Well it allows me to play which would otherwise be fairly impossible. I love that you can get a deep level of immersion and really highlight the world and bring characters to life. Shy players can express themselves fully without being talked over and the DM/GM has time to adapt and shape things for their players which is great if your not the fastest thinker in RL.
Fully building a world and bringing aspects of it to life over time. I'm coming up on the 15 year anniversary of my Dragon Warriors RPG PbP, its going to feel quite strange when we conclude.
I'm also in a situation where PbP is my only option for D&D. I'm just discovering it and I see so much potential in it. And I especally enjoy that my hearing problems are never even remotely an issue.
A near 15 year campaign is phenomenal! I would also like to hear more!
Oh, and if you're looking for something to do once your Dragon Warriors RPG concludes, there's a PbP project you might want to take a look at, even if it's just to add your thought to.
Fully building a world and bringing aspects of it to life over time. I'm coming up on the 15 year anniversary of my Dragon Warriors RPG PbP, its going to feel quite strange when we conclude.
That is awesome to hear, congratulations. Care to share a few details about this game? Like group size and what you've felt particularly changed this campaign about it being playing in PbP, good aspects and bad?
Sure. Its based obstensibly on the ( https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/94177/Prince-of-Darkness ) adventure, though when I started it I was using the original 80s paperback version. I greatly expanded the background and added more complex political forces to facilitate the characters backgrounds.
There are currently 12 players though we've gone as low as 6 and s high as 14 over the years, only one of the characters that started the campaign is currently involved at its end others have died or joined along the way the majority have been playing for the last 8 years after an almost TPK in one chapter.
I have needed to be flexible and players have also needed to allow me to determine some aspects of their PCs to thread them into the narrative. The current group consists half of a local exiled Clan head and his family/huscarls and a group of 'ambassadors' from the kingdom of Ereworn to the south who owe a degree of fealty to him.
How long have you been playing D&D PbP? I tried it when 5e first came out on Tavern Keeper. Players bailed pretty quick though. Very happy with Tavern Keeper however. Just started a Sunless Citadel adventure here. If I lose players, I am getting replacements and see this thing through the end.
How many games do you have going at any one time? As player? As DM? Just one at this time, I plan on starting another, all as DM
What do you like best about it? When I have played as a player, I have had some great experiences. You have time to really roleplay your PC and make them seem real. I had great experiences playing a mid 50's weapon master (Mythras) with younger fighters and we had some great exchanges. Some epic battles with frog riding goblins while on a raft, just great. As a DM, I ran a Pathfinder mystery focused game that went for 900 some posts!
What do you like least? Player's and GMs ghosting, one player left and started recruiting for his own game even after I figured out how to put their initiative card next to their pog and pretty much did everything they wanted. They never got out of PC creation so ha!
I see some super long campaigns on RPG Geek for Runequest which is really cool, I am insanely jealous.
This board seems to be the best for 5e people so I am hopeful I can keep the campaign going for many many posts. I expected the tools to be better however but we can manage.
I would love WOTC to publish a PBF focused book with tips and hints for DMs and players and with a PBF focused adventure. Some better campaign tools would help, Tavern Keeper was best I have found so far. I really like the PC sheets being managed here on Beyond, that's really nice.
20 years if you include games by email. Also other game systems
How many games do you have going at any one time? As player? As DM?
I feel like I can handle my character well in maybe 3 games at a time. At most one as a DM at a time because there is more going on there.
What do you like best about it?
PBP when done well can get some really good deep RP. This is where you can have proper conversations between characters and really develop their personality. I set up a PBP Discord server to go with our weekly roll20 game and the two have complemented each other brilliantly. Also I feel like you can go all-in on narrating your abilities or spells without ever feeling you are slowing the whole game down and making other players wait. So when it works properly the PBP format is a lot more descriptive.
What do you like least?
Sadly they do tend to just die due to players and/or DMs ghosting. But then to be honest games IRL quite often die before they reach a natural conclusion too. But I'd say that the lack of human contact means that happens a bit more with PBP games.
I get sad if the posting gets so slow that I'm sat there for days with nothing I can respond to. An active PBP game gives you something to look forward to doing every day - the overall pace of it can be the same as a weekly conventional game if you manage this. This is mostly an issue once combat starts, to be honest you can chat between characters "on the road" and its perfectly good RP opportunities.
20 years? that's amazing. Adventures fading out seems to be the common theme in this discussion. There's an experiment some of us have been working on as a result of these discussions. You might want to check it out. It's still in early days. What we really need are more DMs and players running multiple adventures at the same time for this to really take off, but it's coming along slowly. It's called "the Worlds of Pphost" though right now we just have the one world, Haven. The idea is to have a persistent setting where PCs can spend downtime between short Adventures, run by any of a number of Pphost DMs.
Haven is a small, mostly wilderness demiplane with a small settlement (also called Haven). The third adventure we've run is wrapping up. In second adventure the DM quit suddenly. One of the others picked it up and finished it successfully, so I consider that a good sign for this concept in general.
The main recruitment thread is here. It's a bit of a mess due to the clumsy Character Creation set up I came up with. We should soon (?) be replacing it with something much easier to navigate and much more professional looking created by one of the DMs. The Haven reference thread is here and an experimental downtime thread is here. The downtime thread is floundering a bit. I think because of how few players we have. I think once a critical mass is reached then we'll start seeing player driven stories happening there between adventures. You should check it out.
I have been playing PbP for about four years, since early-2017.
I'm currently in one Shared/Open World (aka West Marches Style). We have about 40+ players, 12 active adventures, and around 10 GM (some of us double up). I have had several PbP DnD adventures die when a single GM leaves, and we have had a fair bit of turnover in the GM in our Shared/Open World. However, I vastly prefer this format because it is less likely to leave your characters abandoned. We even have GMs that run multi-part stories across several adventures with different sets of players. We don't have co-GMs, but another GM had had to jump in on several occasions and complete an adventure when we lost a GM mid-adventure.
I PbP things other than DnD, but I found my limit on DnD games is about two as a GM and three as a player.
What I like best about PbP. A bunch of stuff. There is time to think about and research rules before making a turn. You don't need to commit blocks of time to play. You can go into more detail in written posts (vs. a single player/character having the spotlight).
PbP games tend to run slow - most are around 2-3 posts/week. Scenes can stretch over multiple weeks and adventure over months. A consequence of the long times is that you tend to lose players and GMs over time.
I think the biggest problem with PbP is people join them with playing campaigns, reaching high level etc. in mind. When imho it really works mostly for (irl) short one shots or at least campaign divided into short adventures
I think the biggest problem with PbP is people join them with playing campaigns, reaching high level etc. in mind. When imho it really works mostly for (irl) short one shots or at least campaign divided into short adventures
I wouldn't say it's the biggest problem itself, but yeah, I get what you mean. The only two PbP games I've taken part in that have reached conclusion were one-shot adventures that were playable in-person in roughly 4 hours.
I'm also in a situation where PbP is my only option for D&D. I'm just discovering it and I see so much potential in it. And I especally enjoy that my hearing problems are never even remotely an issue.
A near 15 year campaign is phenomenal! I would also like to hear more!
Oh, and if you're looking for something to do once your Dragon Warriors RPG concludes, there's a PbP project you might want to take a look at, even if it's just to add your thought to.
The Worlds of Pphost a community of DMs and Players making PbP better
Malichi, Tiefling Rogue - Worlds of Pphost- The Amazing Teleportation Machine
DM Worlds of Pphost - Haven 'A Few Days at a Tavern'
Extended Signature
Sure. Its based obstensibly on the ( https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/94177/Prince-of-Darkness ) adventure, though when I started it I was using the original 80s paperback version. I greatly expanded the background and added more complex political forces to facilitate the characters backgrounds.
There are currently 12 players though we've gone as low as 6 and s high as 14 over the years, only one of the characters that started the campaign is currently involved at its end others have died or joined along the way the majority have been playing for the last 8 years after an almost TPK in one chapter.
I have needed to be flexible and players have also needed to allow me to determine some aspects of their PCs to thread them into the narrative. The current group consists half of a local exiled Clan head and his family/huscarls and a group of 'ambassadors' from the kingdom of Ereworn to the south who owe a degree of fealty to him.
1. Started with Warhammer FRP PbP about 15 years ago... Jumped back Into it PbP when Critical role mentioned D&DBeyond
2. 2-3 games at the same time is imho enough (give space to other players looking for a game to join) ;)
3. I like mostly everything about it:D except..
4. ..ghost DM and Players
How long have you been playing D&D PbP? I tried it when 5e first came out on Tavern Keeper. Players bailed pretty quick though. Very happy with Tavern Keeper however. Just started a Sunless Citadel adventure here. If I lose players, I am getting replacements and see this thing through the end.
How many games do you have going at any one time? As player? As DM? Just one at this time, I plan on starting another, all as DM
What do you like best about it? When I have played as a player, I have had some great experiences. You have time to really roleplay your PC and make them seem real. I had great experiences playing a mid 50's weapon master (Mythras) with younger fighters and we had some great exchanges. Some epic battles with frog riding goblins while on a raft, just great. As a DM, I ran a Pathfinder mystery focused game that went for 900 some posts!
What do you like least? Player's and GMs ghosting, one player left and started recruiting for his own game even after I figured out how to put their initiative card next to their pog and pretty much did everything they wanted. They never got out of PC creation so ha!
I see some super long campaigns on RPG Geek for Runequest which is really cool, I am insanely jealous.
This board seems to be the best for 5e people so I am hopeful I can keep the campaign going for many many posts. I expected the tools to be better however but we can manage.
I would love WOTC to publish a PBF focused book with tips and hints for DMs and players and with a PBF focused adventure. Some better campaign tools would help, Tavern Keeper was best I have found so far. I really like the PC sheets being managed here on Beyond, that's really nice.
How long have you been playing D&D PbP?
20 years if you include games by email. Also other game systems
How many games do you have going at any one time? As player? As DM?
I feel like I can handle my character well in maybe 3 games at a time. At most one as a DM at a time because there is more going on there.
What do you like best about it?
PBP when done well can get some really good deep RP. This is where you can have proper conversations between characters and really develop their personality. I set up a PBP Discord server to go with our weekly roll20 game and the two have complemented each other brilliantly. Also I feel like you can go all-in on narrating your abilities or spells without ever feeling you are slowing the whole game down and making other players wait. So when it works properly the PBP format is a lot more descriptive.
What do you like least?
Sadly they do tend to just die due to players and/or DMs ghosting. But then to be honest games IRL quite often die before they reach a natural conclusion too. But I'd say that the lack of human contact means that happens a bit more with PBP games.
I get sad if the posting gets so slow that I'm sat there for days with nothing I can respond to. An active PBP game gives you something to look forward to doing every day - the overall pace of it can be the same as a weekly conventional game if you manage this. This is mostly an issue once combat starts, to be honest you can chat between characters "on the road" and its perfectly good RP opportunities.
20 years? that's amazing. Adventures fading out seems to be the common theme in this discussion. There's an experiment some of us have been working on as a result of these discussions. You might want to check it out. It's still in early days. What we really need are more DMs and players running multiple adventures at the same time for this to really take off, but it's coming along slowly. It's called "the Worlds of Pphost" though right now we just have the one world, Haven. The idea is to have a persistent setting where PCs can spend downtime between short Adventures, run by any of a number of Pphost DMs.
Haven is a small, mostly wilderness demiplane with a small settlement (also called Haven). The third adventure we've run is wrapping up. In second adventure the DM quit suddenly. One of the others picked it up and finished it successfully, so I consider that a good sign for this concept in general.
The main recruitment thread is here. It's a bit of a mess due to the clumsy Character Creation set up I came up with. We should soon (?) be replacing it with something much easier to navigate and much more professional looking created by one of the DMs. The Haven reference thread is here and an experimental downtime thread is here. The downtime thread is floundering a bit. I think because of how few players we have. I think once a critical mass is reached then we'll start seeing player driven stories happening there between adventures. You should check it out.
The Worlds of Pphost a community of DMs and Players making PbP better
Malichi, Tiefling Rogue - Worlds of Pphost- The Amazing Teleportation Machine
DM Worlds of Pphost - Haven 'A Few Days at a Tavern'
Extended Signature
I have been playing PbP for about four years, since early-2017.
I'm currently in one Shared/Open World (aka West Marches Style). We have about 40+ players, 12 active adventures, and around 10 GM (some of us double up). I have had several PbP DnD adventures die when a single GM leaves, and we have had a fair bit of turnover in the GM in our Shared/Open World. However, I vastly prefer this format because it is less likely to leave your characters abandoned. We even have GMs that run multi-part stories across several adventures with different sets of players. We don't have co-GMs, but another GM had had to jump in on several occasions and complete an adventure when we lost a GM mid-adventure.
I PbP things other than DnD, but I found my limit on DnD games is about two as a GM and three as a player.
What I like best about PbP. A bunch of stuff. There is time to think about and research rules before making a turn. You don't need to commit blocks of time to play. You can go into more detail in written posts (vs. a single player/character having the spotlight).
PbP games tend to run slow - most are around 2-3 posts/week. Scenes can stretch over multiple weeks and adventure over months. A consequence of the long times is that you tend to lose players and GMs over time.
I think the biggest problem with PbP is people join them with playing campaigns, reaching high level etc. in mind. When imho it really works mostly for (irl) short one shots or at least campaign divided into short adventures
I wouldn't say it's the biggest problem itself, but yeah, I get what you mean. The only two PbP games I've taken part in that have reached conclusion were one-shot adventures that were playable in-person in roughly 4 hours.
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