What makes a successful game? Share your best tips.

[cailano]

For the purposes of this forum, please grant me the concession that "successful" means "a game that made it to 1000 posts, or which lasted at least three months."

I know several of us have cleared that bar in the past. Some of us have had games last for years.

So, what's the secret of your success?

I know the humble answer is that you had a great group of players. A good group is incredibly important.

That said, I've noticed that some GMs seem to have a knack for finding good groups or bringing the best out of any group. Their games are consistently successful.

So, again, what is your secret?

 

I'll start.

 

My secret to success is momentum. I think I do a lot of things pretty well as a GM, but momentum is the big one. I keep my games moving by posting a lot and knowing when to get out of a scene. That keeps players engaged and the game alive.

I could say more, but I'd like to keep our tips simple. I can't wait to hear yours.

Next!

 

 

[Vladim]

Stubbornness & Consistency & Enjoyment of the thing.

[Malkavian Grin]

I'll second consistency and a refusal to let the game die--even if that's just posting in the OOC to keep people engaged.

You must know when to push the narrative forward and keep up the flow of the game. If things stagnate, it's far too easy (IMO) for a player to just forget what's going on or lose interest because it's not hot in their brain daily. Sometimes you must give up your perfectly crafted scene in order to just keep the damn thing afloat. (I'm a bit of a perfectionist)

[cailano]

Three votes for consistency, y’all!

What else do you got?

[cailano]

Well, there you have it, folks. For anyone who finds this thread in the future, the secret to running a successful game is to post regularly and end a scene if things are starting to drag. The rest is up to you!

[DarkisNotEvil]

Chipping in to give a fourth vote to consistency. Here's a good metaphor I've heard: Brushing your teeth three hundred and sixty-five times twice a year is obviously ineffective. Consistency is essential, because it underpins everything else. A bad GM practicing regularly may eventually become good, but a good GM irregularly won't be able to put themselves to use.

Edited June 25, 2023 by DarkisNotEvil (see edit history)

[Actana]

Saying that "consistency and post often" is all well and good, and it is indeed one of the core ways to keep a PbP game going, but I think it's a goal, not the means to it. How do you get consistency? How do you guarantee that people keep posting? How do you prevent that lassitude that makes participants go "eh, I'll post later"? Those, I feel, are the important questions because they will help the games towards the aims of consistency.

Personally, I think one of the key methods to accomplish this is by the paradigm of "action, reaction, action". Every post made by either player of GM (but especially GM) should have either an implicit or explicit statement of "what do you do?". Always leave an opening for the players to react to something, to keep the actions going and to prompt a new post from them. Never end a post in a fugue state where there is nothing to latch onto for the next post.

[shawnhcorey]

2 hours ago, Actana said:

Always leave an opening for the players to react to something, to keep the actions going and to prompt a new post from them.

I agree. Look at the PCs' abilities, goals, and flaws. Then provide a hint as to what they might try next. The best stories always progress when propelled by the character motives. Try to give a lead for the PCs to follow.

[Vladim]

I don't think "post often" is necessary-my longest-running game is at a rate of 1-2 GM posts/week, but it's still going after 7 years. It's just a matter of expectations.

As is consistency really: it's more about having a social contract of a pre-agreed posting rate and sticking to it (or communicating inability to post OOC). It's more about discipline and commitment than anything else for me. Of course, the game itself has to be satisfying, but that's a whole other topic.

I definitely have things to say about the action-reaction-action paradigm; for once, I may be at a (slight) disagreement with Actana, but it will have to wait until tomorrow when I have a laptop in front of me and not a phone 🙂

[Actana]

Certainly there is a lot more nuance to the topic, but there are only so many times I can will myself to write a thesis on such topics.

[DarkisNotEvil]

9 hours ago, Actana said:

Saying that "consistency and post often" is all well and good, and it is indeed one of the core ways to keep a PbP game going, but I think it's a goal, not the means to it. How do you get consistency? How do you guarantee that people keep posting? How do you prevent that lassitude that makes participants go "eh, I'll post later"? Those, I feel, are the important questions because they will help the games towards the aims of consistency.

Personally, I think one of the key methods to accomplish this is by the paradigm of "action, reaction, action". Every post made by either player of GM (but especially GM) should have either an implicit or explicit statement of "what do you do?". Always leave an opening for the players to react to something, to keep the actions going and to prompt a new post from them. Never end a post in a fugue state where there is nothing to latch onto for the next post.

I'll contrast this, because I think it's good advice but it suffers from a flaw if overused: Specifically, always reacting is exhausting and feels like a chore.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone pulled you out of doing something, and then as soon as you were done you needed to be elsewhere, and then someone else wanted your help? It's frustrating to never be done with obligations given by others. Sometimes, you can't have a 'man come through a door with a gun in his hand', because the PCs need to decide where they go from where they are on their own initiative.

I have gained the belief as I age that the motivation you give is the motivation you get: If you prompt the players with gold, you get responses from people who want gold. That seems obvious, but I find more often than not that when people say they're motivating with one method, that method is secondary to the actual motive, usually a widely-appealing one (like gold).

You have to know what your players actually want, and you have to tell them how they can get it. If they don't have something they want, or they don't think they can get it, the game is as good as dead. Story is driven by conflict, and conflict is driven by desire.

[Actana]

Obviously not every hook at the end of a post has to be urgent or distressing. They simply need to be something to segway into making a next post. It can be as simple as "the bartender looks up to you and asks 'what's your poison?'" to "after finishing his monologue, the dark lord walks down his evil stairs of skulls, arms outstretched as if to welcome you to his domain, getting closer and closer towards you". Or it can be a guy with a gun bursts through the door.

A good example of the exact opposite of this is the "internal monologue". Witnessing the internal thoughts of a character can be interesting, but there's little to react to if that's the sole post. You end up with a post that doesn't really go anywhere and stalls the scene and impedes momentum rather than builds on it.

 

On a completely unrelated topic, I find that writing less but more efficiently is a good way to maintain interest long term. Long posts can be nice in establishing mood or setting up important scenes, but for everyday posts the information to words ratio should be kept as high as possible. The more you can convey with fewer words the better. After all, PbP requires a lot of rereading earlier posts, and as such being able to efficiently parse the essentials from previous posts when writing your own post is exceedingly useful and helps people get to writing sooner and easier.

[shawnhcorey]

23 minutes ago, Actana said:

On a completely unrelated topic, I find that writing less but more efficiently is a good way to maintain interest long term. Long posts can be nice in establishing mood or setting up important scenes, but for everyday posts the information to words ratio should be kept as high as possible. The more you can convey with fewer words the better.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

[cailano]

Nuance is kind of useless when it comes to general tips, which is why I stated in the beginning that we should keep things simple.

We could distill some of the walls of text above into good tips though.

* Write posts that require a reaction from players

* Avoid walls of text. Short and sweet is better (not being snarky, it's really up there!)

 

[Malkavian Grin]

2 hours ago, Actana said:

The more you can convey with fewer words the better.

I am extremely guilty of writing overly-flowery text that, while fun and descriptive, always ends up far, far too long. Just like that sentence I just wrote. It's just how my brain works (autism superpowers ACTIVATE!)