“Ghosting” and Ways of Play in Online Play-by-Post Games

I think I’m “ghosted” again.

I want to game much more than I have time for. I’m sure most of us can relate. Because of work and family obligations, I’m generally confined to one night a week (mine is Monday) for gaming. This is doubly exasperating because of the welter of beautiful rpgs tantalizing from my bookshelf or from afar. Most games are built for campaign play. They cry out for long term exploration. One-shots are fleeting affairs.

I’ve tried some online relationships. To game with Roll20 or something comparable would threaten my Monday commitment, so I’ve attempted Play-by-Post, something slightly less involving. I’ve had four of these affairs. One ended sort of badly. The rest just… ended.

Here are my four PbP relationships in order of acquaintance. If you, dear reader, happen to have been a player in any of these, this in no way is intended as a slight against you. For all of these games I was the GM (online, as in real life, there appear to be a whole lot more people queuing up to “play” rather than to GM). Conan 2d20 on G+ (2-3 players). RM2 on G+ (2 players). Swords & Wizardry on Discord (a rotating roster of 4+ players). Against the Darkmaster on Discord (2 players). Even from the very first, I intuited that I would have to establish some expectations going in, and the foremost was this: everyone is expected to “check in” and post something at least once a day.

Yeah, sure, they say. It’s good to have this understanding going in. No doubt.

And it begins, a flurry of activity, multiple posts over multiple days. I have a question about this. Can I clear this with you, GM? Cool character! Here we go!

A good PbP run for me appears to be an encounter or two. At first the gamers are responsive. Most of them are complimentary of my style and adventure. Then one or more of the players miss a day: “Sorry, catching up on posts now.” By now I’ve learned that this means it’s not long till the ghosting occurs.

Why, exactly, does this happen? I would love to administer an exit survey for these gamers. One very generous player for my Conan game apologized for whatever culpability he had in the game’s demise (not much) and praised my GMing. Maybe I should have continued on with just him as my gamer. I have avoided this because I think a better game involves inter-player interaction, not the imbalanced top-down authority of GM to single gamer. But for PbP, this might be the only way I can go. And who knows, maybe in collaboration with one highly competent and experienced gamer I can create a masterpiece such as the one (face-to-face constructed) by Steven Erikson and Ian Esselmont during grad school. For those who left my PbPs, I’d offer the following survey.

Why did you ghost/leave my game?

Was it you?

Was it just too much writing? Are you not used to writing a carefully worded post once per day? Would you participate again if you had more time?

Was it too much thinking? Did you find it upsetting to be cogitating about this interaction throughout much of your day? Did it interfere with your work or relationships?

Was it too much time? Did you not anticipate the obligation that posting once a day would demand of you? Did it begin to interfere with your work, relationships or other gaming commitments?

Did you get what you wanted? Did you simply want to explore the game, create a character, make new friends, and now that you have done that, it’s time to move on?

Was it me?

Am I a bad GM in the way a GM can be bad in any format?

Was it my writing? Did I write too much? Did I post too much? Was my prose intimidating?

Was it my micro-aggressions? I’m an old school gamer. I tend to talk tough. Did this seem adversarial to you?

Was it my agency? Did I open avenues for your character that you didn’t want explored?

This last survey question leads me to rumination concerning differences regarding online PbP from traditional tabletop interaction. I suspect that many PbP gamers might chiefly be interested in a lovingly crafted character and its backstory. These gamers might cool to the experience as soon as we start “playing” and I, the GM, begin to introduce elements that the characters’ loving creators never expected nor intended. Years ago (still always the GM) I was sort of like this. While world building or helping my players generate characters, fictive elements might synthesize with such power that I simply wanted to go off, away from the players, and write a fantasy story outside of the players’ communal creative influence on my personal vision.

PbP is different from the tabletop experience because the sense of immediacy is gone. With an entire day, the players and I have plenty of time to construct an evocative post or consider the implications of a character action or die roll. The possibilities resulting from all this time caused me, as a GM, to consider whether or not I was “writing” rather than gaming—even if I were sort of cheating, because I didn’t have to improv so much and easily could restructure the narrative, with careful thought, around the character actions. The gamers might have similarly been aware of how much situation analysis was available to them.

It’s clear that my PbP failures aren’t solitary. It’s also clear that PbP can be successful, with campaigns running for many years. For now, I’m resigned to be content with my Monday nights, and perhaps it’s time for some solo play.

Is it better to beg forgiveness or ask for permission?

Rolemaster Unified Character Law Cover

I know for certain that it is a damn sight faster to get things done if you just do it and then ask for forgiveness afterwards.

Here is my dilemma and objective. I spent last evening rereading all of JDales ‘New Tables’ thread to try and come back up to speed with RMU. The motivation is to try and put together a set of rules I am happy with that use the rules as close to what will be in the final released game as possible.

The cornerstone will be the No Profession profession as that is RAW. There are lots of things that I want to house rule and the problem is do you house rule and have a better game or do you play RAW and have a viable play test?

I am coming down on the side of house rules. ICE have had years of play test feedback and the impression I get now is that the rules are pretty much set. Even with house rules I would not be changing EVERYTHING so all that remains unchanged will be viable playtest feedback.

What I would like to do is play a game and then publish my impressions here on the blog. Now that is very dodgy considering the NDA but if I do not publish the rules as written, which is what I think the NDA is there to prevent, then I feel morally comfortable with that.

I would then want some players who are happy for the game to be publicly discussed although obviously they would not be discussed, just their characters and what happened in the game world.

The blogs would then cover character creation, the selection of the house rules and the official optional rules and how the game sessions played out.

I would run the game as a PBP so that I had a written record that I could then review for the blogs.

This blog exists in part to promote RM in all its forms so publicly promoting RMU has to be part of its remit surely?

My Christmas Day post will be the list of options and house rules that I intend to use, these will be up for discussion so anyone else that is playing RMU can chip in their own suggestions as to anything they think I will regret.

Refreshed and Reinvigorated

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I have just got back from Iceland having done a riding tour from the northern coast up a river valley to the last farm before the uninhabitied high lands. The whole experience was amazing as was the riding and the horses.

My PBP game has been faltering recently as I was away, my players had busy lives and it had almost withered away. The day before my flight to Iceland one of my players contacted me and said he was back and able to play. This is great news as we can get the game up and rolling again.

I am also now starting to prepare the next face to face gaming weekend for my RMC game.

It is a real pity that none of my players’ characters are in the Frozen North as I have some great ideas and inspiration but no one to inflict it upon!

So what comes next? The weakest element of my face to face game is that the party are still very much acting as individuals who are traveling together rather than as a robust whole. I feel that if I was to test the party bonds then it would fall apart in a fit of self interest. I want to address that ‘weakness’ and try and knit them together somewhat. The danger is ofcourse that in trying to encourage them to bond I would have them rail in the opposite direction.

My mission tonight is to go back over every characters’ background story and try and write an adventure that furthers all of there individual goals at the same time. That should get them working together. From memory I think I have one idea I can use.

In my PBP game things were about to get really interesting just when the momentum failed. I am really looking forward to getting that going and as soon as I hit ‘publish’ on this post I will be writing an update for Riako the halfling monk.

When I have spent the week plotting adventures I will see what gremlins have popped up to cause complications!

Getting PBP notifications – Update (RPoL Notifier)

RPol Notifier on Google Play

Just a quickie today. This is an update to a post I made last year. I promised to let people know if I found a solution to a problem I was having getting regular updates from rpol.net.

I was looking at some of my old posts this week and I discovered the Getter PBP Notifications post in which I promised to update people if I found the solution. A few weeks ago I did solve this problem!

There is an Android app called RPoL Notifier [Unofficial].

RPol Notifier on Google Play
This app ONLY notifies you if there are updates on RPoL, nothing else. It creates allerts on your phone or tablet telling you which game has new posts.

So far it works perfectly reliably for me and I am very happy with it. There is no iphone official app but there is an unofficial APK download if you run android apps on your iphone.

I now consider this issue solved.

Canon ends where the table starts

There is a massive canon of work to support a GM using the Forgotten Realms setting. The minute play starts (even before the players enter the game) it becomes my world and what I say goes. I am god(s) and I have the ultimate authority.

What brought this thought to mind is that I finally started play in my PBP game last night and created about 150 civilians, several named individuals and several locations within ‘my Waterdeep’ that exist in no other.

This was not a “set ’em up to knock ’em down” cannon fodder creation exercise, it is entirely possible the players may well grow to care about some of these people. The beauty of having an entire city to play with is that you can create and destroy quite a lot before you start to change the nature of the location but at the same time you can take just a small area and give it real flavour. That is what I am trying to do at the moment.

I am a little surprised at how long it took to get characters created. The first is now actually in play and I hope to have a second ready for play by tonight but a third is still in a work in progress. It is a general misconception that RMC is RM2 and that may well have been the idea when the reborn ICE tidied up RM2 and re-released it under the RMC banner but the reality is that RMC is not 100% compatible out of the box. Even without a lot of optional skills, optional rules, and companions it has taken my players a while to adjust to the RMC ruleset. Character creation is one of those areas where differences can be most acute.

So the idea of Canon vs Play has become apparent in the rules as well as the setting and in making the rules fit the setting. This is pretty much another manifestation of what I was saying in Roleplaying Games Do Not Exist everything is just a framework from which to hang the stories we want to tell from and everything is up for evaluation and has to earn its place in the game. If it doesn’t work for the GM and players it is gone.

I am avoiding RMU! (and the missing subterfuge skills!)

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You may have noticed that I have not mentioned that much about RMU. The truth is that I have had a collegue on annual leave, I have had to go on 6 sessions of full day training, I have been away my self (a paintballing weekend) and various other demands on my time (blame the Greeks). I simply have not had time to read the books in the detail they deserve and conversely there is a really detailed discussion going on on the ICE forums that is far better than anything I could write with the added advantage of feedback from the actual authors.

If you want to know more about RMU then head over here http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/. I will deal with each book in turn when I have the time to do it justice.

RM2 vs My brand of RMC

One of my PBP players today asked me where have all the subterfuge skills gone. RM2 players are used to having dozens of skills detailing the minituae of every aspect of life it seems. For example they have Build Trap, Set Trap, Detect Trap and Disarm Trap in addition you can learn Trap Lore to give you a knowledge base to work from.

In my world I still have Trap Lore but the only skill for traps is Disarm Trap. As I explained to the player if you are looking for traps and it is a trip wire or pressure plate sort of affair then Perception is the skill to use. Just tell me what you are looking for and roll the dice. If it is a complex lock mechanism that you are studying in detail and you want to know if it has an embedded trap then the Disarm Trap skill is suitable.

What about the building and setting of traps? As I see it if you are relying on a trip wire or noose then I would use rope mastery, if it is a snare to all intents and purposes then why not use a foraging roll? If it is none of those but you can explain to me how you want it to work and how to set it up then I am good wth that. Not everything has to have a roll but if there is a chance of failure then we have 10 stats we can use. I am inclined to use a different mix of stat bonuses from case to case depending on the design of the trap. Some will require a more reasoned approach others nimble fingers and a steady hand. Trap Lore would come into this as well. If the principles are well know and obvious then a knowledge of Trap Lore will warn you of some of the common reasons for failure and tips to aid success.

So is this Build Trap, Set Trap or Foraging?

So the most important thing is what are you trying to catch? If the answer is a rabbit then using the trap above is without a doubt foraging. If you want to catch an Orc then under RM2 you would need two completely different skills (Build and Set). Why is that?

Why Remove Skills from the Game?

I am not on a mission to remove skills from the game. What I noticed was that with every companion there were new skills being added. This puts pressure on the GM to give more Development Points each level, makes leveling up slower, makes each RM2 Character incompatible with any other game that didn’t use the same mix of companions and as almost every skills is coloured by how much scope each GM gives it makes playing the game under two different GMs potentially confusing.

Thieves are one of the nicest ‘skills based’ professions there is. They have good combat skills and their skill costs are pretty cheap normaly 1/3 for most subterfuge skills. RM2 then breaks this by adding so many skills that just to build and then set a trap requires two skills (effectively make a cost of 2/6) and two chances of fumbling (a net 10% chance or two attempts at not rolling 1-5 of an OE down roll).

It is not just thieves and subterfuge skills. Spell casters have Spell Mastery but also Spell Trickery. Why? I have rolled both these into one skill. We have different difficulty penalty gradings from Routine to Absurd for a reason. There is no reason as far as I am concerned to constantly break everything down and down into ever more granular skills.

There was a debate on the ICE forums about how many development points (DPs) do GMs give. Up until this current game I have always stuck to the original core rule for development points but I did used to give six free ranks as ‘hobby’ skills. This time I have tried using 25% of the characters normal DPs as hobby skills instead. Chances are I suspect that it will even out as pretty much the same but I would not be surprised if the the characters end up more limited by this method. I am thinking that if a character has just DPs to spend they are more likely to buy skills that are cheap for their profession. With a flat 6 ranks to allocate then you can pick from across the board of secondary skills irrespective of cost.

Rolemaster Lore

Rolemaster has ample scope for individualising a characters knowledge and learning from any possible background or upbringing. You can have as many Lore skills as you like and as many Craft skills as you like. This I do not have a problem with. I think it is one of the great things about rolemaster that every character cn be so unique AND true to the players vision. What I do not see is a cnstant need to add ever more skills or bloat to the a game system that already allowed heroes to be exactly what the players controling them envisioned.

Clear the decks, the PCs are coming!

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I have run two weekends now of my face to face Forgotten Realms game and there is nothing else planned until September. This leaves me free to concentrate on my pbp game.

The setting will be Waterdeep and the North. The rules will be mostly RMC with a few options thrown in from RM2 companions and the condensed combat system from the Combat Companion. The gaming platform will be www.rpol.net.

If you read this blog and are interested in being a player then drop me an email. I already have two players lined up.

You will be starting as a solo character to give you a chance to find you feet and if parties form then it will because they happened naturally. I am not going to force people together unnaturally.

I have most of my free time on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I would prefer a posting frequency of twice a week but if the character is alone or just in conversation then I will happily post more frequently. I am based in the UK so will be operating on GMT but I am generally online from 7am until 11pm most days.

Any questions then give me a shout.

Rolemaster Classic PBP

I haven’t posted anything for a while about my dabbling in play by post (PBP). The game I am in is ticking along quite nicely. I have nearly killed myself at least once due to massive over confidence in my own meagre abilities and, I believe, technically I am no longer a combat virgin. It was not a traditional fight and whether my oppenent was actually intent on attacking me or not is probably up for debate. The important thing is that I ‘won’. I cannot share any more details both to save my own blushes and just in case I inadvertantly give away a spoiler for some of the other players.

I am 99% certain that I am going to run a PBP game of my own based upon nearly pure Rolemaster Classic rules. The only optional rule I will truly miss would be the expanded character background options from Rolemaster Companion I.

The game setting would be the forgotten realms, of course, around the city of Waterdeep and the North. This would be exactly the same world/campaign that my face to face game would be taking place in. That party are in the Dalelands right now.

The only PBP gaming site I have used is RPOL but there are other sites I have not even looked at but seem frequently mentioned such as Fantasy Grounds. For this first foray I think I will stick with RPOL and what I know. I think I have grasped pretty much has the game administration works from what I can see from the game I am playing in.

I still need to do a lot of preparation before I could possibly run a game and I would like to get more experrience of this style of gaming. There are certainly some aspects that are better than face to face gaming [NPC interactions for one] but at the same time some aspects are lacking [the social aspect and banter]. This will remain a work in progress project for the time being. As it happens my face to face group will be meeting again in early May so that is the perfect excuse not to launch into anything new before then.

Going back the the PBP game. I think the next big evolution I am waiting for is when the party starts to form. Right now I am almost entirely surrounded by NPCs. I suspect that I have encountered another PC at least in passing but one cannnot be sure. While it is just me and the GM and we happen to be both awake at the same time then the posts can come thick and fast. How the game works when you are waiting for the input from several people remains to be seen. I am sure it will be fine, if it wasn’t then I do not think PBP would have such a large fan base as it appears to have.

 

pbp Roleplaying update

Copyright; 2002-2014 by Aurigas Aldbaron LLC. All rights reserved. No reproductions without permission.

I confess I was sceptical when I started playing pbp games as I have said before here Getting back into Spacemaster. I must now say I am really enjoying it.

After the character creation process I actually started roleplaying 10 days ago and during that time there have been 56 posts back and forth so that is five or six a day. I imagine that would be more if we were in the same timezone but I am kind of glad now that I am 7hrs displaced. I have a very addictive personality and I could see this becoming a real draw.

The most striking thing about pbp roleplaying is that the NPCs are so much better and realistic than I am used to. Now this could just be down to the hardwork of the GM but I actually think it is more a factor of the game format. In traditional roleplaying games almost everything is verbal with maybe a few player handouts. No one really wants to be having habitual lengthy conversations between two NPCs. I am certainly  guilty of saying:

“<insert name here> thanks the barmaid and brings the drinks over to your table.”

The pbp ‘norm’ seems to be to relay the entire conversation with the description of the body language. That minor interaction can then convey more about the world and culture in which you are living. I don’t think there is the same pressure to move the game on and progress the adventure because the written responses are more considered and do not have to be off the cuff. I know I cannot do accents, almost everyone in the world seems to come from the west country or the Indian subcontinent with almost nowhere in between.

So far so good, the plot is unfolding before the character and threat of imminent death looms large with is just what you like to see in your PCs future.

More next time…

Getting back into Spacemaster

Copyright; 2002-2014 by Aurigas Aldbaron LLC. All rights reserved. No reproductions without permission.

This weekend is the first time I have ‘played’ Spacemaster in probably 25 years and it is the first time I have ever done any play by post (pbp).

As you can probably guess I am playing Spacemaster by post. I am not going to give any game details away as this is not my game and the GM really doesn’t want any meta gaming and I respect that.

I have tried remote gaming in the past and never really felt that happy with it. It isn’t the same as all being there together with the banter and reminiscing over past successes, failures and moments of pure stupidity. I am actually quite looking forward to this. It is a new game, with very different character creation rules than I am used to, in a new setting, using a new gaming format and with a new GM I have never met and don’t even know the name of.

I ‘met’ the GM on the iron crown forums when a discussion turned to online roleplaying and he invited me to join this new game.  In my day ‘play by post’ meant stamped letters arriving once or twice a week if you were lucky but of course now it means forum posts and these take seconds. I am massively out of timezone with the GM (It sounds really imporsonal calling him ‘the GM’ so from now on he will be GM Joe as that is his nom de plume on the game forums).

I am kind of glad in a way that I am 7 or 8 hours out of step as I imagine this could get really addictive really quickly. The game started in ernest this weekend and I was posting last thing at night and then it was one of the first things I was checking in the morning. If I was in the same timezone as GM Joe I could see this spiralling to tens of posts a day. Right now I am all alone, not having met the other characters so it is very much one on one solo play.

I have to say that my first impressions are very positive and it is quite fun being a coomplete noobie again!