New beginnings … and a couple questions

[Aspekt]

Good Morning!

I have been playing 5e for some years now, but never in the play-by-post format.

I am very interested to get more involved, but I’m somewhat hesitant given that most people describe this as a multi-year commitment in their game ads.

Are there any games here on MW that are “open format” where the community can spectate the game, just to get a sense of what PBP usually looks like?

Also, what advice do the mods have for people who want to iterate, playing a couple short games before jumping into these multi-year epics?

Thanks in advance :)

[Basil_Bottletop]

The inherent nature of pbp is that even a short game takes months to play. With asynchronous posting times for all members of the game, there's no dedicated time slot for updates by all members of the table. Thus, a post today by Player A might not be seen by Player B until tomorrow evening. So by that very act, a single scene can take awhile to resolve. Most tables have roughly 5 participants, which means that two of them might be able to sync up on occasion, but to avoid leaving everyone else out of the scene they can't back-and-forth more than a few posts (*give or take the importance of the scene itself).

There are open games available to read and get a feel for games. I'll post one or two that show different styles and pacing.

Peacemonger's Games - Peacemonger has chosen to run multiple games under the same game thread. I'm in the Haunted Hearth game and the other one -Pilgrimage- is being played under a different tab. I linked the Pilgrimage game because it seems to be moving at a fairly brisk pace. Since July, they've been able to get into what Peace has considered a second chapter. I believe Peace's intent is for both of these games to be rather 'short' in nature; with the goal being to end them by the end of Chapter 4 or 5. A 'one-shot' of only 4 or 5 chapters is still only halfway there 7 months later.

Burning Sky - This game has been going on much longer, and was ported over from the OG MW. It has been on a few hiatuses as we moved from one GM to another and then a minor break while we figured out how to adjust from the loss of one of our crucial players (which you won't notice because it was all amicably done over Discord).

PbP games are just kind of a slow burn. The games that advertise being quicker usually keep that pace for a short time at the beginning before compartmentalizing the posting rates to a few individuals. Then those individuals either become the focal points because they are the most prolific posters, or they slow their posting to match the slower ones.

[Aspekt]

Basil,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, and I appreciate the links. I will definitely take a look at them and give them a read.

I’ve been considering running a shorter “one-shot” on here, and while I don’t doubt my GM skills, I do worry that translating the soft-skills of an in-person GM to the PBP world might be difficult!

Are you aware of any threads here or elsewhere that might address best-practices for the PPB GM? The somewhat crazy thought I had was to run a game for a couple newer players, but include 1 wizened GM and 1 wizened player who could give us tips in the OOC block when we’re running off the rails.

I noticed most games seem to run in closed mode, if we could run the game in spectator mode so people can give us pointers, that definitely seems helpful!

[Aspekt]

I think I was able to somewhat answer my own question, as Peacemonger has very thoughtfully created a GM’s Corner that goes into more depth than I could have hoped!

[Basil_Bottletop]

Oh yeah, Peace has put their thoughts on many subjects down on paper for all to see. The idea of having a savvy vet around isn't a bad one though, either as a player or co-gm. The luck would be finding one that fits what you're looking to accomplish. You might even mention it in your ad that you're looking for a sounding board for best practices and other unwritten hints of PbP.

Re: Closed Mode

This is a new function of the new site and I don't understand the thought process behind locking your game. It's a personal preference thing and maybe something some people don't even know they're doing...but it still boggles my mind.

[Powderhorn]

I actually ran a game in a "one-shot" adventure style over the past year, and you're more than welcome to take a look and see how it went :)

https://www.myth-weavers.com/index.php?/clubs/666-powderhorns-one-shots/

[Aspekt]

Great, thanks for this! I will add it to my list of resources and reference. Was this your first Play by Post? What did you learn from running your one-shot?