G'day
I'm about to start running a play-by-forum game on the 'Experimental play-by-post' forum at the Steve Jackson Games website.
Who here has run or played in one of these things before? Have you any tips for management, techniques etc.? What are the traps for young players?
Regards,
Brett
I play in a Battletech PBEM game and I know for a fact it is alot of work for the GM/DM/Administrator. But very fun.
I play in an Alternity play by post game that's been running for going on 2 years. Just be prepared for a slow-running, long game with periods of low activity followed by flurries of posts. Some tips for keeping everything running along quickly is to have everyone send you a list of 20 or so dice rolls of all flavors (depending on the system you are going to use). When a situation comes up where there should be a diceroll, inform in your narrative the situation, the type of roll that was required, the roll result, and describe the outcome of the roll. Let the player respond to the roll as they wish. This lets the players have some fun rolling dice and it keeps the game flowing as you don't have to wait for days for someone to roll a d20, decide that the attack was a hit, and then roll damage. Create sub-forums for different chapters and for private communications as well as OOC conversation, news, cutscenes, and miscellaneous information/descriptions.
Run freedom or very light system. Rolling dice is tedious and not really worth it.
Give players a lot of authority. They can add things to the world. They can say things about their background. That sortof stuff. This keeps the game moving ahead.
Write "try", not "do". For example, "the gangster takes his gun, aims, and tries to shoot [char name]". This gives the player the opportunity to tell how their character reacts, and how successfully.
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