A system for play by post

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Fri Jun 14, 2019 9:49 am

I’ve enjoyed online page games like nation states and arcmage where you do things on a timer and then you get the results

I figure something similar could work for a dungeon crawl if things aren’t abstracted by 10second turns but a larger time unit or a goal based system such as the encounter lasting one round when everyone has posted

I could see a “program 3 consecutive actions” thing too

shinimasu · Post by **shinimasu** » Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:15 pm

The best PbP systems are ones where the players are given some leeway to dictate the outcome of an action.

The thing that slows down PbP games usuaully waiting on the GM to make a ruling. 5 players go, then the GM has to respond to each of them. A more streamlined PbP system has the GM pop in organically as the story demands to play an NPC or bad guy.

For example in D&D play by post a lot of the post delay can be mitigated by telling the players the AC and Health of the monster so that they can narrate in the same post whether or not they've missed, and/or trigger any actions dependent on a hit.

So for example you go from this:
Player: I strike at the goblin with my great sword for 2d6 damage. I roll an 18.
GM: You connect with the goblin.
Player: Great so I do 2d6 and another 1d6 from (insert random on hit effect here). That's 12 total. -narrates clocking the goblin-
GM: Congrats you have slain the goblin, but his death has triggered (insert more story things here)

To this:
Player: I roll an 18 to hit and a 12 total for damage which kills the goblin in front of me. -narrates goblin slaying things-
GM: Congrats you have slain the goblin, but his death has triggered (insert more story things here).

This doesn't fix all of the issues with PbP D&D, conventional initiative still doesn't work for example, but it fixed a surprising amount of them.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Jun 15, 2019 3:38 am

Perhaps something munchausen like where everyone is player and GM

Zaranthan · Post by **Zaranthan** » Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:57 am

This is one of the few things Munchausen is one of the worst choices for: it's built on interruptions.

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Sat Jun 15, 2019 3:24 pm

I started banging out a Bear World hack where anyone can be the DM, partly in order to play it PbP: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54445

But I didn't care about it enough to actually get a group together and try it out, so...

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:18 pm

Foxwarrior wrote:I started banging out a Bear World hack where anyone can be the DM, partly in order to play it PbP: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54445

But I didn't care about it enough to actually get a group together and try it out, so...

I played a few sessions (around a table, not PbP) back in 2016, though I used an even more pared down ruleset.

The first session was a hilarious romp that saw a hacker, a dirty cop, and a very hungry man raid Trump Tower looking for munchies. The second was a weird sprawling epic about a war between the Moon and Earth, which was eventually solved by forcefully sitting all parties down to a fantastic Moon Banquet. The third was a real mess. Some of the trouble was because there were two storylines that didn't really intersect - one revolving around the invention (and subsequent theft) of Canada Cakes, and the other around a scientist's mad plan to reverse global warming. Also, one of the players was the most unimaginative and boring person I've ever met, but none of us had the heart to tell him that in front of his wife.

The take away was that you really need to emphasize the Imply a Vast Plot principle, and every member of the group has to be capable of storytelling. But given a good group, it can spin some strange and awesome stories.