Hello, internet friendos, you probably have some idea of what play-by-post (PBP) means and definitions remain the last refuge of those with too much time on their hands so we’ll take a shortcut. (If you really need to start at zero, why not look at the wikipedia page!) For our purposes, PBP just means playing a tabletop roleplaying game over text.
“Text” contains multitudes. It could mean email, forums, chat, etc. Broadly, while the specific medium undoubtedly influences play in a Marshal McLuhan-esque sense, we can broadly define PBP experiences into two forms: synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous play assumes that play happens in real time, with players reacting to one and another nigh instantly - much like regular play, just mediated through text. Asynchronous means that players all react or play the game at various different times. A group who all carve out a time slot to roleplay over group text is Synchronous, a group playing over email where gaps between emails can be days or weeks is Asynchronous.
Asynchronous play is often considered to be “true” PBP because historically, all PBP games were asynchronous. Synchronous play is probably more popular now than it has ever been with the rise of chat apps like Discord but older PBP-ers often find the entire idea of synchronous text-based play dissonant. For them, the entire point of PBP is the convenience of “play when you can/want” asynchronicity. But there are a number of reasons why people might want to play over text - disability, other forms of marginalization, a genuine preference for writing rather than speaking, etc.
This article will focus on asynchronous play - not because that is somehow “truer” but because asynchronicity is the primary design challenge that I want to tackle. When people across time zones come together to play over text, the experience of play is radically different. The idea of TTRPGs as being “a capital-C Conversation” is a commonly-accepted concept now. But what kind of conversation are we imagining when we design games? How does our game-conversation change when done over a digital forum with gaps of hours or days between participants?
In this article, I’ll focus on two aspects of the capital-C Conversation:
- Pace
- Turns
So let’s start with Pace. The most obvious difference between PBP and other forms of play is that PBP is usually much, much slower. A “one shot” game might take a month. Or longer. This is often the only thing that people know about PBP and if you’ve never done it, it can boggle the mind. Let me assure you that it works and is a fulfilling and meaningful way of playing the game. But back to pacing, if you head to r/pbp or other places where games are advertised, most games will explicitly mention the intended pace of play. This is most often “one post per day”. But regardless of intent, the pace is often dictated by the slowest player. (Sometimes GMs will have a rule about how long the group waits for one player before the GM narrates what they do. This is obviously a very group-specific rule.)
This pace can often mean that there can often be a very obvious and noticeable “cost” to dice rolls and clarifications. (I put “cost” in quotes because it is an assumption that because something takes more time, it is some kind of detraction or penalty.) Let me elaborate with examples.
Example 1: Combat in D&D 5e has a “to hit” roll and a “damage” roll. When a player makes a “to hit” roll, they don’t know if they have succeeded till the DM says so. Only if they have succeeded, they can roll damage. This means that this minor interaction can take 2 days to resolve. (Most groups resolve this by rolling both at once but the principle applies broadly.)
Example 2: In Blades in the Dark, every roll is a conversation - players suggest actions and the GM provides position and effect. This means that every roll usually has a gap of one day - if not more to discuss alternatives or devil’s bargains. (Again, this is something that various tables find work arounds for.)
But thinking about dice rolls and clarifications are sometimes missing the woods for the trees. The woods is the conversation as a whole - in-character fiction, out of character discussion between players themselves, and conversation between players and the GM. If you look at my example 2, it seems to suggest that Blades might be a slower game but in play, because dice rolls often reflect vast swathes of action, the fiction often moves much faster in narrative games like Blades in PBP than with more trad or OSR games.
So it makes more sense to ask questions about how the fiction comes to life through the conversation. Or to phrase it differently, how long in practice does it take for the group to decide on the fiction?
One useful example to illustrate is the time taken for planning and coordination. When games force planning to happen OOC (for example, through the use of metacurrency), this can sometimes feel like slowing the fiction down in a way where planning in-character does not.
There’s a lot more to talk about in terms of pace of the conversation but let’s pause here and move on.
Let’s talk about Turns. Again, we have many facets to discuss here but I’ll point two of them. The first is what I call the soft problem of turns: “should I post now or later?” Without visible social cues to go by, PBP games sometimes need some scaffolding to help players understand the etiquette behind posting. For example, some forum games have very rules that require everyone to have posted once before someone can post twice. That’s a very explicit sense of “turns”. But other games tend to be much more freeflowing. Players with more time might have a quick burst of short dialogue with the GM in between longer, more comprehensive posts by others. The informality is nice but it can also lead to a weird calculus in the minds of players, like for example, “Can I post now in the middle of this conversation between this other player and a NPC?”
While this might seem like something that GMs are in control of (or should be in control of), there are various design elements that interact with this question. The most obvious is “initiative” and other explicit turn order mechanics. In games with an initiative order (in combat or elsewhere), turn order becomes very obvious but often in a way that actively detracts from play. This is what I call the hard problem of turns.
Potentially counter-intuitive fact: a fixed turn order (like D&D 5e) often slows down play tremendously. Players are often online or available but cannot play because it’s not their turn. But when it is their turn, they aren’t online or available. This mismatch happens more often than not in my personal experience (but disclaimer, I play with people across timezones). So, going from a freeflowing turn order to a fixed one can sometimes slow the fiction down tremendously. (Groups often switch to team initiative as a way of maintaining PC/NPC turn order while letting PCs act at any point within their slot.)
While we’re on initiative, another recurring problem is player actions that trigger on another person’s turn. For example, Protect in Blades in the Dark or Reactions in D&D 5e. These can often mean players have to choose between “going back” in the fiction in a dissonant way or losing out on a potential action.
There’s a lot more to talk about but that’s for another blogpost. If you want to discuss this post, twitter me @chaibypost.
This post is a part of my series of explorations of the design space around PBP games. My first attempt at this is available at itch.io and is called Parliament of Knives, which builds off one of the strengths of PBP which is that you can have dozens of players!