Play by Forum/Post

[Glorelendil]

I agree with 100% with you, zed. My overarching goal for the "One PbP to Rule Them" is to eliminate all the distractions so that players can focus on the writing.

So I'd like to see a PbP system that:
1) Doesn't make you flip between different views (IC, OOC, character sheet, maps...)
2) Doesn't make you look up rules
3) Doesn't make you copy and paste
4) Doesn't waste screen real estate (on border boxes, reply buttons, etc.)
5) Doesn't leave you wondering who's "turn" it was, and if people were waiting for you
6) Doesn't make you type obscure codes into your posts.
7) Doesn't make you wonder, while reading a post, if there's information in another thread you need

And so on. I want to go to a single page (for each game I'm in) and, without having to scroll around, know what I haven't read since last time, and what I need to do next.

[zedturtle]

3) Doesn't make you copy and paste
4) Doesn't waste screen real estate (on border boxes, reply buttons, etc.)

I fail to see this here... You have to have a way to respond to people's posts, hitting a "reply with quote" button seems easier to do than copy/pasting, yes.

Now, one thing that would be interesting is that in the big game, I recently let everyone split up in Dale and do things over the course of a week. Each of my posts was titled with a Day/Time and a Location. I asked players to respond to the particular post in order that we could keep track of who was where and when. It had only spotty acceptance; nothing that I couldn't keep track of, but it would have been neat to have all of the posts tagged and then been able to rearrange them into chronological order.

[Glorelendil]

I don't mean don't have the buttons, I just mean make them unobtrusive. For example, in my eReader all the "buttons" (search, bookmark, back, font size, etc.) all disappear while I'm reading, then reappear when I move the mouse or touch the screen.

And nice looking. Just simple aesthetics could make these sites a lot nicer.

Now, one thing that would be interesting is that in the big game, I recently let everyone split up in Dale and do things over the course of a week. Each of my posts was titled with a Day/Time and a Location. I asked players to respond to the particular post in order that we could keep track of who was where and when. It had only spotty acceptance; nothing that I couldn't keep track of, but it would have been neat to have all of the posts tagged and then been able to rearrange them into chronological order.

Yeah, exactly. This sort of thing. There's a lot of intelligence to time-lining that could be done automatically.

Right now there seem to be two options for OOC: a separate thread, which means you have to bounce back and forth, or in-line and marked as OOC, which means you sort of have to read around it if you want to maintain narrative flow. In myth-weavers people often use the "OOC" tag, which makes it a mouseover, but but that requires typing tags correctly (which is a pain on your phone) and it's still in-line. I'd love to see OOC basically like marginalia...off to the side and subtle, but "attached" to the IC text they apply to.

[Southron]

What I enjoy most about Play by Forum Post at least for a Middle-Earth game is that you have time to create a story. Face to face games are fun for action movie style games but I feel that I might not enjoy TOR face to face as much PpP. It is a great game but a tad crunchy for my taste, by playing via forum post it gives one time to think and if you have a great group of storytellers it is truly amazing. I have been lucky enough to have some outstanding writers in the games I am involved in and I doubt that for TOR I would have had the same experience face to face.

[Glorelendil]

What I enjoy most about Play by Forum Post at least for a Middle-Earth game is that you have time to create a story. Face to face games are fun for action movie style games but I feel that I might not enjoy TOR face to face as much PpP. It is a great game but a tad crunchy for my taste, by playing via forum post it gives one time to think and if you have a great group of storytellers it is truly amazing. I have been lucky enough to have some outstanding writers in the games I am involved in and I doubt that for TOR I would have had the same experience face to face.

I 100% agree. I'm not a good enough improv storyteller to do it live.

[Glorelendil]

Some kind of little graphic visualization showing how long since each person posted would be nice, too. Not to punish/shame anybody, but just to help the LM see what's going on without comparing timestamps.

[Rich H]

What I enjoy most about Play by Forum Post at least for a Middle-Earth game is that you have time to create a story. Face to face games are fun for action movie style games but I feel that I might not enjoy TOR face to face as much PpP. It is a great game but a tad crunchy for my taste, by playing via forum post it gives one time to think and if you have a great group of storytellers it is truly amazing. I have been lucky enough to have some outstanding writers in the games I am involved in and I doubt that for TOR I would have had the same experience face to face.

I 100% agree. I'm not a good enough improv storyteller to do it live.

I'm exactly the opposite. I'm actually put off running, or even playing, these kind of games due to them feeling and looking more like collaborative fan fiction rather than an actual role-playing game. For me the enjoyment of RPGing comes from playing face-to-face with friends, eating food and drinking beer (or tea!), and having a constant dialogue with my players. Still, as long as we're all enjoying the game in our own ways then it's great and it's encouraging to see how it can be played in very different ways.

[Glorelendil]

Oh I love live RPGs. I just don't like running them. And the logistics limit my ability to participate.

[Southron]

I'm exactly the opposite. I'm actually put off running, or even playing, these kind of games due to them feeling and looking more like collaborative fan fiction rather than an actual role-playing game. For me the enjoyment of RPGing comes from playing face-to-face with friends, eating food and drinking beer (or tea!), and having a constant dialogue with my players. Still, as long as we're all enjoying the game in our own ways then it's great and it's encouraging to see how it can be played in very different ways.

Rich, I just want to clarify, my post specified TOR roleplaying as the preferred PbP experience. I mentioned that other games are fun for face to face play. So, if I were playing a "Classic S&S" style game such as Conan or Lankhmar I would prefer face to face but not for TOR.

[shipwreck]

I'm exactly the opposite. I'm actually put off running, or even playing, these kind of games due to them feeling and looking more like collaborative fan fiction rather than an actual role-playing game. For me the enjoyment of RPGing comes from playing face-to-face with friends, eating food and drinking beer (or tea!), and having a constant dialogue with my players. Still, as long as we're all enjoying the game in our own ways then it's great and it's encouraging to see how it can be played in very different ways.

Rich, I just want to clarify, my post specified TOR roleplaying as the preferred PbP experience. I mentioned that other games are fun for face to face play. So, if I were playing a "Classic S&S" style game such as Conan or Lankhmar I would prefer face to face but not for TOR.

Being (sadly) newish to such RPGs, I have not got enough experience to know which is 'better', but I can see what SL is saying. My home game is way more fun, but a lot less collaborative and 'Tolkienish'; PBP games allow, as you say, more room for good storytelling and the people I've interacted with generally have more knowledge of the setting. The time component is helpful as well.

Then again, I definitely know what Rich means by 'collaborative fan fic'.

So I suppose, at this point, it's apples and oranges. I prefer the face-to-face experience, the actual rolling of the dice and sitting around the table, but I see the utility and benefits of PBP.