So, after... (oh my god, how long have I been on this site?)... I'm considering GMing my own.

I have a few ideas on the burner, but I want to ask a few questions to test the mood of the place while I'm working on them.

-Would you find a game with no "OOC" offputting?
(I would of course answer PMs, but I was thinking that some types of campaign do better if all your focus would be in-game. This wouldn't work for all the ideas I had on the burner, this is more of a conversation topic.)

-If I said the mood I was shooting for was "a cool version of what it was like when we started", what does that entail for you?
(I mean, for me, I'd be going for a "I never heard of a Trope, the lore happened in front of you" or "Something you'd see airbrushed on the side of a really cool van" type of thing, someone else might go for the cliche about 'four storm giants in a 10x10 room and we'll never ask how they got in there', other people who started later or earlier than me might feel differently than either.)

Edit: (On second thought, since I'm shooting for a fun campaign with experienced players, maybe what I should be aiming for is more "the sort of campaign you would've wanted to be in when you started, but wouldn't have known how", or something? )

-I'm thinking about building around player availability from the get-go. (Like, "let's see if we have any times off we want to plan for for the next... three months?") Rather than finding that everyone's got vacations or things involving family or finals or whatever, and just drop off radar. Would you find asking that intrusive, or just realistic?

-The last two games I really liked being in had soundtrack threads. Are those common now?

(More later, but I don't want to go to long to start with.)
This message was last edited by the user at 01:35, Tue 17 Sept.

As a player I wouldn't find it off-putting, per se, but unless you're running some sort of series of solo stories, not having a place for OOC discussion is just going to result in OOC discussion being done in the IC threads.  If the goal is to encourage things like discussion of plans, etc IC rather than OOC you may be better off just communicating that to the players.  Then if you see it happening anyway, reminding and encouraging them of that expectation.



If this was posed to a gaming group who had a history, I think it would be a good and expressive idea.  You're putting together a group with a potentially very diverse levels of experience, as such I think unless you're planning on trying to elicit a lot of discussion between yourself and your players to get a very good feel for them and their gaming experience it might be a bit vague and overly broad.

You may be better off expressing things in terms of wanting players to approach the story at the same level of inexperience as their characters potentially have, or without a pre-conceived notion of where the story appears to be going (assuming it's actually going somewhere different).




There's no harm in asking, but also be sure to include written expectations regarding scheduled absences and how players & characters will be handled during both planned and unplanned absences.




I haven't been in a game with a dedicated soundtrack thread but have seen music and/or video posted by the GM and players as a way to help establish ideas, moods, etc about the story, characters, etc.

If you find a piece of media particularly inspirational when generating content for your game, no harm in posting it.  There's plenty of physical RPG books that have had lists of "inspirational" media over the years, so it's fair game as a concept.

Just for conversation's sake, what would your expectation be of a game described that way?

(I'm also starting to lean toward the second version of the question as well.)
This message was last edited by the user at 02:56, Tue 17 Sept.

New question: A lot of my "prep" stuff (chargen stuff, some background, etc) is on Google Docs. Would it bother the majority of people if I linked to it rather than cut & pasted  it? (It wouldn't be the actual meat of the campaign posts, it's just that the idea of moving and reformatting it just makes me tired thinking about it.)
This message was last edited by the user at 03:18, Tue 17 Sept.

I'm only going to address this one point, but based on my experience...that's a really, really bad idea.   Players are going to need somewhere to communicate among themselves, particularly when it's something that's happened in the past (in game time) and a myriad of other things that aren't directly done In Character.

Second point (okay, so not just one point)...Cool is a matter of player preference.    What one person things is "Cool", another is going to think stupid or broken.   The much maligned argument about Pixies in Shadowrun is a prime example of this.    It's one of those things you kinda need to talk about before you get too deep into the game.    See my point on OOC above.  ^_^

If I saw a game with a descriptor of "a cool version of what it was like when we started" I would honestly have no idea what the GM was actually going for by that statement alone.  Depending on the additional supporting information there may be enough context clues for me to make an educated guess, or encourage me to press for details of what the GM thinks that means.  However I might also just not really give it any great consideration and make assume I'll be able to figure it out as the game goes.




Depends on the volume of information.  If there's a lot, even if it's well organized, you'll likely benefit from a primer on the material posted on RPoL and then links to more in depth information posted off site.

Too much homework just to decide if you're going to apply to a game will likely limit player interest, but that may not necessarily be a bad thing.

Nothing too fancy- the chargen is going to be pretty streamlined for most of the stuff I have in mind. It was more "gazeteer" kind of things ("Things Everyone Knows", that kind of stuff.)

Amber has no character classes...
I have a variant of one Palladium ruleset which allows me to create typical (well sort of atypical) 20th/21st century modern characters without them having any form of character class or character level.
Technically GURPS has no character classes .. so non-classed based systems are not that uncommon.

I wasn't really talking about character classes. Actually, two ideas I'm toying with right now are GURPS based.

In reply to Smoot (msg # 9):

Be careful which version you use. Going from memory in 3rd Language skills are completely OP. In 4th Language skills are completely broken. One extreme to the other. For example a bi-lingual character by birth in 3rd would get by with 2 1/2pt skills. In 4th they would need 2 8pt skills. Mostly 4th works better than 3rd and there are a couple of decent online character creator out there, but some skills, like languages need fixing in 4th.

So, here are some of the ideas I was toying with, just to make things less vague:

-The main one I was talking about is a lightly-houseruled 5e D&D game set in a version of the Forgotten Realms, with some structure (nothing crashes and burns so fast as someone just shouting "Sandbox!" or "Freeform!" and giving absolutely no indicators, IMO), and some things changed up so you can't just have read every sourcebook and make the 'exploration' part of D&D irrelevant. (Beginner characters, set in Amn for starters.) This one, I've put in enough groundwork on that it's possible the 'interest check' is for what else I'm going to run.

-I'm in a really good Walking Dead campaign set in New Orleans, I was thinking of doing one set somewhere else- the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, for example.

-A sort of "Expanded universe" Fallout 4 style game where you could explore New England beyond the limits of the F4 map if you wanted, or events after the canonical end of F4.

-As a really "low effort" game, I was thinking of using the "annual schedule" listed in GURPS Autoduel, modified-for-PBP Car Wars rules and ChatGPT to "Do the season" in real-time. (The GPT part would allow me handle as many players as showed up.) Alternately, people have fan-updated the old Street-Fighter RPG rules. While running it PBP by forum would take forever, having the players give a general strategy, make up a character and just let it go automatically from there might be fun.

-I was thinking of doing a Western- I have a couple of semi-historical but not-the-usual ideas for settings- but I also don't want to step on the toes of the only other Western-style GM I think we actually have running a game? Alternately, something like the old Gangbusters rules, updated with GURPS 'parts'.

-I was briefly thinking of doing something based on Borderlands, but after the movie, I just dunno there'd be any interest in that.
-I was also looking at something for Tales from The Loop/Things From the Flood (set in Simon Stalenhag's universe).
This message was last edited by the user at 01:35, Sat 21 Sept.

So, I'd echo a lot of what has been said above, namely:

 - No OOC might be a nice way of avoiding some problems of playing play by post but not having one can go a very good way to killing a sense of community in a game and indeed a place for players to leave information about absences, feelings about their posts etc. Yes, you've got PMs and yes, you can absolutely set the tone for why you don't want the OOC to get in the way of posting, but I don't think it's worth it.

 - In terms of the  "a cool version of what it was like when we started", I honestly haven't got the foggiest what you're talking about, so if you're going to do whatever it is you're thinking of, maybe find a way of phrasing it in a manner which makes it make more sense, because reading your explanation of what you put made it more confusing, not less so.

 - Google Docs can work but ultimately a lot of players will potentially be put off by the prospect of going off site for information - do you need all of that or is it just a nice to have?

More generally, the advice I'd give especially for someone first time GMing and seeming to be starting to look at not just one but two games is that until you've GMd on a PBP site, you don't know how much work it is and how hard it can get - it's a totally different experience from playing because you effectively need to be everything to everyone (a thousand NPCs, the loremaster, the rules arbitrator, the therapist, the motivator the marriage counsellor and the planner all in one) and the buck always stops with you, and nothing is more likely to lose you players and give you a rubbish time than trying to do too much and half arsing it.

With that in mind, pick one idea you like, shrink it down far further than you think you need to go (again, you're talking games taking place in maps and worlds which are the size of states or bigger than what could be brought to life by one of the biggest game studios in the world), and then bring it into being before you even think about advertising for players. You need to have everything ready for them with contingencies and plans in place because the moment the game starts, it's not stopping for you to catch up or fix something which you were always planning and never got round to.

Now, this might sound all doom and gloom, but I've been GMing here for a decade and I'm simply trying to help you avoid the mistakes we've all made before. Remember that you can always make a game bigger if you've got it in hand, but it's a lot harder to pull the scope back if you've overpromised, and you only get to make a first impression once.

On one final note, I wouldn't worry too much about stepping on another GM's toes by accident. Obviously, if you're running in direct opposition using exactly the same setup and casting aspertions, then that's one thing, but most games will pick up their own flavour and you may find that said GM actually would be quite happy with somewhere to play their passion without GMing it, and could very easily poke people in your direction if their game is having slower periods. You might also want to consider Deadlands for your Western RPG.

I get that people like Deadlands, but I find actual Western stuff more interesting than "Weird West" material, by a longshot. I couldn't run it.

As it is, I'm intentionally moving slowly into doing the GM thing- I don't think I'd be starting any sooner than the early Holidays. I'm mainly noodling with ideas and seeing what people are into, rather than pondering whether I should do it. I'm not going in blind- I've been tabletop gaming since about 1980, I've GMed live,   I'm aware of the average lifespan of a PBP game, and if I know it's likely to be in the three-month range if I'm lucky, and am good to go anyway, I think that's okay.

Anyway, I'm not offended by the advice (it's good advice), but I'm seeing less "interest check" or "this is what I'd be into of the options provided" from people and more 'well, kid, let me tell ya, as a grognard...'. Which is nice I suppose, but those guys are probably not gonna RTJ in any event?

The D&D one is pretty tightly focused- the idea is that we start in a village, have a few introductory things there, have it become clear that the PCs (for one reason or another that I'd want to work out with the players) should probably head to the Capital, have a few episodic road-trip adventures, and then have some more involved city-campaign stuff when we get there. There'll be other options available, of course, that's just the main one. (A few rails are good, IMO- I've been in so many campaigns where the GM seems to want  to do one specific thing but doesn't either spit it out or give us options. ).
This message was last edited by the user at 23:42, Sun 22 Sept.

You started this thread as a more general discussion regarding running games on RPoL, which you did receive some feedback for.

If you're looking for responses to "which of these game ideas sound interesting" from your more specific examples given (which I think is what the reference above is to?) then you'll want to make a new post in the Game Proposals, Input, and Advice forum which is for feedback regarding specific games you're interested in running.  Veering too far into that topic in a Community Chat thread will just end up with a moderator likely having to move the thread out of Community Chat.

Yeah, I held off on that, because 1) I had questions not to do with imminently starting 2) it's gonna be a bit before I actually propose a game and I just want a sense of the 'room' and 3) if someone had a counter-idea that I liked better (I still think this might happen), this seemed like a better venue for it.
This message was last edited by the user at 03:14, Mon 23 Sept.

Okay, moving on: If I'm doing a sort of "What everyone knows" sheet (essential info about the setting, a "one-sheeter" if it were in print) what would you want on it as a player?

Before I answer, is this something pre-character creation or just as you're starting the actual game? And are you just looking for canon or other bits as well (so theme, tone, mood, and the focus of the game)?

And linked to that, how much of the game are you wanting the players to be involved in creating/filling with their own downtime (so how much is it sandboxy and how much is going to be GM led)?

1) Right away, like some old table-games used to do handouts.

It's sort of 'curated canon'- I'm thinking about a specific area of a larger setting (For the main instance, one's set in part of the Forgotten Realms not normally covered by sourcebooks, so knowing what they do there is helpful for players to play their characters, but throwing in the entire setting is way too much). So, I am looking to set a tone, mood, focus, etc, but I'm also not looking to clobber everyone right away with a sourcebook or something.

(By "things everyone knows", I figure "what we call our planet", "what we call our region", "Who's in charge around here?", and so on, rather than involved history, etc. I have a lot of 'daily lore' like what people eat and stuff, but I figure that's best done in play.)

2) What I had in mind was... okay, the metaphor I'm using in my head is "rails, but you're starting at Grand Central". That is, there's several defined directions everyone can go- with an emphasis on staying together- but it's not literally "you can walk off in any direction (since people get mad if you do the 'false choice' thing of "well, the thing I meant you to run into is over there now", and I can't literally do infinite 360 degrees of new material and make it all good. )

For example, I figure one 'leg' of the campaign could consist of the village everyone's from (which will be somewhat collaborative, because everyone's NPCs live there) chosen from places in the region we're set in, a few "level zero" things to get acclimated and set, then a bit of episodic 'road trip' on the way to the Capital (to which everyone should- by that point- have solid personal reasons to go). My general hope would be that given that skeleton-framework, we can fill it out.

Other options include "we're part of a Court faction's retinue", if everyone decides that's what they want to do (which means intrigue and all that good stuff) or "we all decide to join an army" and it's a military campaign (which you rarely see in D&D, despite there being a Soldier background that implies armies), "We all go to sea, together" (and have a nautical/piratical campaign), "We all join a caravan" (and then have a big ol' convoy), etc. They could even opt to stay put in the village, and I'd hopefully have enough to keep things interesting (so long as they're not doing the infamous foot-dragging thing and literally refusing to do anything BUT stay home).

I figure if, at the start of the campaign, I not-too-obnoxiously plant five or so good options, that neither feels like I'm forcing things nor just shouting "SANDBOX!" and then putting everything on the players' initiative.

Also, I am aware of how short a time many PBPs last, so I figure if I 'lead' it for three months, actual time, and we're still actively playing after that, then I can loosen up a bit.

So, returning to the sheet, here's what I've basically got:
What year is it?
Where are we?: (Universe, planet, continent, nation, region [chosen during Session Zero], Village [created collaboratively]. What are the other parts of the country/big cities/major landmarks? What immediately neighbors our country? What’s the weather and terrain like, that we know well?
The Big Questions: The gods (and you as a probable non-cleric), Magic you may have seen personally, What sorts of people live around here? (species choices, types of human, "this is a [fishing/ranching/mining/coding/whatever] village" etc),  Who’s in charge around here (country, region, village), a rough look at the class system (as your PCs would have experienced it up to that point), who is The Law here?, how do people handle adventurers? etc.

Anything more detailed than that would be limited by how most people would access that world: Rather than dumping a whole timeline, people will know things that happened in their own lifetimes (maybe 16-20 years) well, things that happened in the lifetimes of their parents or mentors fairly well, in their grandparents' time kinda-vaguely.

Similarly, things 10-20 miles away will be known very well, things 50 miles away might be a special occasion trip, things 100 miles away overland are borderline legendary, anything 500-1000 miles away or more might as well be on the moon.

The reason I'm asking for advice on minimums is that I can go well-past them with the material, the question is more like "what would you, personally, as a player, consider the barest information you would need to have in order to start engaging with the setting and making decisions for your character?".

I put a lot of stock in players asking questions as a means of "exploration", so anything they'd want or need after the basics would ideally be done in play or (at worst) an OOC question that their character would know, but they personally wouldn't. The 'info sheet' wouldn't be everything, it's the basics. (I of course would give class and background specific stuff as we went and figured out who we were playing.)

And if the players, after a while, decide they want to go off in a weird direction (like, I dunno, "We all got Isekaied from Earth, somehow", or "We're a small gang of Grung, just arrived in the big city, trying to become kings of it's underworld"), that's cool too.


EDIT: That's the main example (since I've been working on it). It would also apply to the Western setting (actually a lot easier, since a lot of the setting is assumed, I just have to steer the specifics, the Walking Dead idea was just... Vermont, up until the big difference, etc), and anything else.
This message was last edited by the user at 06:10, Yesterday.