Anybody have general advice for Play-by-Post for someone who's never run a game in that format before?

Most of the PbP games I've seen start (here and elsewhere) peter out quickly due to availability or post-frequency issues or the like.  There must be a way to make it work for more than a few weeks of 'initial push', right?

I'm familiar with online dice-rollers and the awesomeness of being able to post pics and links and things...it isn't the technical issues that worry me, but the structural ones.

(Perhaps it's obvious, but I've been thinking about trying to start a fairly casual-pace PbP group to run in parallel to my G+ group)

Combat can really drag a game down, so make sure you house rule appropriately depending on the system.

For instance you could ask players for 'thresholds' so that if their hit points drop to this level, do this.

Experience is another interest killer. Some games are ok with rules as written, others require experience awards, or required amounts changing. It can take months, years even, to level in play by post. I'm in a T&T game that's been running for 2 years, and the characters have just about scraped past 2nd level, with half the party still just short of xp required. It's got tolerant players/GM, so no problem, but not everyone is like that.

Try to spice posts up with occasional pictures, easier on the eye.

Grammar and spelling are important in that it's just less frustrating to read than something that's poorly spelled and in a great massive text block.

Get decent players - if not every day posting, then 3 times a week should be the target, otherwise interest wanes.

Keep a note of important stuff offline. Forums can and do die. Had that. Was not amused.

If you have the time, run solo adventures as well as group stuff dependent on setting and genre. e.g. supers are fun with occasional solo missions.

Establish a posting standard, e.g.


ACTIONS:

And have everyone post the same way. Sometimes you just don't have time to plough through a post to see what a player is after doing.

Don't use ten words when five will do. Rambling makes posts longer and when time is an issue, you'll find interest levels suffer if players have to sit down for an hour to read every post. Short, sweet, funny, as descriptive as possible in as short a post as you can. On the flipside, one line posts are rubbish. Someone isn't trying if all they write is a single line.

I've run play by posts for years, and only had them die when my real life issues caused me to stop GMing, so I guess I'm doing something right (damned if I know what it is). Current Play By Post GM'd game 3 years and counting.

GM PROTIP: Do not abandon the game without telling anybody, like the esteemed James Maliszewski did!

Quote from: Settembrini;568780GM PROTIP: Do not abandon the game without telling anybody, like the esteemed James Maliszewski did!

The bastard!

Anyway, I have a thread up on my forum appropriately called Play-By-Post Times, Tricks, and Advice. Quick and painless.

Thanks!

So, I thought I'd breathe some life into this old thread with a few thoughts of my own.

I'll echo and amplify the comments about posting regularly. The DM should be posting in his or her own threads at least once a day unless s/he has let everyone know there'll be a gap due to other commitments, illness, etc. I've broken this rule when I've been a DM, and it really wasn't a good thing. The players will often pick up the slack, but you don't want to get into a habit of doing this.

Why post regularly, even if you're not in the middle of something like moving combat forward? It keeps people coming back to the threads. If people don't check the game for days, they're not posting, and the people who ARE posting can start feeling kinda weird like they're talking too much, so THEY stop posting. And before you know it, nobody is.

From what I've seen, you all need to basically be on the same page about posting frequency. Once a day is easier to remember than X times a week. People can sometimes build it up in their minds that finding something to say once a day is a huge commitment, but it's really not. Even if you only say something 1-2 sentences long in the OOC thread, that's better than nothing. If another character has center stage at the moment -- like, your party's mage is talking to the head of the College of Wizardry -- your PC may not have much he or she can do without breaking up the conversation, but you *can* post body language or thoughts, or you can post commentary in OOC.

I've seen people slack off on posting because their character wasn't the center of the action, and then get out of the habit of checking the game entirely. Then when they did come back to read stuff, they couldn't figure out what was going on or how they could contribute, leading to even less posting from them. Definitely a vicious cycle. Anything you can do to encourage daily (or close to it) posting will keep your game going.