Post-By-Post Role Playing

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I'm curious as to how many people here RP, that is, find forums or groups that do written Role Playing games.

I started when I was twelve on a Bleach forum, and I found a few original fantasy RPs. Every now and again I find some really well-constructed websites, and I get sucked in. It's how I decided to start writing, actually, and I think I'm a better writer for it.

Does anyone else here RP?

I've been playing and running table-top RPGs since the late 1970s (Traveller, anyone?).

Play-by-post RPGs are more difficult, in that the turn cycle is in days, while table-top RPGs have turn cycles in minutes, or even seconds.

Also, PBP RPGs are difficult to manage when one thread is used for both the declaration and resolution phases, as well as running commentaries on events. It is best when (1) players turn in their actions by PM only, (2) the events occur in one thread that only the referee has access to, and (3) commentaries are kept in a separate thread.

There is also the problem of players wanting to run everybody's characters, and not just their own. Players should run only their own characters, and allow the referee alone to determine the success or failure of those characters' actions.

Plus, unless the genre is firmly enforced, you'll end up with Derpy Hooves in a Gandam suit trying to intervene in Medici palace intrigue during the Renaissance with an anti-matter powered seeker drone.

I run science-fiction RPGs almost exclusively. The only "gimmicks" I'll allow in this genre are FTL travel, gravity control, and maybe psionics (if the players are up to it). In my SF RPGs, there is no magic, no resurrection, and no reincarnation; there are no undead, no magic-users, no fae, and no dragons.

There are no transporters, no subspace radios, no light-sabres, and no deathstars. In other words, my RPGs are more like Stargate, Firefly, and Gunfight at the OK Corral, than Star Trek, Star wars, Babylon V, or Battlestar Gallactica.

But I digress ... what you need is a firm set of rules and standards, dedicated players, a thread that only you have access to, and an indulgent host ... and patience - lots and lots of patience.

Good luck!

I've done a little bit of role-playing before, though the groups fell apart for one reason or another shortly after the beginning. This sounds interesting, though ...

• Deus Ex Machina: A player suddenly declares that his character has god-like powers (when it had no such powers before), and then describes how his character has re-constructed the entire game-universe to favor the player's character alone.
  
• Little Napoleon: A player attempts to usurp the autonomy of the other players by dictating what their characters will say and do.
  
• Big Napoleon: A player attempts to usurp the authority of the referee by dictating what the results of every characters' actions should be.
  
• Genre Drift: A player attempts to cause "genre drift" by introducing a magical or supernatural pet in a science-fiction game, or by insisting that they possess a P-90 "Selective Fire Personal Defense Weapon" (tactical automatic carbine) in a fantasy setting.
  
• Late Submissions: Players who fail to post their characters' actions before the turn cycle deadline, and then complain that their characters were given "default" actions instead.
  
• Erratic Submissions: Players who post several versions of their characters' actions, and then complain that the referee went with the last set of actions submitted before the turn cycle deadline.
  
• Unclear Submissions: Action descriptions that are vague, rambling, and are difficult (if not impossible) to parse into a meaningful sequence of events.
  
• Spotty Attendance: Players who drop out without warning, only to come back weeks (or months) later and expect their characters to have advanced with the others. (I have a rule in that if a player misses three consecutive deadlines, their character is ruled to have "wandered away"; and missing six consecutive deadlines means that the character has "retired".)
  
• Players who expect the website host to intervene when a referee ruling goes against them.

Of those, the only one I've had a major problem with is players dropping off the face of the earth. Players godmoding has easily been solved in the past by banning the offenders. :S

All of the websites I play on have staff members take litmus tests before they can become staff.

Hehe, I used to do Warriors RPs when I was a young'un. Man, I was an obnoxious child. orz

In recent(er) times, I've done stuffed animal RPs w/my cousin. The majority of the characters came from video games (Final Fantasy Kingdom Hearts, and The World Ends With You specifically) or were OCs.

...I may or may not still be doing that. >.> <.<