What systems are most suitable for Play by Post?

[OgreBattle]

In an Adventurer Conquerer King game now, anyone played that before? I'm focusing on healing skills as an assassin.

It seems like games with quick combat and no interrupt actions are ideal.

[Username17]

Play by Post chokes on:

Interrupt Actions.
Positioning.
Defender Rolls.
Multiple Rounds.


So Shadowrun doesn't have interrupt actions, but the defender has to roll defense and soak, so it can take a full day to resolve a play by post attack (and a single action can be two shots, so it can be two days for one person to double tap another in the chest). 4e moves all dice over to the attacker's side of the table, but of course it's a confusing mess of squares and it's filled to the gums with interrupt bullshit so while the game can march along with each player acting when they log in - but you end up having to go back constantly because you forgot something or someone wants to interrupt an event four posts ago or some shit. That and a single battle is like 8 rounds, meaning that it takes like 2 fucking weeks to resolve "us versus the orcs" and it's just terribad for that.

So what you want is a game where the attacker rolls all dice, where interrupt actions are near nonexistent, where positioning is abstract and largely meaningless, and where combat is over in two round smack downs. So the ideal play by post game is... New World of Darkness.

Which is one of the many reasons I don't really play by post.

-Username17

[hogarth]

In an Adventurer Conquerer King game now, anyone played that before? I'm focusing on healing skills as an assassin.

It seems like games with quick combat and no interrupt actions are ideal.

Interrupts are definitely a big pain in the ass in play-by-post. Although interrupt actions are kind of a pain in the ass in general.

I agree that a quick and easy game would probably make a better play-by-post, but I've never played anything using PbP/PbEM except D&D variants. Oh wait, I played a game of Paranoia once for, like, a day before I gave up.

Play by Post chokes on:

Interrupt Actions.
Positioning.
Defender Rolls.
Multiple Rounds.

I haven't had problems with positioning in PbPs, as long as the GM is willing to update a map (e.g. using a Google spreadsheet or MapTools snapshots is easy enough). And I've played in games where the GM rolls everything, and I thought it was fine (although you get into the issue of interrupts again).

Things that I have seen a PbP grind to a halt on:

Splitting the party --> This can be even worse than in a tabletop game if you get stuck in a bottleneck where you're waiting for a single person to finish his scene and he's only posting once every two days, or whatever.

Dungeon crawling/mazes --> Day 1 "Do you go left or right?": Day 2 "I vote for right" "I vote for left": Day 3 "I don't care, right I guess.": Day 4: "Okay, you see a 30 ft corridor with a set of double doors at the end and a single door on the right wall.": Day 5: "Zzzzz..."

Lots of conversation --> A back-and-forth conversation that would take 10 minutes in a tabletop game can take forever in PbP.

[Eikre]

You can eschew defense rolls when you're play-by-posting. I mean, the conceptual transition from 3X to 4E moves all the rolls to the attacker by averaging rolls for saves and then randomizing the spell DC, and it's not difficult to do the same deal for other systems. Even if you don't want to altar any numbers you can still have the attacker roll for the defense rolls and just hope for low numbers; it's the same RNG in any case, just a different user requesting a result.

So it's not really a substantive concern.

[Username17]

I haven't had problems with positioning in PbPs, as long as the GM is willing to update a map (e.g. using a Google spreadsheet or MapTools snapshots is easy enough).

Any time you have to wait for another specific person to do something, that is adding up to 24 hours to the game, depending on how often you and they log in. Even if the GM logs in obsessively to update that map, if he hasn't done it yet when you're logged in, you won't be able to take your action until you log in again - which could very easily be tomorrow.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

For D&D, I've found it's best to have the DM do all of the obvious reactive rolls. This includes things like Initiative and saves, or opposed grapple checks. The worst thing is when the game has to keep pausing for one person to provide a roll. It's nice to have the DM just make this roll and keep things moving.

Where this really falls apart is if the PC has options for doing interrupts (such as using Moment of Perfect Mind to make a Concentration check in place of a Will save). Then, you either have to wait for player input, or halfway through the round, the player speaks up and says "Hey, I wanted to use my counter!". Of course, they're going to sit there quietly if the DM rolls the save and announces it as a success.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Currently, I'm a big fan of the Crypts of Chaos model where there are lots of fiddly details that could kill your PCs if ignored and nobody is irreplaceable.

Player attrition can be enough of a problem for Play By Post that making the game depend on any one player maintaining interest could be problematic.

[hogarth]

I haven't had problems with positioning in PbPs, as long as the GM is willing to update a map (e.g. using a Google spreadsheet or MapTools snapshots is easy enough).

Any time you have to wait for another specific person to do something, that is adding up to 24 hours to the game, depending on how often you and they log in. Even if the GM logs in obsessively to update that map, if he hasn't done it yet when you're logged in, you won't be able to take your action until you log in again - which could very easily be tomorrow.

In my PbP experience, one or more players post an action and then the GM adjudicates the result and updates the map within a single post. Removing the map update would not speed up that process; the GM is still posting his reponse at whatever rate he usually does.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think ideally you'd want something really abstract, like Heroquest or something. Anything with actual fiddly tactical positioning would be right out.

[hogarth]

I think ideally you'd want something really abstract, like Heroquest or something. Anything with actual fiddly tactical positioning would be right out.

Just to clarify -- I have had problems with positioning in play-by-post games, but the majority of them have come in games with "abstract" positioning (which usually translates to "not abstract at all, but the map only exists in the GM's mind", in my experience).

"I charge the wizard and hit him with my axe."
"You can't, you're too far away (even though I was consistently vague about how far away you are)."

[Grek]

Simultaneous action is a big benefit to PbP games. Stuff like Mafia, Diplomacy and Dominions all work well, since A] you don't need to wait on anyone to be able to do your turn and B] you can have a time limit where you say "Anyone who doesn't have a turn sent by 12 AM Friday doesn't do anything this turn."

[hogarth]

Simultaneous action is a big benefit to PbP games.

In the better quality D&D play-by-post games that I'm involved with, the GMs group all of the NPCs' actions into a single turn whenever possible. That simplifies things quite a bit because it's essentially collapsing the turn into the PCs' turn and the NPCs' turn.

[Endovior]

In the past, whenever I've been trying to run PbP and there are interrupts causing slowdown, what I usually do is I have a quick chat with any players who have notable interrupts, and ask them in advance under what circumstances they would plan to use that ability. Since D&D has tons of fiddly junk like interrupts to get +X to saves, it's usually not too big of a deal to get activations conditions for that kind of thing in advance, and then just automatically have the characters in question use those abilities on queue, as if they readied an action or something.

[Kaelik]

In the past, whenever I've been trying to run PbP and there are interrupts causing slowdown, what I usually do is I have a quick chat with any players who have notable interrupts, and ask them in advance under what circumstances they would plan to use that ability. Since D&D has tons of fiddly junk like interrupts to get +X to saves, it's usually not too big of a deal to get activations conditions for that kind of thing in advance, and then just automatically have the characters in question use those abilities on queue, as if they readied an action or something.

And what about Abrupt Jaunt or Wings of Cover? Do you just allow people to use those as actual interrupts?

[Endovior]

Trufax: I haven't had a player use either of those in a game I've run. That said, resolution time is a cruel and demanding god, to whom many sacrifices must be made. If someone's going to go through the list and take a whole bunch of fiddly abilities that let him go back through the round a day later and say "whoops, no that didn't happen; everyone re-do your actions"... then I, as DM, say "fuck you, no, you can't do that; give me the circumstances in which you'll interrupt in advance, or it doesn't fucking happen, because I am not going to bog down my game for that shit".

But I'm pretty much up-front about that, so it's not like I'm screwing people over by means of opaque houserules that I don't explain until the worst possible moment.

[koz]

I think After Sundown fits the bill pretty well. Frank's just too humble to pimp his own system.

[RadiantPhoenix]

What do we have for PbP besides combat?

[Korgan0]

Ars Magica works fairly well, in my opinion; it's fairly common for players to go off on their own adventures/with a few other companions, and with some temporal lenience things can resolve pretty well. Since player input is only really required in each season and at certain specific events that necessarily involve the entire covenant (dragon attacks or whatever) if one player isn't responding you can just go "they're in their lab doing whatever the fuck, let's go harvest some vis." Interrupts are a problem, but if you just have players specify conditions and ban actual interrupts, it's a decent solution. Soak rolls are annoying, but the GM can handle them if necessary and the nature of magical combat is such that if something breaks through your Parma (which doesn't involve a defender roll) you're probably fucked.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

For out of combat, there's always potential with a system that uses currency-driven MTP rather than dice, such as Munchhausen or Nobilis.