Just wanted to share a current play by post game that’s going pretty well and my current thoughts on playing this game with PbP.
Team consists of:
Thor Girl (The Alien): who has come to our world to bring back the bonds between Asgardians and Earthlings.
Wingblade (The Protege): an experimented specimen whose who struggles between striking the balance between vicious combatant and new ‘normal’ girl.
Hashtag (The Delinquent): jokester and tagger, has had some of the most sincere moments in the game thus far.
Bioshock (The Doomed): another case of terrible parents. His enhanced control of his body let’s him push past the limits of humanity.
Bran the Blessed (The Janus): Young girl Bronwyn gained power and responsibility when she picked up a mythic spear and became the mighty man Bran.
Had some great characters and players come and go for various reasons, but have learned a few lessons over the course of running this game in a PbP format.
1. Encouraging the characters to make moves on their own will help speed up the game. If they make a move that you don’t consider to be needed, don’t argue with them. The player considers it needed for their character, so let the moment happen.
2. There will always be a bit of retconning here and there. Example, the bad guy gets away but then a player will post that right before they got away, the character stopped it or left some lasting injury or effect. Overall, I once again tend to go along with the player, going off their writing and adding my own on to achieve my original intent or even change what was intended to give them the success. After all, what’s a roleplaying game without the characters changing their destiny?
3. The flowing narrative of combat is usually restricted to one to two actions per GM combat post. Otherwise, combat can get incredibly one-sided, or the more frequent posters will quickly overshadow those that don’t have as much time to update their combat actions.
4. Frequently! Ask! Questions!
Since information can’t be as easily shared as speaking with each other, asking for details often can help establish the world, characters, and current scenarios. Everything from how a costume looks, to what a character’s feelings are on a recent event can be useful.
That’s the big stuff at least. I still have a lot to learn as a GM, and still hope to run this for an in-person group someday.