 September 14, 2011 - 5:59am | For me the one feature that keeps me in the game is email notification. in the yahoo game I played the daily digest of the post to the yahoo group hit my email and automatically kept me upto date. The GM did his weekly post on Sundays and I got in the habbit of religiously checking my email every sunday morning like reading a Sunday paper. Usually had a response post done before going to church. Later I joined Beowulf's Lost Worlds New Frontiers game and had a hard time keeping up- easy to be distracted and forget to check the game (no email notification) as you had to be real good about checking the site weekly. Same with Terl Obar's Obar Enterprises game. Some how I guess I just need to create a schedule that reminds me to hit those games. As for running a game- loss of a job and starting a new one disrupted that- time went by and now I just have a twinge of guilt for a game left unfinished. So what keeps you from playing a PBP? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 14, 2011 - 12:53pm | The problem is the human factor. In person, you can resolve issues easily. In a forum, everyone wants to turn every little thing into an issue. Once anything becomes a problem, no one wants to play anymore because they lack the social skills and the patience. (Due to the length of time between communications, the patience required is magnified greatly, as issues last much longer than they would in real life.) Communicatiion is almost non-existent between players in PBP. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 September 14, 2011 - 5:52pm | Call me paranoid but the problem I have with electronic media games (which I love) is the backdooring. People posting either in forum or email and getting the game moving is great. Later finding out two of the players have been emailing outside the game or even phoning each other and planning for all possible outcomes without the other players or the gamemaster I have found very annoying. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
September 14, 2011 - 7:50pm | Call me paranoid but the problem I have with electronic media games (which I love) is the backdooring. People posting either in forum or email and getting the game moving is great. Later finding out two of the players have been emailing outside the game or even phoning each other and planning for all possible outcomes without the other players or the gamemaster I have found very annoying. I've never seen that, it sounds bad. I've had my character adress another character in the forum to try to coordinate our actions. I've also emailled the GM to campaign for an outcome to a post because my response post, to be done right, required the GM signing off on it and that smug turkey kept me hanging all week waiting to see what would come of it; which made my enjoyment of that post even greater. your answer surprises me the most though, has it happened often? and was it the same or different people doing it? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 14, 2011 - 9:11pm | I have seen the mentioned 'backdooring' ... and multiple accounts being one person... sometimes it's even the GM that is in the abuse of anonymity. The 'human factor' issues are what keep me to the table and off the PBP and PBEM. I simply prefer to be in real-time real-space contact for my social outlets, with a number of rationales for the preference. Oh humans!!  We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
 September 14, 2011 - 11:17pm | Rate of progress always seems to be the big obstacle. As GM, if I see too much chatty banter and not enough response to the actual game post/updates, I'll make a "half turn" prompt post...meaning "Okay so far player A is doing this and player B is doing that, awaiting declarations of players C & D". If I can get one or two turns resolved in a week I call it progress. If the players respond quickly enough, one turn per day is easy. But the GM has to make a concious effort to push them along if need be. Push comes to shove, I'll resolve a turn based on what has been offered and just randomly determine what the idle players can do. Other issues mentioned --- Backdooring: I did this once as a player, early on. Not so much a plot against the group but just to see if anyone wanted to try a different course of action while the attention was focused elsewhere. What ended it? Myself and my comrade, both armed with pistols and small melee weapons, opted to go up against a bionic-enhanced bartender who was getting a little too mouthy for our tastes. Said bionic bartender pulls a sonic devastator out with one arm and points it to the group...so we all honored the request to exit the bar. See, the GM can solve such problems if he really wants to  As for sock-puppet players, I've allowed it in my games. For instance, in my Space Rats game I announced at the beginning that I would be NPCing the astrogator (the job no player ever seems to want) and I would juggle between my GM and player accounts accordingly. Also, other players have picked up the PCs that were left behind by vacant players, again with permission. Typically the player will ask to take over a left-behind PC and I'll let them do it under their current account or create a second account if that's how they wish to do it. I speculate that one of the players at Space Rats is a sock-puppet account, but honestly it doesn't bother me at all, at least not enough to investigate it. I let people portray multiple characters in my face to face games so I have no issue with it online. I relinquished that game to another GM for a while, and when it fell idle I took it over again at the request of the players (I just refired it up recently, shameless plug alert: if anyone's interested there's an optimum jumping on point for 2-3 NPCs that can be taken over: http://spacerats.forumup.org/ ) But the biggest issue? Ignoring the game, be it as a player or GM. I've been guilty as both for one reason or another. |
 September 15, 2011 - 7:06am | Simply put, if I play on-line I want real time interaction such as chat, maptool or G+ hangouts. My perceived negatives of PBP outweigh the needs of my gaming bone. |
September 15, 2011 - 8:35am | I liken it to playing chess by mail. Sure its slow but you get to play with someone a continent away and have the time to work on some real story development. Like the time the hydra got loose in Port Loren and I was forced to borrow a mussel loading rifle from a Yazirian Clan War re-enactor. The hydra was moving away from me and my dralasite could not catch up. So another player backed up his rented hover car, picked me up and swung the whole way around the hub of the central shopping area. I had my character stand up through the sunroof to reload and I knew I wanted him to recite a poem much like the sniper in Saving Private Ryan. It took time to find the right poem and in the end since I wanted something like Charge of the Light Brigade and just couldn't find anything I ended up writing Charge of Clan Renegade. My post had my character reciting a few verses at each stage of the loading procedure and the poem ended as he placed the firing cap and took aim. That's not the kind of game moment that happen off the cuff. As satisfying as chat and face to face gaming is that is my favorite SF memory bar none. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 15, 2011 - 3:02pm | The biggest thing for me is keeping the momentum going. Especially on the side of the GM. I'm completely guilty of this as I let my game peter out. I just let myself get distracted by other activities and had too many things going on. As a player I generally don't have this problem. I perfer the PBP format since I simply have too much stuff going on to have 2-4 hours to sit down to F2F or virtual tabletop game. However, a half hour here, fifteen minutes there I can manage. I agree with jedion357 that e-mail notification is a very nice and useful feature. (BTW, jedi, on the Star Frontiers Network forums, you can opt in to e-mail notification on any thread by selecting the "Subscribe Topic" link in the footer at the bottom of the page. This sends you an e-mail whenever someone posts in the topic.) Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
 September 15, 2011 - 3:49pm | PBP problems: 1) Too slow 2) Too much typing 3) I like to roll dice - computerized or otherwise. (I know, sounds lame, but I enjoy that.) |
September 15, 2011 - 4:45pm | I like to roll dice - computerized or otherwise. (I know, sounds lame, but I enjoy that.)
Kind of tough to do this and I don't suppose that having you make 30 dice rolls and mailing the GM the results ahead of time will meet your need to roll dice.I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 15, 2011 - 5:47pm | "I rolled 01 twenty one times, an 02 after that, and eight more 01s." Honestly, the resolution process isn't something I put much effort into on a PbP game. The encounters and situations tend to favor the players, I'll roll the dice and it rarely goes more than three turns. If at all possible, I'll try to resolve it in one, just for the sake of keeping the game moving. Sure, that means I have to fudge some die rolls. Even so, the party still suffers some ill effects. They'll take a hit in combat, they'll achieve partial success in an action, stuff like that...but the game will move. I refuse to take a month to resolve an encounter or action. Now then, if the players are active and posting daily, then I'll do it the "long way", either way the encounter is resolved within the week. Which reminds me, time to head over to the Space Rats game and force the next turn... |
September 16, 2011 - 3:52am | I have a dice fetish also... I like dice-less systems that approach the random mechanic in interesting ways... so maybe it's a 'potentiality outcome' fetish... Drama and Plot card classics, like Torg and Masterbook, that keep things unpredictable and interesting for the GM also. The trait-bidding rock-paper-scissors style mechanics work too. None of these translate to a PbP very well. Oh humans!! We discover a galactic community filled with multiple species of aliens, and the first thing we think about is "how can we have sex with them?".~ anymoose, somewhere on the net... so... if you square a square it becomes a cube... if you square a cube does it become an octoid? |
September 16, 2011 - 5:19am | Best ever diceless system was the board game diplomacy. IMHO. I suppose that you could run a diplomacy style PBP but it would lead to many of the problems discussed here: backdooring, puppet characters, etc. I'm actually cool with the GM rolling all the dice, for me I'm looking for a chance to tell a good story cooperatively. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 16, 2011 - 7:20am | You have all now disappointed me to such an extent I will now hang my head in shame for 5 seconds. 1-Mississippi 2-Mississippi 3-Mississipp 4-Mississippi 5-Mississippi If you are playing a PBM you use http://www.pbegames.com/roller/ and then you don't worry about how many rolls or if your players are lying about the outcomes. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
September 16, 2011 - 10:16am | You have all now disappointed me to such an extent I will now hang my head in shame for 5 seconds.
1-Mississippi 2-Mississippi 3-Mississipp 4-Mississippi 5-Mississippi If you are playing a PBM you use http://www.pbegames.com/roller/ and then you don't worry about how many rolls or if your players are lying about the outcomes. Actually, many sites have dice rollers built in that post the results in your post. For example; [roll:d20+8] [roll:d6+3] - the first roll is d20 + my sword skill (+8) and if I hit the damage is d6+3. Not sure if you all know this but we have a random generator built into this site, check out http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/3019 Content of Adventure Generator project How to use the Generator in Projects{List:EVENTS}
go to work go to school get a job get a haircut {List:End} {List:START} Today is a good day to {EVENTS}. {List:End} |
