple of play-by-post games over the last couple of years, and they've all ended more-or-less unsatisfactorily. Usually posting would slowly wind down until we hit a bottleneck of some kind and it stopped entirely. If you have ever run or played in a PBP or PBEM of this kind that survived more than a couple of months: What techniques and measures in the area of system, style, social contract, or otherwise work to make a game like this maintain player engagement and game momentum?
[RPG] How to run a successful play-by-post/play-by-e-mail game
online-roleplayingplay-by-post
Related Solutions
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 you see them" or even "Anyone can fudge any roll." Adding technology adds complexity, and there's always a way to cheat, so don't worry about it.
Be very clear on what the group's goals are. Do they want a tactical challenge? Do they want to share a story? In my game we have ended up toggling between combat encounters then a bit of narrative and then a bit of combat. Make sure you work this out with your group
Figure out what to do about "timeouts" How long each player has to submit their turn, be it narrative or tactical. What happens when they don't?
The DM must assume competency: if the player states something and there are multiple ways to achieve it, the DM must choose the most optimal way for the player.
Explore batching: agree on when rolls are needed. If possible, let rolls ride (one roll to determine the use of the skill for at least the encounter). If at all possible, try to get batches of rolls that can be adjudicated in parallel.
Agree on amount of shared control: can players determine scenery? Can players put words into other's mouths? The more shared control, the faster the game, but some people don't like to give it up. Try to have each player provide guidelines for writing their character. Voice, types of actions, taboo, etc.
In general, it's probably worth your while looking at our wave game (combined with the chat logs in The Back Room) For that matter, I'm happy to lead a group character creation (that worked incredibly well for my game) for your group.
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 content must be under some open license (CC NC SA is pretty common)
- defaults to the board owner unless asserted otherwise
- joint board and poster (which is legal in more places than just the board alone, but still isn't legal in some places)
You need to have a required informed consent to the board rules as condition of use.
As for actually running a game, install a dice protocol on the board. It makes life just so much easier.
Giving the GM a separate subarea helps a lot, especially if they can move others posts around within that area.
Generally, it isn't useful to require specific read access permissions to a particular game, unless the subject matter is controversial (such as a moderns espionage game or a modern drug gangs theme), heavily religious themed, adult themed, or involves certain universes published by certain litigious companies (companies like Paramount and Games Workshop).
It's often of use to restrict posting to those who have requested, but it's not inherently a "best practice"
Game Side
Most online RPG's I've seen use either 1, 2 or 3 threads. The best models are the 2 thread and 3 thread models
Two Thread Models
For each chapter, usually:
- Game and Chat
- Thread one is both the narrative, the declared actions, and if included in the board, the dice rolls.
- thread two is the Out of Character chat, discussions about actions, and often, off topic table-chatter.
- Narrative and OOC
- The Narrative thread is only narrative descriptions of character actions, settings, and outcomes.
- the OOC thread is used for actions, and often also for chatter.
- Narrative and Actions
- The Narrative thread is only narrative descriptions of character actions, settings, and outcomes.
- the Actions thread is restricted to game mechanics discussions of actions
The third style is a bit constrained for many.
Three Thread Models
Again, for each chapter:
- Actions, Narrative, Chatter
- Actions is restricted to game mechanics.
- The Narrative thread is only narrative descriptions of character actions, settings, and outcomes. If it requires a die-roll, that's done in the actions thread.
- Chatter is the OOC conferencing by players, table chatter, and absence notifications.
- Rolls, Game, and Chatter.
- Rolls is just the die-rolls
- Game is both the actions and narratives
- chatter is all other discussion.
I've used version one for my current games, and have seen the other for Burning Empires on Google Wave; the rolls were separated out for technical reasons (the waves with rolls in them got ugly quick...)
Additional Threads
It is a great idea to have public character information in a separate thread, stickied.
It's also good to have any recurrent maps in another stickied thread.
Both of these I've seen and have used, and it really helps.
Best Answer
I've run several successful PBPs and several unsuccessful ones. (It's been a very long time since I did PBEM.) This is based on my own experiences only.
Have good infrastructure
I usually set up a phpBB-based forum solely for use with the PBP, rather than using an area of someone else's forum. It makes it much easier for me to administer and tweak.
I set up custom ranks for each player to indicate which character he or she is playing, which makes it easier for the players and myself to keep things straight. I encourage avatar use as well.
Another advantage of having your own forum is that you can easily set up "private" forums, each of which only a given player can see. This is useful for "note passing," keeping track of xp and private conversations, and so on without having to go through a backlog of PMs.
I usually have an out-of-character forum for intros, general discussion, and metagame stuff, and an in-character forum for actual play. I devote a separate thread to each "delve," as I'm currently running an OD&D campaign.
Be active, have active players, and communicate interruptions
The paramount concern in PBP, in my experience, is having active players. I ask for some kind of substantive post at least once a day. Stagnation is doom in the PBP realm — once things slow down, heat death follows. If I can't post for a few days — which happens — I let everyone know, and expect the same.
Start the game with clear direction
One thing I discovered running a City State of the Invincible Overlord PBP a couple years back is that too many options at the beginning of play can lead to decision paralysis as the players try to decide what to do. In a dungeon-type game, I'd recommended starting at the adventure site, getting stuck in, then getting to the roleplaying after the players have the swing of things. In a story-type game, I'd consider starting in media res, like with a chase scene or something that gets the players thinking in-character quickly.
Pace your background exposition
Finally, I'd avoid excessive infodump. It's great for you, as the referee, to know lots about your setting, but I'd keep the early background to just enough to give the players a sense of things and parcel the rest out through play.