Thursday, August 23, 2018

Ok, Roleplayers! Info request that might be slightly off-topic. A friend of mine has suggested a PBM game but I have NO idea how to run such a game. Does anyone know of a good how-to resource for running a tabletop RPG PBM?

22 comments:

  1. Play by mail or play by email?

    Play-by-post/email are going to be slower than what one might be used to.
    Play-by-mail would be :/

    There is a game which is actually pretty specific to this type of play though written by a guy named Kyle Latino. If you and your friend are into Lovecraftian stuff it’s called Penpals vs Starspawn and looks interesting.
    dice.camp - Kyle Latino L( 'o')⚔️('=' )> (@kylelatino@dice.camp)

    You have to scroll down a little bit to get to it.

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  2. Marty B. I think PBEM is the most viable.

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  3. Consider play by text message. I used Discord for this with D&D 5e and Dungeon World before.
    reddit.com - r/DnD - D&D 5e Discord Server

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  4. your biggest problems will be delayed messages and vanishing players

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  5. I've played online without voice by typing in a Discord channel.

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  6. lino pang There’s just me and him, so that’s less of a problem.

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  7. I run a 1-on-1 game with my wife and we like Discord a lot, since you can create your own server, add a dice rolling bot if needed and it saves your conversations.

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  8. There's a newer? "chat" style one called RoleGate that looks pretty decent. It has support for character sheets, in and out of character chat, scene/act setup, dice rolls, etc.

    Edit: Paul Drury beat me to it. :-)

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  9. A few Ironsworn folks are using Role Gate for their solo plays, too.

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  10. Paul Drury Spencer Salyer What’s the advantage of Rolegate? Looks fairly basic but I maybe just need selling a bit.

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  11. I've only tinkered around a few minutes, so I can't offer much more about it I'm afraid.

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  12. I like to have control over my data, so I use discord with a custom bot to dump the data -- I run several 1 on 1 games chat style. I'm not a big fan of "forum" style play, too slow for me.

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  13. Peter Webster Rolegate is free and is being developed. You can follow other people's games for instruction.

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  14. Peter Webster do you mean a solo or a 2 person game?

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  15. I'm currently running a Numenera campaign in Tavern Keeper, and so far so good, although only one player, the rest of my regulars will "join later", when life allows, so it's a 1-on-1

    We are taking it easy, concentrating on developing the character.

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  16. Paul Drury I meant two people, 1 GM, 1 player. I am familiar with solo play.

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  17. Trail of Cthulhu is a good read and designed specifically for one GM and one player, if that's up your alley.

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  18. Spencer Salyer Peter Webster I can see a Choose Your Own Adventure style game working with the GM putting choices to the single player.

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