Running Solos for a group in play by post...

[apn]

As it says, has anyone done the above? I'm thinking of starting with Naked Doom and mixing it up in case there are any... if not cheats then say 'people who like to be prepared' and/or may have played it in the past. Obviously instead of one Small filthy troll there will be one per PC and so on.

The solos I'm thinking of running are for very early versions of the game so there may be other things I need to consider if using the latest (Deluxe) version. Since printing off the rules I've been reading up on it and am pretty much decided the next play by post I run will be for T&T (Other games I considered were BECMI, Talisman Adventures, Fleaux! and Against the Darkmaster but T&T will be the quickest to explain to newbies and should run nicely in a play by post format).

In terms of rule changes and adapting older adventures (Naked Doom and Deathtrap Equaliser spring to mind) can anyone think of anything else that may need consideration? I was going to map those two books out with a flowchart but if anyone has already done that or can point me in the right direction of a map that would be helpful!

Thanks for any input!

Cheers, Paul

[darrght]

Hi apn ,

I mapped Naked Doom when I was at University in the late 1980s. I've certainly posted it but I'm not sure if it is here or elsewhere
I will check for you

[ProfGremlin]

The two biggest issues I've seen with Play-by-Post (PbP) is 1) the time dilation aspect and 2) the low ranking of importance it has in peoples lives.

What I've noticed, and with no scientific study to it, is that it takes about a month of posting time per hour of in-person-table-top time. Yes, those are the non-scientific estimates It can sometimes feel like a slog when you look back over a months worth of posts and think, "That's all that's happened? We've been playing for longer than that.". So, people can get discouraged.

Additionally, people seem to join PbP games as an adjunct to whatever other gaming they're doing. Lives get busy, stuff comes up and people drop commitments they don't feel strongly about. So, the PbP game they started six weeks back gets relegated to a link in their bookmarks because they certainly aren't going to prioritize a PbP over their in-person gaming or other responsibilities. In some ways, PbP is more disposable than solos.

Heck, even i've had to drop out of a couple of PbP's that I had every intention of sticking with.  Life got eventful a couple of months in and I simply didn't have the wherewithal to keep up with it in the face of other responsibilities and pressures.  It happens.

I've periodically wondered if it would be a more structurally sound approach to string together a series of episodes, possibly with a changing cast of characters.  Take the short adventures that folks write to be little episodes for single sessions that are a break in the main storyline of a campaign.  Make those your sessions.  Look into One Page Dungeons or maybe the Five Room Dungeon.   They would fit well in a PbP format for time and, if folks step away from the game, much easier to slot in new players, or even characters if a player wants to change them out.  I would hazard a guess that your idea, apn, of running a series of solos could work in this respect.

There's a lot to be said for PbP.  It is, however, a unique medium in gaming with its own strengths and challenges.  If you think of it along the lines of movie/book/comic book (table-top/solo/PbP) you begin to see that it's not better or worse than other mediums, it just tells the story differently.  Knowing how you want to layout that story will help you build it to last.

[darrght]

Mar 26, 2022 14:11:42 GMT -5 ProfGremlin said:

The two biggest issues I've seen with Play-by-Post (PbP) is 1) the time dilation aspect and 2) the low ranking of importance it has in peoples lives.

What I've noticed, and with no scientific study to it, is that it takes about a month of posting time per hour of in-person-table-top time. Yes, those are the non-scientific estimates It can sometimes feel like a slog when you look back over a months worth of posts and think, "That's all that's happened? We've been playing for longer than that.". So, people can get discouraged.

Additionally, people seem to join PbP games as an adjunct to whatever other gaming they're doing. Lives get busy, stuff comes up and people drop commitments they don't feel strongly about. So, the PbP game they started six weeks back gets relegated to a link in their bookmarks because they certainly aren't going to prioritize a PbP over their in-person gaming or other responsibilities. In some ways, PbP is more disposable than solos.

Heck, even i've had to drop out of a couple of PbP's that I had every intention of sticking with.  Life got eventful a couple of months in and I simply didn't have the wherewithal to keep up with it in the face of other responsibilities and pressures.  It happens.

I've periodically wondered if it would be a more structurally sound approach to string together a series of episodes, possibly with a changing cast of characters.  Take the short adventures that folks write to be little episodes for single sessions that are a break in the main storyline of a campaign.  Make those your sessions.  Look into One Page Dungeons or maybe the Five Room Dungeon.   They would fit well in a PbP format for time and, if folks step away from the game, much easier to slot in new players, or even characters if a player wants to change them out.  I would hazard a guess that your idea, apn , of running a series of solos could work in this respect.

There's a lot to be said for PbP.  It is, however, a unique medium in gaming with its own strengths and challenges.  If you think of it along the lines of movie/book/comic book (table-top/solo/PbP) you begin to see that it's not better or worse than other mediums, it just tells the story differently.  Knowing how you want to layout that story will help you build it to last.

What ProfGremlin said

[mahrundl]

Some good responses here, and I don't have a lot to add. But add it I will...

Tied in with Prof's comments about time dilation, PbP makes it hard to maintain momentum. If there are several days (or even just hours) between rolling the dice and finding out what happens, it's hard to stay 'in the moment'.

Related to that, the ability to immediately react to events, in the sense of responding with only minimal time to think, also tends to get lost. It's much harder to feel like your character is about to die if you don't do something if you can leisurely check your spell list to see what might help in this case, spend time working out how you can make a primitive flying machine from what's in your backpack, or get a good night's sleep before tackling the problem afresh.

I do think that PbP has its place - it's certainly not worthless. But it isn't the easiest format to work with.

[apn]

Well... I have been playing by post for 20 years on and off and currently (with no plans to stop) run a play by post campaign for a supers game.

We started in 2009 on someone else's forum and - to put it bluntly - he dicked about with it meaning sometimes you couldn't log on or the forum would vanish and need to be looked up again. It was his forum so he could do what he wanted but it prompted me to find my own place for gaming (since April 2010 so coming up to 12 years in our own place).

Dedicated players are key. Two I have gamed with (online) since the early noughties, another since the early teens and another has been around for a couple of years. The last only posts once or twice a week but hasn't gone awol. The first two post pretty much every day or other day at the latest and the 'middle' player is a couple of times a week.

So long as you pace yourself accordingly Play by post can work long term. Here's the proof:

darkeningshadows.darkbb.com/forum

[mahrundl]

Glad that it has been successful for you, apn.

Regardless of anyone's opinions on how good or bad a method of playing is, the only really important aspect is whether it works for those involved.

[apn]

Supers is a different prospect to Fantasy RPGs I'll admit. For a start off there's not much in the way of zero to hero path as you start out (at the very least) competent and that removes a lot of the requirement to level up and it's nowhere near as lethal. I guess to have a successful, lasting Fantasy campaign you'd need dedicated players (and GM), interesting game world and a system that doesn't grind to a halt when combat starts, hence the choice of T&T as system (there's no D&D style 'whiff' as miss after miss occurs at low level) and using published adventures to get things kicked off.

Having a lasting Supers Campaign play by post is one thing, I'm not sure if the same can be done with Fantasy games. Every game I've participated in (including ones on this forum) have fizzled out sooner rather than later after a bright start despite having excellent GMs and enthusiastic players. Maybe 'levelling' type games aren't suited to play by post, but it's an itch I'd like to at least have a crack at scratching...

[cupboardgnome]

Mar 27, 2022 15:22:09 GMT -5 apn said:

Supers is a different prospect to Fantasy RPGs I'll admit. For a start off there's not much in the way of zero to hero path as you start out (at the very least) competent and that removes a lot of the requirement to level up and it's nowhere near as lethal. I guess to have a successful, lasting Fantasy campaign you'd need dedicated players (and GM), interesting game world and a system that doesn't grind to a halt when combat starts, hence the choice of T&T as system (there's no D&D style 'whiff' as miss after miss occurs at low level) and using published adventures to get things kicked off.

Having a lasting Supers Campaign play by post is one thing, I'm not sure if the same can be done with Fantasy games. Every game I've participated in (including ones on this forum) have fizzled out sooner rather than later after a bright start despite having excellent GMs and enthusiastic players. Maybe 'levelling' type games aren't suited to play by post, but it's an itch I'd like to at least have a crack at scratching...

Having never tried PBP and liking T&T a lot, I would happily participate in the Itch Scratching campaign, if you needed an extra player   I already have three characters in the Naked Doom dungeon - they are in a rotting pile of corpses not far in...

[apn]

Mar 28, 2022 2:22:38 GMT -5 cupboardgnome said:

Having never tried PBP and liking T&T a lot, I would happily participate in the Itch Scratching campaign, if you needed an extra player   I already have three characters in the Naked Doom dungeon - they are in a rotting pile of corpses not far in...

When I'm ready to go (I'm reading, re-reading and reading again the TnT Deluxe rules to make sure I don't miss anything as there are one or two bits in there that raise my eyebrows) I'll see if I can run something on here first (being the first port of call for TnT in my opinion) and if I can't find enough players will take to other forums but will send you a PM wherever it ends up.

One 'house rule' that sprung to mind is:

1) Players keep the Xp, not the character. If your character perishes you (as a player) lose a percentage of AP/XP earned but apply the remainder to a replacement character you roll up. It's not 'immortality' as such (as the character dies) but the death rate in Fantasy RPGs suggests this may need addressing for a play by post.

2) Another one I was thinking of was 'Humans earn 10% more experience'. Most players would default to being Dwarven Warriors if they are going for the warrior type (I would anyway) with 2x Str and Con. It's a no brainer. To avoid squadrons of Dwarvish warriors being the default (along with Elf/Fairie/Leprechaun Wizards) the Human +10% AP/XP might be an incentive to play as the boring/standard Human types. If you then perish (see house rule number 1) and choose to be a non human you lose the 10% bonus from human AND lose a percentage from having perished but will hopefully still get some AP/XP to carry over to a new character.

[cupboardgnome]

Mar 28, 2022 2:48:43 GMT -5 apn said:

Mar 28, 2022 2:22:38 GMT -5 cupboardgnome said:

Having never tried PBP and liking T&T a lot, I would happily participate in the Itch Scratching campaign, if you needed an extra player   I already have three characters in the Naked Doom dungeon - they are in a rotting pile of corpses not far in...

When I'm ready to go (I'm reading, re-reading and reading again the TnT Deluxe rules to make sure I don't miss anything as there are one or two bits in there that raise my eyebrows) I'll see if I can run something on here first (being the first port of call for TnT in my opinion) and if I can't find enough players will take to other forums but will send you a PM wherever it ends up.

. Thanks. Those two rules sound good.

[apn]

Been reading through the DT&T rules today...

All well and good, mostly familiar but for some tweaks and small changes from the version I'm most familiar with (5.5 though I have 7, 7.5 and an earlier version somewhere on the shelves plus whatever the Corgi books are. 5 I think).

Then the Missile combat. Is it just me being dense or is the writing clumsy/crunchy/not well explained?

I was about to bring that up as a 'someone clarify it for me' but I see in the Combat section of the forum that it's come up quite a few times. I think it just needs clearing up.



I'll head over to the Combat section of the forum to read up on peoples' responses. I realise I'm (very) late to the DT&T party despite having backed it on the Kickstarter but the size of the book put me right off doing anything with it until I split it into two books and printed it off. Spoke to my cousin tonight mentioning that DT&T was a hefty bullet stopper of a tome and his response was 'How can T&T be so big? Isn't it the most basic and enjoyable system there is?'. He's not played or even seen the game since 7e so was surprised the game book had swollen somewhat.

[houndle]

Mar 28, 2022 2:48:43 GMT -5 apn said:

Mar 28, 2022 2:22:38 GMT -5 cupboardgnome said:

Having never tried PBP and liking T&T a lot, I would happily participate in the Itch Scratching campaign, if you needed an extra player   I already have three characters in the Naked Doom dungeon - they are in a rotting pile of corpses not far in...

When I'm ready to go (I'm reading, re-reading and reading again the TnT Deluxe rules to make sure I don't miss anything as there are one or two bits in there that raise my eyebrows) I'll see if I can run something on here first (being the first port of call for TnT in my opinion) and if I can't find enough players will take to other forums but will send you a PM wherever it ends up.

One 'house rule' that sprung to mind is:

1) Players keep the Xp, not the character. If your character perishes you (as a player) lose a percentage of AP/XP earned but apply the remainder to a replacement character you roll up. It's not 'immortality' as such (as the character dies) but the death rate in Fantasy RPGs suggests this may need addressing for a play by post.

2) Another one I was thinking of was 'Humans earn 10% more experience'. Most players would default to being Dwarven Warriors if they are going for the warrior type (I would anyway) with 2x Str and Con. It's a no brainer. To avoid squadrons of Dwarvish warriors being the default (along with Elf/Fairie/Leprechaun Wizards) the Human +10% AP/XP might be an incentive to play as the boring/standard Human types. If you then perish (see house rule number 1) and choose to be a non human you lose the 10% bonus from human AND lose a percentage from having perished but will hopefully still get some AP/XP to carry over to a new character.

I would certainly be up for a pbp game. Was hoping to organise something myself, but had to put it on hold temporarily to get my head around dT&T. 


The point about experience is well made, though it might be a little hard on non-humans at the higher levels. After all there is a built-in balancing mechanism in terms of the cost to advance an attribute. On the whole I might be inclined to restrict the abilities of starting characters but not impose extra penalties during the game.  

Another thought I've been pondering is including little features within the game itself to challenge non-human characters, e.g. A vital lever that's just out of reach for the average dwarf, a rickety bridge that a heavily laden warrior is going to break. Nothing particularly clever, just something to make players think about their character choices.

[apn]

Had a think about a pitch for a play by post game. I'm also open to suggestions for house rules/tweaks and will consider anything. It's years since I've run T&T so my knowledge of the rules won't be perfect! Another thing to consider - I'm not sure if this site has a dice roller and whether players are fine with me sorting out the rolling so as to avoid things grinding to a halt whilst a roll is required.

The 'Too Long, Didn't Read' (TLDR) version is:

You are a beginning adventurer in a relatively civilised area distinctly lacking in places you can raid to kill monsters, take their stuff and claim the glory which you seek. So you need to take a job, and as it happens, a trading fleet needs willing sell-swords and spell throwers (I think I just figured out a name for a D&D OSR clone...) to guard the Merchants on their trip to Khazan.

That's the short version, the long version is...

[apn]

The first step on the path to glory...

The call to adventure is strong in your ears and you spent much of the money gained from working, begging, borrowing or stealing the equipment you now hold or wear. You are ready to delve, to seek your fortune, to fight and triumph against... Hmmm.

The reality of life before you even get to some long forgotten ruin stacked with treasure and danger rears its head. In a civilised land (or as near as can be called civilised on Trollworld) the ruins have been ransacked, the dungeons delved and labyrinths looted meaning you have to go further afield to find those places that still hold plunder.

They are out there, there’s no doubt. You need to get there first, and until then... there are bills to pay. At the rate your funds are diminishing, you’ll have a few days before you need to sell the equipment you’ve splashed out on... at rates that will make you cry.

So it is with a deep sigh and sense of resignation that you make your way through the crowds in the main street of town and towards the Tavern in the centre of the town square. Crowds sat around at tables supping steins of beer and smoking Hobb-Weed amongst other things remind you that you still might manage an afternoon on the beer to drown your... no. Job first, beer later!

One of the wide walls of the tavern is covered with pinned scrolls and rough scrawled text on them. Depending on your ability to read (IQ) you dismiss most of them. They generally request the killing or hunting down of something or other and payment in turnips or equivalent. Some promise treasure but are vague on the details. One promises a thousand gold for the slaying of a Dragon with the small print stating that whatever else of the Dragons’ hoard goes to the Village of Kharobett and it’s a legal binding document. Whatever that means. There’s plenty of adventurer types jostling to squint at the wall and more than a few asking what the scrolls say on them.

“Looking fer work?” asked a voice from behind. Turning, you (and a dozen others) see a middle aged man running to fat but dressed in fine quality clothes with gold rings adorning his fingers. His face is ruddy and weathered, the handlebar moustache below a prominent nose and the eyes twinkling mischievously beneath bushy brows. His clothes are bright and clash horribly. You can only assume he dresses in the dark or when drunk or if he wants to stand out – a red and white striped tunic, blue silk leggings, knee high black boots and a short purple velvet cape on his back rounded off with a yellow Cavalier Style hat with a feather in it. He looks... ridiculous!

“I am Rathmere the Ridiculous” he declares, puffing from a long hobb-weed pipe and blowing circular smoke rings into the air to the side. His voice is deep and has a compelling quality. No one is walking away.

“Time is short and this pitch will be to the point. The Merchant fleets of Sonan Ie need protection. They strike out from that Island to not far south from here at the port city of Jepik, and the crews swap from loaded boats to the empty ones to escort them back to be refilled. The loaded fleet needs hired swords to act as protection. You get your meals provided, a place to sleep and passage to Khazan. You are also paid. Twenty gold pieces per day, each, doubled for any combat days and a share of spoils. Might not sound like much but for those that can’t add it’s a two week journey and you’ll be looking at around three hundred gold pieces for a mostly quiet journey.”

“Mostly quiet?” barks a voice from the left somewhere.

“Aye. The Sonan Ie fleet is a fat, juicy prize fer pirates, make no mistake. They have some battle mages to discourage the scurvy dogs but steel, sorcery and stout hearts are needed to provide further discouragement.”

“Sounds like its dangerous!”

“Aye! It is! It’s also easy money fer the likes of you. You get passage ta Khazan with your pockets full of gold and from there ya can strike out to grab yer fortune. Ya see, I was where you are, when I was younger. Many is the friend I’ve buried or left to rot in a Tunnel with a Troll hot on my heels looking ta toss me in his pot fer dinner. This way there’s strength in numbers.”

“How many?”

“As many as I can sign up! A hundred sell swords! More, probably.”

“What? How would we all fit on a boat?”

“One boat?” chuckled Rathmere. “Laddie, have you been down to the dockside at Jepik? The Merchant fleet is thirty strong, fat ships laden with goods. It has a dozen smaller ships as war escort, but by small I mean enough to take a force of thirty sellswords each. My job is ta fill in the gaps to crew them fully with fighting men, women and... whatever else ye identify as. I ain’t fussy.”

“Gaps?”

“Aye. Gaps. Some don’t take ta the sea, others fall in battle. Some faint hearts can’t follow orders or exhibit cowardice. Any crew o sell swords that doesn’t do their duty gets a days’ pay docked at a minimum, dependin’ on the crime.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad!” called a voice from the back.

“No? Well one crew were yellow as they come and lily livered. Downed swords at the first sign o trouble and tried ta surrender. When we won th’ battle we stripped them o clothes and stuff and tossed them in th’ hold as oar slaves. When we got to Khazan they was sold ta th’ Arena. Another time we tossed the cowards overboard fer the sharks.”

“Sharks? What be them?” asked a country bumpkin with a pitchfork as his weapon and a tin pot as his helmet.

“Big fish lad, with the biggest teeth you never want to see. Mean...And they are mean... Lots o different sharks in the sea boy, but these things will make you never want to dip your toe in the ocean after you see ‘em." he looked about, puffing on his pipe as he appraised those present. "Think on all I’ve said but don’t dally. I leave when the sun dial strikes midday, not long from now.” he said before gazing over those gathered and adjusting his hat.

With a nod Rathmere walked away, calling out for Sell-Swords, Adventurers, Wizards, Rogues and those who seek adventure and fortune!

Two weeks, twenty gold a day, fed, a bed or hammock at any rate in which to sleep, plus passage to Khazan and access to the lands around that city which are rumoured to be laden with treasure stacked ruins and tombs... Of course, Khazan was a City ruled by Urucks and their Kin but even so... it provided a start better as a prospect than running out of money and labouring for a pittance...