Play by Post Kudos (and some begging)

[Sifu Blackirish]

A couple of months ago, I inherited a phone from my son that has a full qwerty keyboard, along with internet access.

During slack time at work, I have been lurking around various forums, and have been getting an education.

I must admit that TNE left me pretty cold, because of the change to house rules and short time span. However, I got a lot of knowledge, especially the Dave Nielsen section...but I babble.

I have been considering running my own PbP adventure, so now I am lurking there. Great stuff! I did have a few questions...

Do we now have a 'standard' procedure for how often to post?

When are OOC interventions required?

Do you really trust your players to roll dice?

Since I have never run an adventure in this format, can I do it and not look like a complete fool?

BTW, Baron S, you get a gold star for your play of the Hiver! What references did you use as a guide? Your excellent play has me considering using a Hiver variant as my 'Outsiders' (from beyond the galaxy) in my ATU.


Okay, enough babbling. Please respond!

 

[CosmicGamer]

Dice rolling

Do we now have a 'standard' procedure for how often to post?

No.

When are OOC interventions required?

What do you mean by intervention?

Do you really trust your players to roll dice?

Not really, but I'd let them unless they are always rolling high. Then I would take some sort of action.

A die rolling site can be used. http://hamete.org/dserver/dice is one that can send results.

Asking for, and waiting for dice rolls can slow things down in a PbP.

I can think of no reason why the roll can't be made by the GM to keep things moving. Players might also roll for certain typical and non major plot actions and act accordingly in order to keep things moving.

Since I have never run an adventure in this format, can I do it and not look like a complete fool?

I don't know. Roll 2d6 and add Edu and GMing skill DMs.

 

[Icosahedron]

A couple of months ago, I inherited a phone from my son that has a full qwerty keyboard, along with internet access.

Reverse inheritance - a sign of the times.

During slack time at work, I have been lurking around various forums, and have been getting an education.

I must admit that TNE left me pretty cold, because of the change to house rules and short time span. However, I got a lot of knowledge, especially the Dave Nielsen section...but I babble.

I have been considering running my own PbP adventure, so now I am lurking there. Great stuff! I did have a few questions...

Do we now have a 'standard' procedure for how often to post?

By negotiation with your players - if they're all busy people, once or twice a week might be all you can expect, but if they're keen and have nothing better to do, you could find yourself replying more than once a day.

When are OOC interventions required?

Any time you have something worthwhile to say to, or ask of, players. (OOC is for stage direction, discussion of proposed actions, clarifications, requesting and supplying info that would be available to characters, etc. not discussing football.

Do you really trust your players to roll dice?

Do you have any alternative? How important is it? As Cosmic said, get a feel for what is being rolled and be ready to step in, run your game in a 'narrative style', emphasising role-play over roll-play and make use of Rule#1 where necessary. (Rule#1 - The Referee is always right!)

Since I have never run an adventure in this format, can I do it and not look like a complete fool?

Does it matter?

If you fall into the custard pie mix, just wipe your eyes, flick it off your fingers, give a meaningful stare into the camera, and push everyone else's face into the mix.

If everyone's having fun, who cares? Go ahead and enjoy yourself.

 

[Gadrin]

A couple of months ago, I inherited a phone from my son that has a full qwerty keyboard, along with internet access.

During slack time at work, I have been lurking around various forums, and have been getting an education.

I must admit that TNE left me pretty cold, because of the change to house rules and short time span. However, I got a lot of knowledge, especially the Dave Nielsen section...but I babble.

I have been considering running my own PbP adventure, so now I am lurking there. Great stuff! I did have a few questions...

Do we now have a 'standard' procedure for how often to post?

When are OOC interventions required?

Do you really trust your players to roll dice?

Since I have never run an adventure in this format, can I do it and not look like a complete fool?

BTW, Baron S, you get a gold star for your play of the Hiver! What references did you use as a guide? Your excellent play has me considering using a Hiver variant as my 'Outsiders' (from beyond the galaxy) in my ATU.


Okay, enough babbling. Please respond!

Easy, run it as a "one-off" say a four-week adventure keep it relatively simple and use it to explore and understand the PBP process.

Don't worry about perfection or making RPG history, simply do it. Then you'll see where your story-telling needs to be concise or needs work, where your information needs to be accurate, how the player's perceive things, whether you need maps and so on.

In most cases PBP is just a big story-telling session where everyone gets to participate. You can allow PCs to roll their own dice EXCEPT in certain situations where the GM must do it -- or not.

Anyway, make up an introductory scenario, run them thru it, do some analysis during an interim break, and then offer the next installment.

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