mosker
5th Level Troll
Posts: 533
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Post by mosker on Aug 21, 2023 22:24:14 GMT -5
Hello all. Between the two active GMs on the bridge, we have decades of PBP experience, but I imagine throughout the bridge we have centuries worth...
So, this is an open ended inquiry into not only your personal lessons but any articles/writers/guides/etc. you've found and what you may think about their advice.
After all, GMing depends a great deal on the style of the GM and the composition of the players but as I've discovered looking at gamebooks across rules systems as well as different physical platforms , the practical, technical and personal details of actual playing matter more than we're often ready to address when so much effort already goes into making story and mechanics complementary (and getting buy-in from all at the 'table').
Thanks!
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apn
5th Level Troll
Posts: 578
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Post by apn on Aug 22, 2023 3:47:39 GMT -5
The other site I run/GM on is: darkeningshadows.darkbb.com/forumWe started in 2009 (October) on someone elses site (who eventually started up RPGpub. First call Endless Flight then RPG Beat before we left then he shut down and started up RPGPub). That taught us a valuable lesson: Make sure your playing space is safe, secure and will always 'be there'. Back up everything. When he took the site down for changes the first time we couldn't get on for days. Get peoples email addresses so you can keep them in the loop. Or better yet, get your own place. Forums are free generally (ad supported) and you can limit the number of people who get on them. I've had a number of spam types who try it on but between me and two of the longest running players we stamp it out. Not had any bother for years now and 13 years in our own place, one year on the 'change name every week' place. Pacing is everything (posting rate). Play by post is great when there's no other way to play and logistics/work/real life get in the way. A GM has to understand that players sometimes have stuff that takes precedence. Players should understand GMing feels like a job sometimes (when you already have at least one job plus others - kids, house, chores, family and friends etc, all needing your time and attention). If everyone is relaxed about it and doesn't expect instant responses games last longer. Sudden unexplained vanishing acts kill off momentum and its hard to get started again. Strike a balance between very short one word/line answers and war and peace. If it's a long post make it amusing. If it's a rambling epithet about the state of the world and all in it, plus the price of grain and the political situation between the farmers guild and the labourers union, chances are it won't get read, merely skimmed over. Summarise what your character really wants to do in a section labelled 'Actions' or similar. At a glance a GM can look and say 'ok, all that waffle means you are going to hit the Orc on the head with the rock. Cool.' instead of describing every feint and strike, duck , weave, thrust and parry in the actions. GMing isn't easy. For example striking a balance for challenging the whole party may mean some of the characters have an easy ride and others get it rough. For example in DOHA (Days of High Adventure) we start with Klarrrrchur at Level 5 while everyone else is at 1. That's purely down to the system and great rolls for stats, so no ones fault. A GM might say 'everyone starts at level 1 so use those stats for non Dwarves' or go with it, on the understanding that advancement will be faster for the Level 1 guys because the Level 5 guy is doing the heavy lifting. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, it's a balancing act. As a GM listen to the players. Most will have GM'd a fair ol while themselves and they know the rules as well or better than you do. When you come up with a house rule be prepared to change it because it may not work for everyone. In short, be flexible, be adaptable, be fair and behave. Had a rules lawyer in the Supers game and she questioned everything. The game ground to a halt on a number of occasions as a result and (first time in my playing career of 42 years) I asked the player to leave the game. Take note of when the pacing is too slow and switch it. Introduce something unexpected. Fun for you, fun for the players. There is nothing more dull (to me) than reading out a published module. Honestly my eyes would glaze over reading out the blurb from Keep on the Borderlands or whatever. Turn up the dial. Set the module against the backdrop of an active battle happening even while the characters are looting the dungeon. Have the corridors shudder with impact, the screams of the dead and dying fill their ears and introduce some urgency. Change the monsters partially or completely. Change the treasure, the reason why they are there. Mix and match adventures. Even if the players have been through B2 (or whatever) before they'll get a surprise when they find the antagonists are undead/rogue elves/giant frogs etc Set limits. An end time of the combat/chapter/adventure/game. If you do have an end time in mind make sure it builds to a satisfying conclusion or a cliffhanger. Something in between isn't very memorable.
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Post by houndle on Aug 22, 2023 4:53:10 GMT -5
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Post by ProfGremlin on Aug 22, 2023 20:22:31 GMT -5
I'll agree with houndle , excellent info apn . I'll speak from my own experience as a player in a few different PbP's. Based on that experience, I'm loathe to GM one. Well, that and I'm a professional cat-herder IRL, so... I'll add two (?) points: 1) From what I've seen PbP is mostly slow. The couple we have going on right now on the 'Bridge, Ximuria Adventures and Days of High Adventure, are unusual to me in their daily post count. I keep track of the most recent posts page twice a day, at least, before and after work. Today I've scrolled through three pages of posts just for those two games. So, definitely the exception to my own experience. Based on the above, my recommendation would be to consider whatever adventure you're going to run through the lens of a convention time slot. If you could run it in that time frame you'll be good. Expect that to last roughly a month in PbP time. So, my personal conversion would be a 4 hour convention slot would be run in a month via PbP. As apn mentions, people have things that come up and take their focus off the game. This is frustrating for the GM and other players who were relying on that character's contributions. When stress happens, one of the first things to go is the PbP game you're in. So, have a plan in place for that. Communicate. Have another player or the GM puppet your character until you can get back to the game, if that's something you can do. A series of short adventures loosely linked together would be more rewarding for players when they know they can bow out, maybe adopt new characters between adventures or that other players could join at a conveniently timed break. 2) I'll agree with apn 's statement of balancing monosyllabic vs. War & Peace. I tend towards the verbose in such games as I like to draw the reader in and engage their senses. There's nothing more frustrating to me than to spend a couple of hours on a well-crafted scene than to have the next post read, "I hit it with my sword." Really? Are we running the game in Twitter now?? Yeah, it's a pet peeve. A "session" zero where an agreement can be made as to what style of posting is expected can go a long way towards mitigating such frustrations. I'm sure there are those who would read my posts and "Get to the point already!" One game I was involved in was written in first person. I included both dialogue and inner thoughts. The character had a particular way of speaking. So, I included that dialect in both his speech and thoughts. I found out a couple of months in that it was @#$$%^&* off the GM and some of the other players. Would have been nice to know that at the outset. Overall, communicate and expect to be flexible. Things are going to go sideways at some point. Even if you don't have a plan for that, ask "What can I do, here?" and build from that point. Always keep the game moving forward and folks having fun.
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Post by houndle on Aug 23, 2023 2:48:07 GMT -5
I'd like to add a couple of things from a player's perspective. Will also link to some things that apn and ProfGremlin have said. I'm playing in both the current adventures, really enjoying them. As a player the feeling is rather different in each. Which I think is something for players to consider: Be aware of the style of the GM / other players. I've tried to do this, maybe not always succeeded. On occasion I have deleted a fairly long message before posting because, however pleased I was with myself for creating it, I wasn't sure how it would go down in terms of the direction of the adventure and other people's perspectives. I'm quite bad at keeping the "fourth wall" intact; I think I've got better, but I would certainly do some of the early "Will Darness" posts differently if I was writing them now. One of the things I've found most difficult to manage is in-character interaction. Sometimes I've seen an opportunity for badinage which comes to nothing because the moment has passed by the time everyone has caught up with posts. Unavoidable for the reasons apn has outlined and especially when Transatlantic communication is necessary. It would be a good, interesting and probably impossible experiment if we could ever get all the adventurers in the same virtual space for a short time. But I suspect that is moving off-topic. Frequency of posts, I try to respond to most posts even if with just a one liner so that the GM knows I'm still around / interested. There's also that bit about keeping everyone informed of absences where possible . In practice I don't think either of the games has adhered strictly to the schedule we set up, and that's okay as long as everyone is happy. I do get these occasional moments of doubt that I am forcing the pace. There is possibly another form of "balance", which is balance between role-play and action. By which I mean in-character narrative vs combat (and anything else which involves consulting the rulebook). (Recent events have demonstrated to me just how much detail is contained in the Lair of the Leopard Empresses book.) Anyone who has looked at my character sheets and posts will probably guess that I love the story telling aspects of the game (spoiler alert! When in character, my people don't necessarily tell the truth at all times); but sometimes it's also fun to just roll the dice and have at it with some virtual foe. As always, no right or wrong answers provided everyone enjoys the game.
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Post by johntgg on Aug 23, 2023 9:07:01 GMT -5
One of the things I've found most difficult to manage is in-character interaction. Sometimes I've seen an opportunity for badinage which comes to nothing because the moment has passed by the time everyone has caught up with posts. Unavoidable for the reasons apn has outlined and especially when Transatlantic communication is necessary. It would be a good, interesting and probably impossible experiment if we could ever get all the adventurers in the same virtual space for a short time. But I suspect that is moving off-topic. I've found this an issue as well, a lot of interactions feel very 'drive by' if that makes sense. I think it's mainly an issue with multiple characters being present, as I've noticed in games I've ran the more pcs means the less character on character interaction. Not that I'm not enjoying the interactions we do get in the pbp, it's pretty fun I think our 'auto crashing' in Ximuria Adventure helps out a ton. When playing I'm not much of a leader role, I usually just go with whatever the others want so having the "been gone too long, the characters will go along" works great for me personally. Especially during things like last week where I would only realize I hadn't posted that day at like 11pm when I was already in bed
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Post by industrialchild on Oct 2, 2023 11:49:43 GMT -5
Would any of you guys like to set up a PBP here for either Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls, Monsters! Monsters! or MSPE. I'm down for either being a player or a GM. I can pull from my catoluge on T&T characters! If at all possible I would perfer the format to be a face to face game, as I feel that these are the most rewarding from my experiences! I prefer to keep my GMing old school and interact with the player during character creation, asking them questions and if they like give them Senory Snippets to flavor something about their character being made up in real time. I also have no problems with people in game asking out of character questions. They can do so in parathensis.
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Post by nialldubh on Oct 2, 2023 12:24:37 GMT -5
Would any of you guys like to set up a PBP here for either Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls, Monsters! Monsters! or MSPE. I'm down for either being a player or a GM. I can pull from my catoluge on T&T characters! If at all possible I would perfer the format to be a face to face game, as I feel that these are the most rewarding from my experiences! I prefer to keep my GMing old school and interact with the player during character creation, asking them questions and if they like give them Senory Snippets to flavor something about their character being made up in real time. I also have no problems with people in game asking out of character questions. They can do so in parathensis. We do have two PbPs occurring, feel free to join any one? apn's The Days of High Adventure!trollbridge.proboards.com/board/45/apns-days-high-adventureask apn for that one... Ximuria, using LotLe rules based on M!M!trollbridge.proboards.com/board/50/ximuria-adventuresI am GMing this one. The rules are slightly different, but only like 5% different, basic T&T stuff.
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Post by houndle on Oct 2, 2023 12:29:31 GMT -5
HiĀ industrialchild, as you've probably already spotted there are 2 adventures currently running on the bridge, not sure about vacancies but both GMs are Good People so I will leave it to them to advise on that. I'm in the middle of drafting something I may throw out as a possible PbP but due to a possible house move in the near future I'm not planning to start anything for a couple of months. Likewise with your MSPE mission, normally I would have asked to play but at the moment I'm swamped with real-world legal stuff to do with the house. Also, I might annoy you with endless questions about background; I'm a Brit and my knowledge of US culture is sadly lacking. When you said 1976 I immediately thought Man from UNCLE / I Spy which might not be quite the feel you are looking for.
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Post by industrialchild on Oct 2, 2023 12:53:35 GMT -5
Hello houndle, I am a new fan of your work and I've been playing with Rama Miki, a Level 1 Goblin Rouge through your solo adventures today and have been having an absolute blast with them! You inspire me to create and share as well. As far as that MSPE mission, what I'm looking for in secondary to me. If you immeadility thought Man From UNCLE / I Spy. Then that's the world we'll play in... I'm quite flexible so if we do get a chance to play a one on one game with you being a hitman or assassian type character, then you don't have to be Theodore Cadell. Either you tell me a name and the sex of your character or I'll generate for you a list of about 6 names for you to play with to either discard and ask for 6 more or interchange as you see fit to create a character and concept that speaks to you. We could roll up new attributes using the house rule that is similar to what I use for T&T character creation. Instead of the traditional roll 3d6, I will have you roll 4d6. After you roll the 4 dice, we will remove the lowest value and total that number. There is a cavet to this. TARO is still in effect here. So I won't remove the lowest vaule if that would mean destroying a wonderful tripe in the process!!! For example if you rolled, 1, 1, 1, 5; I would remove the 5, total the three and have have you roll just 2d6 more with DARO now in affect. We can come up with a nice range of stats that way. I will use a similar process for determining your wealth also. One of these days, we should totally do this if you are open to the idea!
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Post by houndle on Oct 2, 2023 13:02:14 GMT -5
Cool, if you don't get a better offer in the meantime I'll come back to you on this when I can see my way clear. Hopefully I'll know better in a couple of weeks just how much pain this move is going to cause. I'm more than happy to go with what you've outlined - sounds good, but may I need a quick primer on the geography of New Orleans. Today I have been daydreaming (purely hypothetically) about good places to ambush a judge.
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Post by industrialchild on Oct 2, 2023 13:27:52 GMT -5
Don't worry about the geography! That's my native stomping ground! From your address, how you get to Pat O' Brian's is up to you. The organization, on behalf on Nichet (whom you know as Sergi, a friend, a local of New Orleans and a scrubber for C.R.O.W.) could pick you up from your address. Or, you might (we'll let you stats and talents dictate this) choose to go on foot. Which on foot would be roughly 25 minutes of travel to get to the meetup. Regardless of travel, we would exit your home at the intersection of Humanity and St. Cluade. Make a quick left and bump a quick right. From there we would stomp through the end of Decatur Street right through the ever-expanding and always bustling French Market. Would you fancy to maybe grab some beginnets (French donuts) and a cup of coffee from the Cafe Du' Monde? Would you like to lose yourself in the immersive jazz tunes playing live in real time from the Geazabo Cafe as we speak?
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Post by houndle on Oct 2, 2023 13:48:56 GMT -5
Ok.
I'm gonna look for a news vendor, see if there's anything about this judge in the newspapers. No time to look thru everything, but if he's above the fold this could be a sticky assignment.
1976... are we closing in on the Bicentennial celebrations?
OOC we may need to take this to a new thread to avoid confusion.
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Post by industrialchild on Oct 2, 2023 14:02:42 GMT -5
Cool what thread do you purpose? And where? You have no shortage of news vendors near where you live. In fact you go to one whom you've grown to trust in the French Market. You know her as POP and so do the locals. "Hey, what's going on? The usual?" She hands you a copy of the Times Picaqune and to the headline grips you: "Citizens Restless After Biast Judge Sentences 15 Year Old Male to Death! Motivation Racial?" This judge is a top teir hit. Hence your pay upon completion. He is a dirty and corrupt public official, one whose got his fingers in many pockets, including that of hate groups.
We are indeed closing in on the Bicentennial celebrations and the crowded streets reflect this.
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Post by mahrundl on Oct 2, 2023 16:23:58 GMT -5
industrialchild, we can set up a new board for your game if you'd like, similar to the Days of High Adventure! and Ximuria boards. Or if it's just you and a single player, a new thread in the MSPE sub-forum might be all that you need. Mahrundl
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