Cthulhu Dark Ages PbP

[CruelDespot]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this. I didn't see a specific sub-form for PbP recruiting. If this belongs somewhere else, I trust an admin to move it to where it goes. Anyway...

I'm planning to run a Cthulhu Dark Ages PbP set in Croatia in the mid 10th century.

The characters would be agents of the king of Croatia. The king would send the characters to perform various missions: patrol the frontier, deliver messages, escort VIPs, investigate reports of strange happenings...

I chose Croatia because it is not well known so there is freedom to act without contradicting real historical events, and it is positioned at the crossroads between the Byzantine empire to the South, the pagan Magyar hordes to the East, the Holy Roman Empire to the North, and Venice to the West.

Follow this link to the downloads section where I have posted the houserules and campaign info. Check it out and let me know if you are interested.

LINK-> BRP Central - Downloads - Despotic Cthulhu Dark Ages House Rules

I can run this here if allowed, or on Play@Yog-Sothoth • Index page, or wherever is most hospitable or I find the most recruits.

I tend to run games that are very player-driven. Your background will not just be flavortext. It will affect the plot. If your background states that your character's clan was destroyed by the Magyars, expect an adventure where you can rescue some of your clan members from Magyar slavery. Create your own long-term goals, and I'll present opportunities and challenges to achieve them.

[Trifletraxor]

You can certainly run it here! To have a Play-by-Post game here would be great! No problem in creating a forum for you. Just tell me when you have decieded where to have it!

Can you tell us a bit more about how PbP games work, for those of us that haven't tried it before?

SGL.

[CruelDespot]

PbP= Play by Post. The DM and players communicate with each other via messageboard.

In many ways, I think PbP is superior to F2F (face to face) roleplaying. You get a written record of the entire game, so it is essentially a collaborative novel-writing exercise. You can edit what you write before you click "submit reply" so that the quality of input seems to be higher. As a GM I can take a while to look up a rule or consider the next step without the pressure of having the players sitting there waiting on me.

There are different techniques for rolling dice. Some GMs use the honor system. Some roll all the dice themselves. Many messageboards that specialize in PbP offer a die-rolling utility.

The main disadvantage is slowness. It can take a year to finish one adventure. On the other hand, it only takes a few minutes each day. So it is like reading a daily newspaper comic vs a graphic novel.

It is also tough to find players that are really committed to sticking with a game for the long-term. A lot of PbPs suffer when players flake out- simply quit posting. I have learned some techniques to minimize this through careful recruiting, etc. I think it would be less of a problem with BRP players than D&D players, since I perceive BRP players to be a little more mature on the average Hasbro gamer.

I am recruiting on some other messageboards as well. Here is a site that specializes in Call of Cthulhu PbP: Play@Yog-Sothoth • Index page.

Here is the PbP I ran previously at Online-roleplaying.com. LINK

It ended when the storyline concluded after 5 years of play. Check it out if you are curious about what PbP looks like.

But I am not opposed to running it here. I hadn't really considered it since there aren't any other PbPs here. Thanks for the offer! If I get some recruits here, then sure- why not?

[Trifletraxor]

There are different techniques for rolling dice. Some GMs use the honor system. Some roll all the dice themselves. Many messageboards that specialize in PbP offer a die-rolling utility.

We had a dice roller for the last software version. I'll can try get it running again.

The main disadvantage is slowness. It can take a year to finish one adventure. On the other hand, it only takes a few minutes each day. So it is like reading a daily newspaper comic vs a graphic novel.

This is the part I'm wondering about. How much time it takes daily. Do you arrange a time you play, or does everyone just add a couple of posts each day? How do you avoid some players getting far ahead in the game compared to players who post less often? :ohwell:

SGL.

[Jarulf]

Generally, people post when they can and don't co-ordinate to post any specific time. It's not IM after all. But if many are in the same time zone, it's not uncommon for several posts to be made in the span of a few hours. At least in my experience.

PBP isn't really just a substitute for face to face gaming, and has some advantages over it. As CruelDespot mentioned players can take time to think about what and how they write, it's easy to handle characters doing different things at once and you are not bound by time or geography.

But it's often hard to find a game you like (it's all World of Darkness, D&D or various Indie systems I've never heard of...) and both players and GMs have a tendency to vanish. Action sequences often take forever to resolve unless the GM simplifies combat somehow.

[CruelDespot]

Indeed, if you use the normal initiative sequence for D&D or BRP, one round of combat can take a week or more (assuming that each player checks the boards once a day, which is the usual requirement). The first person acts, then you have to wait up a day for the next person to act, then another day for the third person to act, etc.

I fixed this by modifying the rules so that all the PCs act simultaneously. I post the NPC actions, then it takes a max one day for all the PCs to post their actions, then I post the next round NPC actions, etc. = one round per day.