Tips for GMing in GP

Hey all,

I'm 6 sessions into GMing my D&D 5e face-to-face game, and we're having a great time. The only downside is that we're only able to play every 5-6 weeks. So, I'm starting a forum here on Gamer's Plane to act as a sort of supplement to our game. We'll basically keep the story going in between sessions. Even at a slow burn, it will help keep the game in front of the players so we don't have recap everything that's happened every time we play.

Y'all have any advice, both in GMing my first time here on GP and on using PbP to supplement an in-person game?

I'd also be interested to hear how you all organize your game forums, espcially what kind of threads you have and how you categorize them.

Thanks!

I'm really looking forward to this thread, as I just tasked the new Guide team to coming up with a guide on tips for GMing on PbP :p

I have to say, I've never used PbP to supplement my live games. That could be a very interesting dynamic, to say the least. I'm kinda curious to see how that works out. :)

This is a great idea, whipstache! I have sometimes made a wiki to provide background material for an IRL game, and my troupe spends some time on email and IM between sessions.

GP forums could be a hosting service for such game text. And my players may find some attractive games to play here on their own.

Whether we keep our convos online is interesting; some stuff is secret from the other players, haha.

As to your question, I'm also suddenly interested in how this conversation unfolds.

at the very least it is a good way to focus on character development. My friends and I used to do something like that years ago through emails between game sessions. it'll be good to use this site as a central hub

Yeah, I've tried to get my IRL group to join with exactly this kind of thing in mind, with only 40% success so far.

I had thought that running adventures around your IRL campaign would be good, either adding to the lore of the setting or figuring out what happens in another location which may have some effect on the main campaign plot in the future.

My PbP procedure:

• One post per scene, with an appropriate title. This way, you know what each scene was about, and individual scenes aren't lost in a massive thread
• One designated OOC thread, for miscellaneous chatter to avoid cluttering up IC threads with OOC chat
• A character-centric sub-fora. Players can post their characters there, and make IC posts like journal entries, backstory, etc
• A suggestion/what-I-would-like-to-see sub fora. A place for both players and GM to talk about what they would like to see in the game in the near future, and to discuss what went well in the past

-EF

I'm curious as to why, in your mind, you haven't had a ton of success?

I know with some of my groups I have mentions pbp and this site. I was met with a flat out no interest. Idk if it was because they have to type words or something. I found it odd because some players really love roleplaying and i thought this site would be perfect for them.

One of the guys in my group is actually a novelist. Maybe too close to his day job? Overall I think it's mostly a lack of charisma on my part. I was always more the "do my own thing" kinda guy, as opposed to the "take my friends along with me" type.

Two people in my troupe are novelists. /harumpf

Srsly, though, I think people (my age at least) think back to text adventures or crude pbp on BBS systems. Rather than the technological wonder land that Keleth is building.