New Pbem idea, interested?

[Swordhelm]

I am planning on running a new pbem in the very near future, but wish to know the level of interest in playing such a campaign. For awhile i had considered running another Brithright setting game, with the usual twists. However i had been toying with creating a new setting to make it alot more interesting.

The idea for the setting would be a much smaller scale game. Not in terms of players, but in terms of realms. The players would vie for success in a single port city. Instead of running small realsm, they would run small businesses, indivudal temples, inns, taverns or even ships. The players would then simply try to eek out an existence in this now budding port city. I have toyed alot with the idea of furthering the uniqueness to making the base setting for the game relative to Spelljammer. I had been a long time player of that setting, and found it one of the more fantastic ones around. And i think a recently settled city on some remote asteroid would be a wonderful setting to start letting loose the dogs of war. Players would try to do their best to out compete rivals, trade for better prices or even pirate their way to the top. Churches would strive to gain more followers and increase the expansion of their faiths. Wizards would delve into the mysteries of the new port and the surrounding area's. Local strong arm operations would keep the peace, or break it.

This is something i think alot of players would have fun as. Especially since it would allow many players to get more involved with their regents, and allow more roleplaying and realm ruling on a personal level. If interested, i will gladly offer more on here and am always wiling to hear opinions and answer questions. THanks for reading and i hope you find this idea intersting. swordhelm@gmail.com for any questions or comments if you don't want to ask them here

[Sorontar]

I have never played Spelljammer but good luck on your project. Are you planning to include a Birthright-like blooded aspect?

I am surprised that no-one has suggested a sci-fi angle to that, like abilities arising from the mutation of genes. If your parents had a lot of mutation abilities due to their mutated genes, then you are likely to share their genes, and likewise have a strong mutation strength. I am thinking this up of the top of my head, so I don't know how the mutation strength could be transferred to others, nor how the "regent" concept would work. Perhaps the regents would have a special link to the source of the mutation. But if you don't have the right genes, you don't have the mutations. Just like blooded and unblooded.

And yes, I realise that mutation is not an original thing to sci-fi, but if it works and keeps things simple..... use it. As long as you have a fun campaign as a result.

Sorontar

[Swordhelm]

Well to be honest i am probably going to push away fro mthe blooded aspect of birthright. While characters in the setting will probably be set apart from regular ones, divine blood aspects are something directly related to the birthright setting, and for the msot part, unnecesary in mine. Character's Regenecy and power will instead be based almost entirely upon their expierence and dvelopment. A Rogue who runs a shady underground business in the Slum district will have access to certain advantages that a Bureocrat in the Noble district would not, and vice versa. Add into that the levels of the varied characters and previous adventures/actions, and you'll get new regenecy points. Players who play it safe, while guaranteed probably to live longer, won't have access to many boons that characters willing to take risks will. So instead of bloodline strength, you'd have prestige/notoreity strength.

Mutation might be fun, though i'm holding off for the moment on anything too radical. As it is, the spelljammer setting allowed for numerous races that were often little more then boogie men on grounded settings, and if this takes off as a grounded setting due to lack of interest in spelljammer, then i will have plenty of options to keep the world new and unique in light of creatures and races to interact with. Though i love that idea for mutants, i will hold off making any gurantees on them.

[Patrucio]

That would be fun. I've considered doing a BR campaign set in a Drow city, but I just haven't had the time to put it together yet...

[Swordhelm]

Awesome, well if your interested, email me and we can start discussing a character idea. The same goes for anyone else who might be interested. swordhelm@gmail.com

Would love to work some character idea's out with prospective players. All idea's are welcome, though no guarnatee's if i'll let it slide(no half dragons/demons/agnels etc). Teiflings maybe, but we'll see, so ask away, so far have lots of views and not many posts, so hopefully ppl are just a bit shy bout writng

[velve]

Swordhelm,

That sounds like an interesting combination of Birthright and Spelljammer, two campaign settings I have enjoyed running campaigns for (the little I have that is ). Depending upon how much commitment will be required, I might be interested in joining your pbem. I have been considering joining one for awhile, as my current schedule (graduate school and a family) doesn't really allow for me to join a more traditional gaming group.

[Question]

The problem with PBEMs is that 1 turn usually takes forever to run.While playing it in real life you might have 1 turn per week or meet several times per week depending on schedules.

PBEMs usually take 1 month to 1 and a half and 1-4 weeks for turn resolution.

You would need to play for years in a PBEM to make your domain/character really powerful.....the original BR was meant this way,you would need to spend 20+ turns to become a serious power.In PBEMs this translates to a few years.

It just moves too slowly IMHO.If it was faster more people would be attracted to the idea of BR.

[Mantyluoto]

play by post (PbP) games are much faster, providing your players can post on time.

[Question]

That seems to be the problem......time.

If the players could devote more time to checking emails,etc turns can easily end in 2 weeks.....maybe even less.

Most of the turn time is taken up by waiting at least 1 day........sometimes more.......for responses to dispatches.

The same of course applies to DM response when interacting with NPcs.

The way i figure it,if people could check emails or PMs several times a day...or just leave a window open to either......you could wrap up a lot of stuff within a few days,max.

Example : Aerenwe(PC) askes for Roesone(PC)'s aid in defending from Osoerde(NPC).

What usually occurs :

Aerewe sends a dispatch asking for assistance,probably pointing out that osoerde would go after roesone next.The next day roesone sees it and agrees.Day 3 Aerenwe sends acknowledgement and thanks.

3 days to wrap up 15 mins of real time conversation,max.

And thats only a very simple matter.

If it goes to alliances.......vassalage agreements......trade agreements.......etc everything usually takes more than 1 week.

Turn sheets dont take much time to do either.If you starting from scratch,rolling characters,checking skill descriptions,etc will take you quite a few hours,but once you have everything settled it takes maybe 2 hours max to write up a turn sheet, and that only shortens as you remember stuff like the skill bonus when you take full regent actions,instead of repeatedly checking the BRCS.

Well of course doing the turn sheet isnt what the entire turn is comprised of.You need to talk with other players,formulate plans,etc but theres only so far current events will let you go......even if you try to secure a vassalage agreement from one realm,a trade agreement with your local guild or talking things over with your court mage about that assassination attempt,it is not going to take 1 month.

My experience in PBEMs so far has been largely spent on waiting.....waiting for PCs to respond,NPCs to respond,waiting for info on something or other,waiting for deadline,waiting for turn processing,etc.

Only a small portion of is actually considered playing the game.

[Benjamin]

That seems to be the problem......time.

You are absolutely right in more ways than you expect.

I once ran a PBEM with only 12 regents. Resolving turns was a horrendous time consumption. It would take me about 10+ hours to resolve 1 turn. Add on top of that all the NPCs responses, planning, plotting, espionage, etc. and it became too much. I shut it down after 6 turns or so.

Then there is the time delay in players checking email, PMs, etc. As can be seen by our membership, players are from all over the world. The most recent game I was in had people from South Korea, Czech Republic, Denmark, Canada and USA. And it only had 6 players! Clearly all those time zone differences cause problems with communication.