>Okay then. Here's a situation I need help with. > >I would like to run a PBEM 3rd Edition D&D adventure. But I do not wish for >the game mechanics, especially rolling dice for each combat action, to slow >the game down. In face-to-face pen and paper, battles can sometimes take an >hour. If the players and I have to roll dice and email the results back and >forth, or use one those dice server things, battles will probably take >weeks. I need help coming up with a solution. Well, what I do is...wait, you already mention that...hold on... >One thing I tried was making up homemade combat rules that don't involve >dice. Basically, every roll is a ten. If thats over the needed number it's a >damage bonus. If it's less is a damage penalty. Each hit or spell does >average damage to the monsters who have average hit points. Everybody "Takes >Ten" on saving throws and skill checks unless they can "Take Twenty." I >thought this would be slick, even allowing me to fast forward the combats >and post results from multiple rounds of combat. However, I convinced only >two players to try my system. What do you think of it? Well, I'm not a big fan of diceless rules...I prefer the randomness of dice. If you go with this system, you'll either have to make sure everything they fight has an AC they can hit or they'll end up facing monsters that simply cannot be defeated (or, even worse, end up in an endless fight with a monster they can't hit and a monster that can't hit them!). I'm not really sure how diceless games work, but I understand the best out there (and one of the only ones, I think) is Amber. Worth checking out if you're really into the diceless thing. >What other tricks do you know of that speed play? I suppose I could do all >the rolling myself as DM, but the temptation to fudge the results would be >high. Okay...I ran a Star Trek game for about a year, two concurrent GURPS Supers games for two years and this is what I went with. As DM, you've got to avoid fudging if this is going to be fair. Basically, at the start of each round, take an action from each player. Then roll the dice and combine all the actions into one e-mail message, writing out the description of each result. The players never have to touch a die. When I did it, I was in college and carried around two D10's or 3d6's in my pocket so I could check e-mail between classes and figure out the results right then and there. Yes, I was a gaming geek ;) Anyways, _everything_ is slow as heck in a PBEM. That's the nature of the game. In my Star Trek game, they never got out of space dock (okay, so their first adventure was while in spacedock). Combat rolls along at a crawl, particularly if you end up with players who can't or won't post messages on a regular basis (it's always a good idea to give players a time limit...say 3 days...to decide on their next action). >Any advice from your own play by email experiences would be greatly >appreciated. Hope that helps. If you've got more questions, fire away. Lucifer >:} -- "The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n" --Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. 1 Homepage: http://members.aol.com/noctifer/index.html Lucifer's Feyworld Webpage: http://members.aol.com/noctifer/private/FeyFront.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
