Play by Post Gameing

I know that in today’s day and age it’s really hard to get together with friends. Hell most of us can’t even seem to get online to play video games at the same time as our buddies. It could just be a fact of adult life or maybe it’s a consequence of the internet, but when all of your best friends are in completely different time zones, setting up a tabletop game is basically impossible. Sure we have a lot of useful tools (Cockatrice, Vassal, Tabletop Simulator and a bunch of in browser suites) but for a lot of these simultaneous connection is still required.

However all is not lost. I’m sure most of you are aware of Play by Post (PBP) or Play By Email (PBEM) gaming. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, the simplest example I can give is Chess by mail. We both have our boards, I send you my move in the mail which you then do on your board, and then you send me your response so that I may do the same. Now just swap out Chess with your choice of game and replace snail mail with whatever web communication is most convenient to you. And there you have it, you’re very own PBP game. Now this might seem daunting, and often requires a bit of finagling but the advantage is that nobody needs to be online at the same time. You can finally get a game in with the boys, and need not worry about conflicting schedules.

However games of this nature do have their caveats. They require a lot of trust and can easily be derailed by bad players or psycho GMs. They can also be slowed or ultimately die because someone dropped out of the game or just doesn’t post like they’re supposed to. This style of play also does not seem to do well if the ruleset of choice requires a lot of tit for tat between players and the GM. A mechanic that is fast and exciting on the tabletop becomes a slog in the message boards and something that could’ve been resolved in one or two posts becomes eight or more, and now everyone is bored and a month has gone by with nothing truly happening.

Now I’m sure for some of you reading this, those caveats I listed might be a deal breaker and I get that, but after running my own PBP game on a forum, I’ve found that it can be very rewarding and fun. It has also taught me quite a bit about how to best streamline the game and my GM style for this format of gameplay, which I’d like to share with you so you don’t make some of the mistakes I did and/or end up having a horrible time at this. So here’s a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up.

1. Session 0

A looooot of problems can be avoided by setting out your requirements pre-game. Get your players together and let them know how you’d like this to play out (pun intended). Things like post timelines, the communication the group will be using, house rules that override your chosen ruleset, how checks and such will be resolved, etc. For example: The game will be played via Email, and the GM will update every Saturday so players have seven days to post their reply. Players need to handle their To-Hit and damage rolls to streamline the process, and (insert class here) is banned, etc. The point is, if you can sort out any potential issues beforehand then you won’t have to deal with the headache of trying to fix it mid game.

2. Record Everything

As GM, it is imperative you keep some kind of notes or documents about your player’s characters. While you never have to worry about forgetting what has happened due to having a written record, you don’t have the luxury of asking your players what they have in their inventories or what skills their character may possess. I mean you could do that but it wastes time and when turns are measured in literal days or weeks you probably want to avoid it. I find using spreadsheets to be very advantageous but you can use anything you like, just as long as it helps keep confusion to a minimum for everyone.

3. Rule of Cool

Streamline everything you can and go for fluff over crunch. Who cares what the mega graph of die results says, that’ll take forever and your players waited all week for this. While I know a guy who has run a successful PBEM game of AD&D 3.5e I certainly couldn’t manage it. Read through your chosen ruleset and look for potential snags that would hamper the game and smooth it out with a house rule. Hell my game isn’t even an RPG, I’m just using a skirmish wargame ruleset for combat and letting the theatrics roll.

4. GM runs the dice

This is by no means a requirement, and a lot of players might be pretty annoyed not being able to roll their own checks but I find it takes the pressure off of players to post a reply as they don’t have to bust out their sheets and dice. Sure it puts more weight on you as the GM but it also lets you do all the mechanical bits in the background, fudge it if need be and write out a fun reply for everyone. Your mileage may vary but it’s something to consider.

I don’t know if I made a great case for trying out a PBP game, and I know there are a LOT of blog articles out there from people far more steeped into tabletop gaming than I, but if nothing else it was fun to put the words to proverbial paper. And who knows? Maybe my “not too smart” way of writing put the idea into someone’s head and they’ll finally get to play another game with their best friends again. Regardless, I hope you are well and have fun playing whatever it is you are playing. I think my next post will be about solo wargaming if people enjoyed this enough.

Stay rad, and don’t feed the muties.