I'm going to talk about my experience with these options:
>
> Software bundle (i.e. Everquest): These rules are specifically designed
> for online roleplay, but are integral to the software used for such
> roleplay. In other words, when such a game even requires a GM, they
> don't really have the capacity to muck with the rules. Advantage: Cool
> graphics to accompany your online roleplaying and high popularity.
> Disadvantage: Software, by necessity, forces constraints on what an
> individual GM is capable of doing.
This is where CRPG's (Computer RPG's) meet the internet. They play like
CRPG's, for the most part, but with lots of other people. Of course, these
have been around nigh-on-forever, we just called them "MU*"s {It's
interesting to note that MU*'s are split up into talkers and shooters,
depending on whether chat/roleplay or combat was the focus (I suspect most
of the time on the talkers it was *chat* and not roleplay,but that just IME)
Of course, I'm *very* interested in the scriptable modules coming with
Neverwinter nights, and have already been asked to run some modules for
that when it comes out. I'm waiting to see what this means, practically,
but I'm interested. Especially if we can have people acting seperately (ie
not as a "Party"). That was what turned me off multiplayer in the BG
series.
>
> Play By E-Mail (PBEM): Once a very popular way of gaming, it's been on
> the a wane in recent years. You don't really need a specific rules-set
> for PBEM...you just use the rules you would in a normal, table-top game
> and go from there. The only real modifications you have to make are
> not game-rule related...how often people need to post, the method of
> posting, player interaction, etc. Advantages: Those with strict time
> limitations can still RP. Disadvantages: Play is very, very slow,
> particularly during an extensive combat.
In fact, I think a well designed PBEM game will minimize combat as much as
possible, or drop into PBC (to borrow your acronym:) for the combat. In my
PBEM game, we've been playing since October, and we've dropped into chat
twice, mainly to do interaction between the players, or a complex
interaction. We've never had a combat. But then.. only four of my players
are even remotely close to each other (and they are in pairs).
This highlights an advantage of PBEM over tabletop play: you can abolish
the concept of "the party" as a cohesive group. There's no specific need
for the disparate players to be in the same place, on the same side, or
have the same agenda. Since the whole thing is email-based, it gives you
(as GM) an opportunity to ponder what could possibly happen, and respond
carefully.
The email list itself then becomes your documentation of "what happened."
But it is *really slow*. We've been playing since October, and we're on
the third day of game-time. A good portion of that goes to response time
(mostly from the players, but to some extent from me).
> Play By Chat (PBC...I just made up an acronym, I think): Basically,
> this is like PBEM play, but real-time (or almost real-time). It's
> similar to tabletop gaming, except you don't get the face-to-face
> interaction. With some software, such as AOL, you can actually roll
> dice using special codes (which is sweet!). Again, you don't really
> need an system devised specifically for online play...just pick your
> favorite flavor, add a few guidelines for interaction online, and
> presto! Advantages: Real-time play with people all over the world.
> Disadvantages: Still no face-to-face contact, so the games often lack
> the luster of tabletop games.
PBC, I've found, to be difficult. It has the advantage that players from
far away can play together, and that no one has to *go* anywhere to do it.
But otherwise it's got a lot of the issues that tabletop roleplaying has
with scheduling, getting people together, and what to do when someone
doesn't show up, etc. Add to that any kinds of serverproblems you might
have, and it just adds to the issue. Lag is the enemy of online PBC, in my
opinion.
With a good IRC client you can hack together random dice rolling options,
and there's a bot on undernet that used to do it as well. I'm not as fond
of this method, but I've used it when there wasn't an option for tabletop
roleplaying.
>
> The fourth way is really a modification of the methods
> above...freeform. Rules are nonexistant or invisible to the player.
> This is a lot more like collective storytelling than role-playing and,
> admittedly, not something I'm keen on. But as you're talking about
> rules, this isn't really applicable.
>
I'm not sure what this is. Maybe it's what I do with my PBEM game, since
we drop to chat when needed. Maybe it's more like the Blair Witch game my
wife played that basically didn't have GM's at all, just people posting
what their characters do. that can be kind of interesting, so long as
people play 'Nice'... but I've got no experience with it right now.
> Okay...now that we've got that down, here's my opinion on why there
> aren't any rules specifically designed for online play: we don't need
> 'em. The difficulties in playing with published rules online are
> minimal as compared to the difficulties playing with published rules in
> a tabletop game (obviously, we're considering options 2 and 3 above).
> I mean, online play doesn't have an affect on stats or stat
> description, success determination, wound effects, or any other part of
> the core rules of a game system. Anyone who runs an online game must
> ponder some details like how he's going to regulate character
> interaction and individual actions, but that's something that's very
> much a person style decision, not something that needs to be codified
> in a book. When I ran Marvel-RPG a few years back, I had a two-page
> FAQ which pretty much summed this up...certainly not enough info for a
> sourcebook.
>
My PBEM doesn't have hard and fast rules. I've written descriptions of the
races, talked to people directly about "The way things work" and we just go
from there. The character sheets are really just narratives, and I use
them mostly to determine whether a particular character will notice
something or not. Because of the need to get away from rolling dice (since
it slows down the PBEM), we're running a story-oriented game, so typically
what happens is what's good for the story.
The main reason I don't have *rules* is that I haven't needed them. I told
folks I'd write them up when i needed them, and ask questions of them about
their char as it came up, but otherwise, we'd just go with the flow. Since
I'm letting the story drive my actions, it's been fairly easy so far.
Of coruse, I haven't had a lot of player<->player interaction, and that may
change everything. Hopefully we'll find out soon. (IN PBEM terms, that a
few months away...:)
GenericJoe
GenericJoe
--
Bi Poly Pagan Switchy Writer Gamer Geek
Journal and Stories at
http://www.offthebeatenpath.org/genericjoe/
Butter vs. Margarine? I trust cows over Scientists.
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