Gathering GMing Advice from the Masters

[WeaveWarden]

Hello, WeaveWarden here, seeking to glean wisdom from the austere PbP community at ORP.

More specifically, I'm working on making a Guide to GMing Play-By-Post games over at the TreasureTables GMing wiki, and I'd appreciate your thoughts, corrections, advice, and jabs on the matter.

Though I'm a long-time player, lurker, and GM at a variety of PbP sites (currently a staffer at MW as well), I thought I'd turn to you guys to expand the advice I've put together so far and add a variety of perspectives. I figure that if I can get gather enough solid opinions and good ideas on PbP into a few helpful articles, it'll make it easier to spread good GMing skills to new GMs and encourage people to get involved in play-by-post in general.

Well, if you're interested in helping out, go right ahead and start editing over there or offering your thoughts right here, and I'll do my best to incorporate your ideas.

Thanks! :)

[Benicus]

One thing you must know when undertaking a PBP game, before you come up with the dark wizards or trolls to fight, is that the game will take a long long time. This is not to say it's not worth it.

I've been running my game Lost Kingdom on this site for a little under a year now and the players are only level 3, but I've had a lot of really good roleplaying [by the players] and I've enjoyed DMing it.

PBP is a wonderful medium for roleplaying, but combat is a bit more tricky in my experience. You definately need some sort of mapping, whether it's scribbles on a napkin to high-end dundjinni maps. Also don't be afraid to ret-con what's happened if someone made a mistake. In combat it's also a good thing to use an online dice roller (this site is cool it provides).

I'll come back and post more as it comes to me and welcome to the boards WeaveWarden! Play a game and have some fun!

[itches]

Time to be a bastard admin. Posting links to other sites with your first post is not acceptable. Orp does not exist for the purpose of increasing traffic to other websites.

It's sad to do this because the link seemed to be pointing to somewhere decent, so let's leave this topic open and have people discuss it. If - if - WeaveWarden returns he/she/it can just as easily use anything that comes up. If not then I doubt this is a subject that can hurt.

[LynMars]

We spend a lot of time on this particular forum discussing general and specific GMing and Player issues associated with PbP. It's not as large as some forums on the site, but it's got 4 pages of info with nuggets thrown in here and there. For the original poster, if he returns, I compiled a list of previous discussions for ease of browsing. Rather than retyping a lot of info already given, it seemed easier to make readily available much of the conversation on PbP GMing we've had before, with people free to comment and add onto them as fit. Some of the ones I've found with just a quick glance so far, in no particular order:

The Deathless Thread of DM Advice (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6882)
DM Posts (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7094)
Games Without Traditional GMs (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7464)
Elements of a RPG (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7476)
PBP Combat (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7729)
Motivating the players to take the game "off-piste" (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7958)
Cyclic GMing (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8041)
Stat-Free RPs (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8121)
Adventure Crafting - how do you start, how do you organize? (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6488)
Reinventing the beginning (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3996)
Dual-Core Action! (Games with Multiple GMs) (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7135)
Pseudo Article: PBP Gaming 101 (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=387)
Succesful Elements of Adventures. (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7061)
Dice: Necessary or Not? (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6925)

[elmer_jok]

I'll add a link to check out a particular style of combat PbP style that I have found particularily interesting. This game has been great! Go coffee sucker!

Quick Post Adventures (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=1052)

[WeaveWarden]

Hello again. Wow, those are some great links, LynMars, thanks! I'll be reading through them and trying to squirrel out their deep secrets. Also, thanks for the general-purpose tips, Benicus, I'll try to stress those points in the guide. That quick-post combat style is pretty interesting, too. It takes the premise of openly-interactive and leading posts and extends it across a broader game-mechanical space than usual. I like it!

Oh, and I certainly understand the urge to protect site traffic, itches, so you don't have to feel like a "bastard admin" for removing a link that doesn't meet ORP conventional rules. (It might be nice to mention that convention in the site rules, though, so other people don't make the same mistake I did.)

Thanks for your help so far, feel free to keep posting if more good-GM'ing tips and techniques cross your mind, I'll definitely use 'em!

[BigRedRod]

It might be nice to mention that convention in the site rules, though, so other people don't make the same mistake I did.
Surely it is just common sense that you shouldn't make accounts on site A just to try and attract users to site B? I will add it to the rules if it isn't obvious, but I'd like to think that people aren't that stupid. A new user signing up just to link to another site is site whoring and I can't think of anywhere it would be acceptable out of all of the forums I've passed through over the years. This isn't some secret handshake of the ORP, it's just manners.

[LynMars]

Usually, however, people don't object to informative links in signatures and such, like for sites one admins, or has things up on, like LJ or DA. So long as it also remains within the sigline rules, anyway.

In a first post, in some places (like here), it is considered bad manners. I've seen other places too though where folks don't mind it, and some sites, depending on their own content and purpose, allow advertisement like that in first or any other posts. So it may not be as common sense as one would like to think, and may in fact bear mentioning formally.

And welcome for the links :)

[Gralhruk]

You mean we don't have a secret handshake?

No pixelated characters, no secret handshake: just what kind of forum is this?

[LeeCHeSSS]

Lets stick to the topic, I like where WeaveWarden is going with this...

[Gralhruk]

Just trying to keep things light :).

[LeeCHeSSS]

I know, and I'm avoiding an offtopic discussion :)

[akiko]

I will comment that MW is a cool site too with some great tools. EDIT: AWESOME TOOLS. I do have a game over there.

Buuuuut, it's gotten big. And with that come the trolls and general reduction of player age/quality. We have a really cool community here. Small and tight-nit.

I think the number one rule of any PbP should be posting. As the quick post scenario is proving for me we should post fast and furious in any and all games. Even if it is a character playing with their hair. Just dictates that you are still around and that way everyone is not waiting on someone else.

[-J-]

Post speed is a matter of taste. I actually prefer to do alot of stuff through email then post the finished product (especially for things like dialogue), its a slower process, but i think it tends to be more polished. We also use IM to keep in touch with what's happening in game.

To me games tend to fall into 2 groups, those that focus on the "gaming" side, and those that focus on the writing/story crafting side. Make sure all of your players want the same type of game. Nothing is more frustrating than when you mix munchkins with plumbers.