On 6 Jun 2001, at 13:19, genericjoe@vnet.net wrote: [much of the snipping and the trimming herein] > > 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 PB EM > 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 clos e > 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). Well, Mike's Excalibur PBEM had so much traffic it became a monster. Never made it out of spacedock, but it was fun while it lasted. PBEM allows two things that I've experienced: the slowness allows the player to determine what the character would do based on everything the player knows about the character, rather than playing a "slightly in-character" pantomime of the character you have time to rewrite and get it right. If a character uses an idiomatic expression, like - fershure, or has a particular habit (one of mine liked to perch on the backs of chairs), you have time to work that into the narrative and you can adlib things which should be there but are often missing from face2face gaming. > > 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. Bu t > 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. There are some alternatives here: webRPG and GRiP are two that I can think of right off the bat. Both allow interactive mapping, both handle character record-keeping, both have dice-rollers integrated. WebRPG uses the WEBrpg servers, where GRiP operates independently, where the GM's machine becomes the server. webRPG is free, GRiP costs for the GM module, but the clients are free. GRiP specifically includes RogerWilco, which with a decent bandwidth connection allows voicechat between multiple players. RogerWilco is usable independently of GRiP, and some games (specifically BG) are mentioned on the RW website. I've been thinking about GRiP for an IronClaw game, I'm having problems finding enough players in my area to make it worthwhile, but I could run a game across my CableModem pretty easily. Video Cameras keep dropping in price - I picked up USB cameras for my nieces for under $10us each. Using software like CUSEEME PRO, you can have up to 12 videos going at once. I've not tried it on a 56k modem, but it would seem that that technology would be great for remote f2f gaming. Heck you could even roll your normal dice and aim the camera at them. Combining that with something like GRiP might be the way to go. -- -Coyt Watters "The internet, billions of electrons with nothing better to do." ---------------------------------------------------------------- GMAST Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
