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Saturday, January 22, 2011

Play by Post idea for a Megadungeon

I've mentioned before that I'm one of the players in the online play by post Megadungeon game being run by David of Tower of the Archmage

I've had plenty of experience with PbP games in the past, both as a player and as a DM.  One thing I've learned about them is that because they go slow, they tend not to last long.  Lots of people just can't hold their attention to the story that long.  So as posts slow down because everyone's waiting for that one person to post, others start to lose interest, too.

This is not a slight on David in the least.  I'm enjoying the game he's running, even if it is slow going (and Renee has apparently stopped checking the site and is instead having her husband Rick surrogate post for her).  Even though we've just barely begun to explore the place, we've already had a memorable encounter and seen enough to make us curious about the place.  I'm at least eager to keep going with it.

But the pace is slow.

I was thinking that if I ever run a PbP game again, I'd likely limit it to just myself as DM and one player.  Maybe two if I knew they would both post often.  I get the feeling that that sort of game would progress a lot faster.  And I'd have no worries about that one player actually running an entire party.  Heck, back in the old days, we often played with just two of us, one DMing (and bringing a few of his own PCs along for the ride) and the other playing several of his characters.  We had a lot of fun that way.

So no big revelations here, nothing ground-breaking.  Just me thinking out loud that if I ever start running my Megadungeon online, I'd likely just try to recruit one player to play through it.  That way, we'd never really have to wait for posts.  As soon as I post something, the player will be able to post.  And as soon as the player posts, I'd be able to post a response.  No need to wait to give everyone a shot to give some input, then waiting extra long just in case they might feel like giving some later.

3 comments:

  1. As I can't find anything about it specifically on there, is this game open for new players at the moment?

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  2. You know, I was tempted to limit it to a smaller group. I had hoped that a larger group would help keep it moving. It really is a vastly different experience than an in-person game. I'm glad you're enjoying it, even if it is slow.

    I'm going to try to move things along a little faster on my part.

    Oh, and C'nor, if you're interested, stop by http://megadungeon.yuku.com/directory I don't mind another player!

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