I put a lot of work into starting a play by post campaign. Along with the basic information I said I wanted players that could be on at least every couple hours every day. An when they joined, they were at least in the "looking for players" forum. However, when I started the campaign, 2 of the players took several hours to post, 1 only posted once in these few days days. One person never showed up on the forum. This was what it was like 4 days ago, at the start of the campaign. After a day they entirely stopped, until yesterday a player came on to say he was ready to play but he never did.
The play by post has only been around for 4 days. Should I kick out the players and get new ones? Should I cancel the campaign? Should I just wait days for them to start posting again?
You probably weren't clear enough about what you were looking for when it comes to posting requirements and expectations. Also, it may be that some of your party is spread across multiple disparate time zones and maybe just aren't able to rapidly respond due to sleep or work concerns. Have you checked everyone's time zone and maybe confirmed free times? Have you set expectations that players can post a certain number of times before waiting for another player to respond, allowing folks to post as needed out of combat, with maybe a more specific posting structure for in-combat posting?
It may also be that the players you gathered just aren't as interested as you had thought. If that is the case, consider trading them out for more interested folks.
The short answer is: games routinely fail, and PbP, because of the nature of the medium, makes it particularly easy. I would probably assume it's failed, and also be less ambitious on scheduling in the future.
What do you mean by "could be on at least every couple hours every day"?
Should they are check for new posts at least every ~2 hours?
What about when they sleep? If they are in very different time zones then they will be sleeping at different times, so they won't always overlap to get fast responses to messages between each other.
Pbp is inherently more relaxed than playing live. That's the whole point of it - it makes dnd accessible whilst making it much slower. You get good bits where everyone is online, but there will be downtime. You also get people feeling it's easier to walk away from without consequence, as you are perhaps finding. Or they neglect to mention they're going away, or they start at the weekend and realise they haven't got time in the week. There's a lot that can happen with Pbp which doesn't happen with meeting up online or in person at a set time for a set amount of hours - it's the price you pay for eliminating the plague that is Scheduling.
Yes, they sleep. But at times they are awake they don't post, because it take many days for them to say anything, so they cant be checking much otherwise they will respond to the current event, which they have had days 3-4 days to do.
Personally, I think a request to read and respond every 2 hours is unrealistic. I realize you'd like to get a game moving along at a decent pace but typing up a considered response about what your character might do or say in response to posts by the other characters and the DM could take 5-15 minutes or more every 2 hours - I'd find that sort of time commitment impossible to manage in the real world unless I didn't have a job, didn't have relationships (wife/kids/other) and didn't have other things I needed to do.
On top of that real life happens, you have assignments, you forget (oh I signed up for a pbp, I better check if anyone posted yet), you have to work or your work blocks access to recreational websites or tracks your keypresses to make sure you are doing work (and not typing on your phone or doing non-work activities).
In addition to that, a lot of games collapse because folks realize that they just aren't into it, it isn't quite what they imagined and don't want to say something, they just decide to ghost it either because they are feeling self conscious about missing it for a couple of days and feel guilty about finally posting something, or they notice that no one else is bothering to post so they don't bother posting either (self fulfilling prophecy). Alternatively, they are just trolling in the first place.
The bottom line is that it can be challenging to get a group of like minded folks with the same availability in terms of time. I think if you are running a pbp then you'd be lucky to get once/day posts from most folks but I could be wrong.
Either way good luck! Hope you find a good group of players :)
P.S. On a more practical note, check in with them to see if they are still interested and see what kind of posting rate they think they could realistically follow. If they work 9 hours a day and don't have access from work then they can't really post during the day. It is also worth checking time zones for everyone (though even in the same time zone some folks might work afternoons or midnights) so it is worthwhile asking what each player thinks they can put in. Unfortunately, I suspect that the number of people who could realistcally commit to checking a forum every 2 hours and posting on a regularly basis isn't very large.
For what it's worth, were I to play by post, the best that I could promise and deliver to others around the virtual table would be to pop in once a day, between X and Y hours. During this time period, I would check on the game's progress, do my thing, then log out 'till tomorrow. Kinda like an old-school chess game, by mail.
Even dedicating one full uninterrupted hour a day to any online social activity, and commit to it unfailingly, is difficult for most people to maintain. If all players need be online at the same time, so the action can move along quickly, then all the scheduling issues revolving around live table games come into play.
This is probably why I have not joined one of these games. If scheduling online play becomes just as big a pain as for live table games, I'd rather sit around a table.
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I put a lot of work into starting a play by post campaign. Along with the basic information I said I wanted players that could be on at least every couple hours every day. An when they joined, they were at least in the "looking for players" forum. However, when I started the campaign, 2 of the players took several hours to post, 1 only posted once in these few days days. One person never showed up on the forum. This was what it was like 4 days ago, at the start of the campaign. After a day they entirely stopped, until yesterday a player came on to say he was ready to play but he never did.
The play by post has only been around for 4 days. Should I kick out the players and get new ones? Should I cancel the campaign? Should I just wait days for them to start posting again?
Upvote these 18 unique mythical weapon materials!
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
You probably weren't clear enough about what you were looking for when it comes to posting requirements and expectations. Also, it may be that some of your party is spread across multiple disparate time zones and maybe just aren't able to rapidly respond due to sleep or work concerns. Have you checked everyone's time zone and maybe confirmed free times? Have you set expectations that players can post a certain number of times before waiting for another player to respond, allowing folks to post as needed out of combat, with maybe a more specific posting structure for in-combat posting?
It may also be that the players you gathered just aren't as interested as you had thought. If that is the case, consider trading them out for more interested folks.
I live in utah
idk other 2 time zones
Upvote these 18 unique mythical weapon materials!
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
The short answer is: games routinely fail, and PbP, because of the nature of the medium, makes it particularly easy. I would probably assume it's failed, and also be less ambitious on scheduling in the future.
What do you mean by "could be on at least every couple hours every day"?
Should they are check for new posts at least every ~2 hours?
What about when they sleep? If they are in very different time zones then they will be sleeping at different times, so they won't always overlap to get fast responses to messages between each other.
Pbp is inherently more relaxed than playing live. That's the whole point of it - it makes dnd accessible whilst making it much slower. You get good bits where everyone is online, but there will be downtime. You also get people feeling it's easier to walk away from without consequence, as you are perhaps finding. Or they neglect to mention they're going away, or they start at the weekend and realise they haven't got time in the week. There's a lot that can happen with Pbp which doesn't happen with meeting up online or in person at a set time for a set amount of hours - it's the price you pay for eliminating the plague that is Scheduling.
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Yes, they sleep. But at times they are awake they don't post, because it take many days for them to say anything, so they cant be checking much otherwise they will respond to the current event, which they have had days 3-4 days to do.
Upvote these 18 unique mythical weapon materials!
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
Personally, I think a request to read and respond every 2 hours is unrealistic. I realize you'd like to get a game moving along at a decent pace but typing up a considered response about what your character might do or say in response to posts by the other characters and the DM could take 5-15 minutes or more every 2 hours - I'd find that sort of time commitment impossible to manage in the real world unless I didn't have a job, didn't have relationships (wife/kids/other) and didn't have other things I needed to do.
On top of that real life happens, you have assignments, you forget (oh I signed up for a pbp, I better check if anyone posted yet), you have to work or your work blocks access to recreational websites or tracks your keypresses to make sure you are doing work (and not typing on your phone or doing non-work activities).
In addition to that, a lot of games collapse because folks realize that they just aren't into it, it isn't quite what they imagined and don't want to say something, they just decide to ghost it either because they are feeling self conscious about missing it for a couple of days and feel guilty about finally posting something, or they notice that no one else is bothering to post so they don't bother posting either (self fulfilling prophecy). Alternatively, they are just trolling in the first place.
The bottom line is that it can be challenging to get a group of like minded folks with the same availability in terms of time. I think if you are running a pbp then you'd be lucky to get once/day posts from most folks but I could be wrong.
Either way good luck! Hope you find a good group of players :)
P.S. On a more practical note, check in with them to see if they are still interested and see what kind of posting rate they think they could realistically follow. If they work 9 hours a day and don't have access from work then they can't really post during the day. It is also worth checking time zones for everyone (though even in the same time zone some folks might work afternoons or midnights) so it is worthwhile asking what each player thinks they can put in. Unfortunately, I suspect that the number of people who could realistcally commit to checking a forum every 2 hours and posting on a regularly basis isn't very large.
thank you for your help
Upvote these 18 unique mythical weapon materials!
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi
For what it's worth, were I to play by post, the best that I could promise and deliver to others around the virtual table would be to pop in once a day, between X and Y hours. During this time period, I would check on the game's progress, do my thing, then log out 'till tomorrow. Kinda like an old-school chess game, by mail.
Even dedicating one full uninterrupted hour a day to any online social activity, and commit to it unfailingly, is difficult for most people to maintain. If all players need be online at the same time, so the action can move along quickly, then all the scheduling issues revolving around live table games come into play.
This is probably why I have not joined one of these games. If scheduling online play becomes just as big a pain as for live table games, I'd rather sit around a table.