Post by Raven Archon on Sept 17, 2014 14:14:44 GMT -8
Greetings all and welcome to my little corner of this criminally underused gaming forum. It's been almost exactly a year since I signed up and I am now ready to put something together and start playing. Hopefully I actually have interested players after all this time. In order to get things going and start motivating myself I'm posting a general guidelines section here for how I intend to run my play-by-post RPGs. So let's get to it!
1. What games will be played here?
Currently I'm looking at starting a Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition game. It would be the easiest and I'm sure I could force some interest in the new D&D out of some people. I'd also really like to start a game of The One Ring, the newest Middle Earth RPG, but that may be a ways off, and fewer people might be interested in it.
2. How would this work?
Basically I post what's going on, and then each player posts their action in response. It's pretty self explanatory I would think.
3. Frequency of Posts.
Ideally everyone should take at least one action a day, though I'm thinking only every week day. I'll most likely check the forums several times a day, so if there is a day where people feel like posting a bunch we might get several turns done. Just remember that play by posts are slow by nature.
4. Control issues.
Because of the nature of PBP games, both DM control and player control will be shared responsibility. To a point. I'll likely list the general stats for a monster such as it's Armor Class, and Saves and any reaction special abilities it has. Something along those lines. Then players will actually be able to resolve their own attacks during the game. So instead of saying you want to attack the orc and then waiting for me to say if it hit or missed you'll just know if it did and can mark off the monster's HP yourself, and/or remove it from the battle if it's KO'd. Additionally you'd be able to make the monster's saves for me to resist your spells and effects or whatever. Going along with this I'll sometimes make saves for your characters.
The idea is to have each action fully resolved in a single post, rather than having to wait for the action to ping the DM and then ping back - something which wastes time and causes bottle-necking in the game as we wait for a single action to resolve before anyone else can go.
This idea extends even to more complicated actions like Attacks of Opportunity and such. If you want to do something and you know it would provoke an AoO, just go ahead and roll the AoO for the monster yourself.
Additionally, in regards to initiative, I'll likely have it go in sides. Where all the monsters take their actions in a single post, and then each player takes their actions.
5. I trust you guys to tell the story.
Going in line with the above, this method of play requires a fair amount of trust. No one will be seeing anyone's rolls, and sometimes actions will be declared for a character/monster that may not have been exactly what they would have done. It's important to keep in mind that this kind of RPGing is hybridized with round-robin storytelling and as such, sometimes you just have to go with the flow. I trust you guys.
6. Be descriptive.
We have an opportunity here to be very creative with our individual actions. Describe every swing of your weapon. Get creative with the play of light on the walls caused by your spells. Give monster reactions as the light fades from their eyes due to a well landed crit. Since we're only taking one or so actions each day, we might as well make each action cool.
Now if you can't think of anything, or you're just too tired to try, or whatever then it's okay to simple say "I attack the orc *roll* and miss." and then leave that as your entire turn. Keeping the game moving is still the priority.
7. Theater of the Mind.
D&D 5e and TOR both lend themselves well to mapless play. They're designed to be more abstract and not require precise positioning and the like. As such I'm going to be going mapless this time around. If it totally doesn't work then I'll work something out, but I'd prefer to keep it abstract and just let stuff flow. In that spirit I'm likely to give the players the benefit of the doubt. Is the goblin in range for a charge attack? Such why not. Can I set up a spell to hit both of those monsters? That's fine! Only in cases where I clearly want the monsters to be at certain distances and locations will it be an issue and then I'll write out clearly that they are out of range or whatever.
8. Fun.
The game won't even get off the ground if no one has fun, and who knows, we may never even start it. I'm writing this out now to force myself to get things started since I've been talking about it for so long. If interest is minimal and it putters out then it's not for want of trying this time. So here's hoping! Roll for initiative guys.
1. What games will be played here?
Currently I'm looking at starting a Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition game. It would be the easiest and I'm sure I could force some interest in the new D&D out of some people. I'd also really like to start a game of The One Ring, the newest Middle Earth RPG, but that may be a ways off, and fewer people might be interested in it.
2. How would this work?
Basically I post what's going on, and then each player posts their action in response. It's pretty self explanatory I would think.
3. Frequency of Posts.
Ideally everyone should take at least one action a day, though I'm thinking only every week day. I'll most likely check the forums several times a day, so if there is a day where people feel like posting a bunch we might get several turns done. Just remember that play by posts are slow by nature.
4. Control issues.
Because of the nature of PBP games, both DM control and player control will be shared responsibility. To a point. I'll likely list the general stats for a monster such as it's Armor Class, and Saves and any reaction special abilities it has. Something along those lines. Then players will actually be able to resolve their own attacks during the game. So instead of saying you want to attack the orc and then waiting for me to say if it hit or missed you'll just know if it did and can mark off the monster's HP yourself, and/or remove it from the battle if it's KO'd. Additionally you'd be able to make the monster's saves for me to resist your spells and effects or whatever. Going along with this I'll sometimes make saves for your characters.
The idea is to have each action fully resolved in a single post, rather than having to wait for the action to ping the DM and then ping back - something which wastes time and causes bottle-necking in the game as we wait for a single action to resolve before anyone else can go.
This idea extends even to more complicated actions like Attacks of Opportunity and such. If you want to do something and you know it would provoke an AoO, just go ahead and roll the AoO for the monster yourself.
Additionally, in regards to initiative, I'll likely have it go in sides. Where all the monsters take their actions in a single post, and then each player takes their actions.
5. I trust you guys to tell the story.
Going in line with the above, this method of play requires a fair amount of trust. No one will be seeing anyone's rolls, and sometimes actions will be declared for a character/monster that may not have been exactly what they would have done. It's important to keep in mind that this kind of RPGing is hybridized with round-robin storytelling and as such, sometimes you just have to go with the flow. I trust you guys.
6. Be descriptive.
We have an opportunity here to be very creative with our individual actions. Describe every swing of your weapon. Get creative with the play of light on the walls caused by your spells. Give monster reactions as the light fades from their eyes due to a well landed crit. Since we're only taking one or so actions each day, we might as well make each action cool.
Now if you can't think of anything, or you're just too tired to try, or whatever then it's okay to simple say "I attack the orc *roll* and miss." and then leave that as your entire turn. Keeping the game moving is still the priority.
7. Theater of the Mind.
D&D 5e and TOR both lend themselves well to mapless play. They're designed to be more abstract and not require precise positioning and the like. As such I'm going to be going mapless this time around. If it totally doesn't work then I'll work something out, but I'd prefer to keep it abstract and just let stuff flow. In that spirit I'm likely to give the players the benefit of the doubt. Is the goblin in range for a charge attack? Such why not. Can I set up a spell to hit both of those monsters? That's fine! Only in cases where I clearly want the monsters to be at certain distances and locations will it be an issue and then I'll write out clearly that they are out of range or whatever.
8. Fun.
The game won't even get off the ground if no one has fun, and who knows, we may never even start it. I'm writing this out now to force myself to get things started since I've been talking about it for so long. If interest is minimal and it putters out then it's not for want of trying this time. So here's hoping! Roll for initiative guys.
