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So I've been running/playing in a few games on SA for a while (DFRPG: Nawlins has just entered it's 7th year!  ) and if we're sharing tips and tricks I can probably throw in a few. There's been a lot of talk about games using larger groups of people and I'm really interested in that but the medium also allows you to get away with some neat things within the 5-ish player group that you can't at a live session. The main thing that asynchronous play brings to a story-game is that you have a lot more time to plan and write. In Nawlins we ended up shifting the game primarily to Google Docs. Usually we'll write out a full scene and then break it into pieces and post them on the forums. Sometimes they'll go 20 pages on Gdocs for a good scene where quality drama is happening. Being able to write collaboratively, and the ability to edit and throw out bits if they don't go well, is hugely freeing and lets you develop your characters in a way that you'd see in a book series. There's a ton of narrative buy in for players who really want to get in the weeds that way. That said as a GM you need to really communicate with your players and understand how much they want to contribute. Forcing spotlight on a player who isn't comfortable with that level of writing nearly killed the game altogether when they quit on me and my entire campaign ended up derailed. I had to rewrite the overarching plot from scratch. Lost a lot of work and time that way. The thing I had to eventually deal with as GM was that there is no shame in just dropping a plotline if you have to. PBP is always a little volatile that way, and especially if the game goes for several years you need to be ready to adjust when players no longer have time to play or simply aren't interested anymore. Being willing to bring in new blood when things get a little stale is a huge boon. Keep track of your characters and plotlines and you can always repurpose stuff that didn't get used when you thought it would. ---------- So separate from that I want to mention a really fun game I'm in right now, which is the Phoenix Academy MASKS game. Arashiofordo3 started a recruit for it, there ended up being over 20 really good applications for it and only six slots. I wanted to play but didn't make the initial cut. So I suggested that- since this is a superhero school setting, would anyone else who didn't make it like to co-GM a second and third "class" and take each other's characters so we'd get to play. ProfessorCurly did take me up on this and now we're running a triple game where 18 players are playing instead of the initial 6. That's something you couldn't do outside of a PBP setting, and it is honestly the most fun I've ever had in a tabletop game. We're doing a shared universe, all three co-gm's are keeping in touch and building on the school/city setting, and we've included open RP zones where things that aren't in the "main" narrative can happen, so if someone wants to have friends in another class or eat lunch with someone there's a "MEANWHILE..." space where they can just go have fun. You don't have to keep up with all three games but there's definitely a benefit to doing so and people who want to go extra have room to do it. I'd honestly encourage more people to try shared-universe PBP stuff, it makes GM'ing a lot less scary when you have Co-GM's you can ask questions of and it really makes the world feel larger and more real when there's other people participating.
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Feb 11, 2019 18:56
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 21:20 |
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