Play by Forum/Post

[Blubbo Baggins]

I certainly am glad to have joined yours!

[Glorelendil]

PbP is the future of RPGs.

[shipwreck]

PbP is the future of RPGs.

Egad, I hope not. At least not until your super PBP app is born.

[Pangea]

I would be wary of that App. One PbP App to rule them all... sounds like a ploy of the Enemy!

[Rue]

I'd be willing to have a permanent point of shadow to get my hands on that app.

[Glorelendil]

I'd be willing to have a permanent point of shadow to get my hands on that app.

I'm currently playing in two PbP games, one VTT game (roll20), and LMing one PbP game. I'm having a blast, but it's also giving me reams of ideas for how to make virtual rpg'ing better.

[Rue]

I'd be willing to have a permanent point of shadow to get my hands on that app.

I'm currently playing in two PbP games, one VTT game (roll20), and LMing one PbP game. I'm having a blast, but it's also giving me reams of ideas for how to make virtual rpg'ing better.

I'm in two PbP games (as you know), and seeing the flaws of both sites (and strengths), is giving me delusions of grandeur when it comes to thinking I could design a better PbP system. But seriously--they are archaic!

[Curulon]

I'd be willing to have a permanent point of shadow to get my hands on that app.

I'm currently playing in two PbP games, one VTT game (roll20), and LMing one PbP game. I'm having a blast, but it's also giving me reams of ideas for how to make virtual rpg'ing better.

I'm in two PbP games (as you know), and seeing the flaws of both sites (and strengths), is giving me delusions of grandeur when it comes to thinking I could design a better PbP system. But seriously--they are archaic!

I've got a Dragon Age RPG and Star Wars: Edge of the Empire PbP game that I'm GMing, and obviously playing in Elfcrusher's, and I'm having a lot of fun. I used ProBoards to make my own forums for the games I'm running, because so many of the systems are archaic and not suited to a lot of modern stuff.

[zedturtle]

I am, of course, of a little different opinion about things. I like a lot of the ideas that ElfC has mentioned about a PbP app and what it could bring to the (virtual) table. But I also like certain aspects of the more primitive formats.

For example, there is no dispute that rpol.net is built from the ground up to support PbP games, much more so than any vBulletin-based systems (myth-weavers.com and rpg.net being two examples). But sometimes I find all the extras distracting... with multiple threads going for different purposes, keeping the whole game in my mind I find more difficult; with everyone's identity hidden behind their character name it becomes tricky keeping track of who is who (on other forums, sometimes it's nice to realize that one of your players speaks with authority on certain subjects or get a sense of the person from their activity in multiple games/other topics discussions/etc.) and I like the public nature of the games as well. For a long time, I lurked in Actual Play and PbP games, living vicariously (but also seeing what worked and what didn't)... that's got me interested in a half-dozen game systems that I otherwise would not have been into.

Over and over again, people ask "why do some PbPs last a long time and some fizzle out?" I think it comes down to people... treating other players as people, not random post/action generators. That's why I think an active OOC thread is critical, you've got to show everyone else that you're a person with a life, but you've made a commitment to do this thing with them, and you're going to have fun doing it. I hope that ElfC's one-PbP-to-rule-them-all has that ability.

[Rue]

I am, of course, of a little different opinion about things. I like a lot of the ideas that ElfC has mentioned about a PbP app and what it could bring to the (virtual) table. But I also like certain aspects of the more primitive formats.

For example, there is now dispute that rpol.net is built from the ground up to support PbP games, much more so than any vBulletin-based systems (myth-weavers.com and rpg.net being two examples). But sometimes I find all the extras distracting... with multiple threads going for different purposes, keeping the whole game in my mind I find more difficult; with everyone's identity hidden behind their character name it becomes tricky keeping track of who is who (on other forums, sometimes it's nice to realize that one of your players speaks with authority on certain subjects or get a sense of the person from their activity in multiple games/other topics discussions/etc.) and I like the public nature of the games as well. For a long time, I lurked in Actual Play and PbP games, living vicariously (but also seeing what worked and what didn't)... that's got me interested in a half-dozen game systems that I otherwise would not have been into.

Over and over again, people ask "why do some PbPs last a long time and some fizzle out?" I think it comes down to people... treating other players as people, not random post/action generators. That's why I think an active OOC thread is critical, you've got to show everyone else that you're a person with a life, but you've made a commitment to do this thing with them, and you're going to have fun doing it. I hope that ElfC's one-PbP-to-rule-them-all has that ability.

Well said. I agree about the perks of the current systems--and one thing I enjoy about both the games I'm playing right now is how we can see eachother as our own names rather than *just* as our PCs. I was thinking more along the lines of rpgnet's easy notification system combined with MythWeaver's dice roller that is easy to insert into posts (even for Luddites like myself). And, as an aside, I think both you and Elfcrusher do a great job as LMs in building the OOC community of a game as well as the IC side.