Adventuring in a PBEM

[arpig2]

How were adventures handled in any of the PBEM campaigns you have run or played in? What worked and what didn't? What were the problems you encountered? and so on.

[AndrewTall]

Rjurik Winds: Yahoo IM, and later an online tabletop. Worked remarkably well, I was frankly amazed, kudos to Charles Dupin de-St-Cyr the DM.

RoE: Bjorn did a mix, some on the forum in adventure threads which I found slowed play considerably, I started finding them as frustrating but once I got the hang of it warmed to it. He also did emails which worked well as long as you don't want a blow-by-blow battle.

Otherwise they've been email based in games, one game had them as a single action - you set out "your plan" in the domain order and got a descriptive para and outcome back. Quick but, to me, unsatisfying.

I've heard of, but have no experience of skype / google-chat games, with my internet connection issues perhaps for the best.

[arpig2]

OK, I'm REALLY interested in that online tabletop you mentioned, could you elaborate a little, what it was like, how it worked and so on.

I hadn't thought of that in the context of adventuring, but I had considered something like that for fighting battles, using something like Team Viewer to fight them out.

[DarkApple]

Hi Bob,

This is what I could find on the website of the game:

http://www.rjurikwinds.com/rules.php#groupAdventures

Not sure if Charles is still around to explain his stuff.

Alex

[Raesene Andu]

I've found e-mail to be a bit slow in the past.

I've used IRC (assuming that still exists) and that worked ok for a live adventure but it's hard with people across the world in different time zones.

A message board could work, although I've never tried that myself.

[AndrewTall]

charles bought an online tabletop - I could look him up on facebook if people are really interested.

Basically it had a map or other image on the left, a IM-style column on the right, and dice-rolling capability.

In practice moving people around the map slowed things down a lot as it tried to update, but when it was used just for images it was quite good.

I suspect though that something like google hangouts or another skype-based system would probably do a better job nowadays in terms of the communication, though I don't know if it can handle images - that said if you had it open and also your email the DM could mail images around the group as and when you reached an area.

[arpig2]

Thanks all, there is a pic of it on the site Dark Apple found (Thanks for that too).

I'm wondering how you think this idea might work. Basically use my Adventure action to resolve the adventure, but present each person on the adventure with a particular challenge that they have to resolve (via email/IM) and use the results of those challenges to generate further modifiers to the roll to resolve the overall adventure.

[AndrewTall]

Thanks all, there is a pic of it on the site Dark Apple found (Thanks for that too).

I'm wondering how you think this idea might work. Basically use my Adventure action to resolve the adventure, but present each person on the adventure with a particular challenge that they have to resolve (via email/IM) and use the results of those challenges to generate further modifiers to the roll to resolve the overall adventure.

It sounds good. We used to try to synchronise timings for players (which left out the Aussises sadly) for a group IM/online tabletop, but doing a series of 1 on 1's would do well - and avoid the "sorry, I missed that line" issue which can freeze people out.

The adventures were in one respect fairly simple - 4 or 5 scenes only due to time constraints.

[DarkApple]

I've found e-mail to be a bit slow in the past.

I've used IRC (assuming that still exists) and that worked ok for a live adventure but it's hard with people across the world in different time zones.

A message board could work, although I've never tried that myself.

Apologies for side-tracking the thread - but it is good to see you back around! :)

[DarkApple]

You are very welcome Bob - I keep an eye on your work (this is Alex - Hokusei-do in Zaidan-Tai).

[arpig2]

Aha!
Well I am thinking of going over it again, fixing the mistakes, and rebooting, if you're interested

[arpig2]

The adventures were in one respect fairly simple - 4 or 5 scenes only due to time constraints.
Yes, that's what I was thinking


which left out the Aussises sadly
That IS the real issue.
The way I thought to resolve it was by rotating time zones.

Adventure 1 is played at a time convenient in Europe
Adventure 2 is played at a time convenient in North America
Adventure 3 is played at a time convenient in Australia

And for people out of the time zone who just can't make it, well they are along on the adventure, their overall assets and skills spells are available, but they cannot take part directly in resolving that challenge.

So, for example, the wizard who couldn't make it, he couldn't cast fireballs into the enemy, but he could cast Stoneskin, protections, and that sort of thing.

Of course, coming up with the challenges is likely to be am issue.

[AndrewTall]

Yes, that's what I was thinking

That IS the real issue.
The way I thought to resolve it was by rotating time zones.

Adventure 1 is played at a time convenient in Europe
Adventure 2 is played at a time convenient in North America
Adventure 3 is played at a time convenient in Australia

Of course, coming up with the challenges is likely to be am issue.

Timezones are tough for the DM, Charles could do early (great for me) or late (better for the Aussies), but it all depends on the DM's time-capability, where they are and where the players are. Varying the time would however only be fair.

In terms of challenges, our main issue was players playing opposing realms who wanted to play, an ad hoc "the gods have summonsed those whom they wish to this quest" type truce was somewhat strained when Hogunmark and Gandvick both turned up on the same quest.

[arpig2]

Well actually those sort of stressors are what I live for as a DM. :)