The nature of pbp

I’ve enjoyed pbp for a few years now and have a few thoughts about the nature of this… media I guess. I’ll make it short, but would like to hear your thoughts:

In my opinion, pbp is the epitome of the RPG experience from a story point of view. Physial dnd, where you meet and sit around a table, is great - but spontaneus: you act fast and the narrative will "suffer" from this - in some senses. Pbp is way better in this matter: You really get the opportunity to think about actions and describe them very clearly and creatively. So the overall story stands out much more clearly. And it can stand the test of time - you can keep it and revisit it, if you want. Unless you video record your physical game, it will fade over time. (oh, all the faded games!)
I would love a button at the end of the pbp game that said "convert pbp game to book" and an AI could give you the full story :)1

So, I’m thinking. Why isn’t pbp bigger? I discovered it by chance. It feels second-rate to "real" rpg, but I really think the best stories come from pbp.

Anyway, My two cents on this matter.

I might draw some hate for this, but the first reason is that it comes across as lonely, or even desperate. It's the alternative to having a group of friends around a table. It's what you do if you don't have a group of friends.

Now... let me clarify before I get hung in the town square.

I'm pointing out how some (a lot?) of people view PbP. That doesn't make it God's Honest Truth, although perception and reality have a bit of correlation. TTRPGs are a social gaming medium, and PbP is about as non-social as you can get while interacting with a group of people.

This is essentially the "real friends vs. online friends" debate that has raged since internet message boards got started, just dialed back a bit to the RPG niche.

Those who don't get it probably never will, and those who do... do. We've all met wonderful, funny, creative, inspired, great people here on the site, who share a love of a common interest. For us, that's enough. For others, it's just too distant.

However... I know even my friends IRL who game via VTT still get the feel of being around a table (and the perka of that), even if it's watered down. A feeling they just don't get from PbP.

I could elaborate more, but I think you all get my point (and hopefully aren't rallying to ban me).

The second reason seems to be one of speed. Even a fast-paced PbP game is slow. Too slow for many. A lot of people just can't handle that. The fact a month of steady posting can go buy and you've potentially accomplished next to nothing is more than some folks can take. Obviously some of us aren't bothered, but again... I feel we're the minority.

I think the speed thing is the biggest "issue". Considering that a 4 hour module can take 1-2 months to finish via pbp, I get how that might not work for everyone. Another issue might also be the amount of games that end up fizzling out for one reason or another. It can be disheartening if you put a lot of work and effort into creating a character and then the game never really gets off the ground.

I will say that I love the storytelling aspect of it, and since I prefer to DM rather than be a player but feel too uncertain to be able to do it in real time, I like the additional time I have to think things through.

The speed thing is what takes a bit of getting used to but most that manage this trend to stick around for a variety of reasons.

For me one of the major bonus of PbP is the flexibility. Life can be hectic and the ability to post when I have time while still allowing a narrative interactive challenge let me find a bit of fun in an otherwise busy schedule.

I would add to all of the above that, to enjoy this particular form of gaming, you need a love of writing (and of reading ); the fun is in crafting narration and dialogues to convey a mood and create a setting, often in long posts. This is not everyone's cup of tea, which limits the diffusion of this medium.

- Glacially slow.

- It can require a significant amount of writing, which turns off many.

- Many people quit before they find reliable RPers who match their vibe.

- There's an eternal shortage of GMs for PbP. (IRL too, probably.)

- Majority of systems aren't designed for PbP.

How can it get bigger? Maybe if some genius created the ultimate, DM-less, easy-to-learn system, and it somehow made a huge splash (pumped up by a Hollywood movie, and/or best-selling novels, etc.) we'd see a huge influx of players.

As AI advances, we may also see more PbP. A website or program that handles some or all of the DMing, can accommodate any number of players, and doesn't run out of memory/space? drools

Right now, though...it is what it is. 🤷‍♂️

Don't forget about us who just want more roleplaying (not putting any emphasis on Role here) in their lives. It isn't about the massive dialogues or messages or exploring more deeply the depth of a world, it's having more games at our fingertips.

Builds gallows
Gets rope
Locates mob for incitement
...
Notices mob is responding rationally, reluctantly follows suit

---

Oh, ahem, alright. Yeah -- loads and loads of great responses above. I think the good doctor nails it -- not everyone loves to read and especially write the way many of us do here and on other PbP sites. That's absolutely not the only reason, but I think it, the aforementioned speed, and attention span are probably the biggest impediments.

It's also very easy to have bad experiences that turn you off quickly. Games being too slow, games where people ghost and things grind to a gradual halt, shit GMs, shit players, mismatched expectations, not enough discussion up-front about what everyone wants out of the game, etc.

I do both -- play lots of live games and PbP games. But for about 25 years, I only played first PBeM and then PbP games because of my schedule, the loss of my home group, and my unwillingness to play live with strangers at cons, in game shops, etc. A *big* part of that is what cowleyc mentions -- I was interested in niche games, not the popular ones, so finding live players for -that- was particularly hard. I eventually stopped trying -- until 2018 when I forced the issue and played in one game at a local con. I had a ball, remembered my roots, and now have two fortnightly live groups and attend 2-3 cons a year.

They are different experiences for me, and I want both of them. But if I had to give one up? PbP would prevail. I love the depth, the richness, the written word.

Now, who's going to help me with his rope?

Thanks for all the great replies and the very valid reasons 🙂
About the speed of the game: I do play irl tabletop dnd. Once a month. That’s all a group of dads can agree upon - naturally. (and my social battery). We meet for about 5 hours. One hour passes eating and who knows how much time on small talk (which is fine and great). But in my case, I think the psysical game is even slower than pbp, when you compare them.
I like the slow drip of pbp - not that we nessesarily accomplish a lot, but there are tons of small details, appearently insignificant details, that can sprew all kinds of surprising thoughts and posts. I like that as well (for instance - I found a jar of honey in a recent dnd game, and that influenced my bg story. Long story).
Then there’s the instability issue of pbp. One might solve that using some kind of player score, community rating, whatever - not that I would want that! But there could be technical solutions? Or payed play - or some other motivating factor.
Or - if you could persuade your irl friends to game pbp - but I find that impossible too. I just can’t make them understand what it’s all about 🙂

A lot of people join this site. Dozens daily, but how many become a part of the community?

My theory is that the idea of PBP appeals to a lot of people, enough that they seek it out, do the easy step of making a profile, and then ... nothing happens. They forget about it, or don't know how to immediately get into a game, or there are no open games they're interested in, or they forget their password and are too chuffed to bother resetting it. It's a habit to be here regularly and habits are hard to form.

But the biggest medium of PBP might not be forum-based play like GP but instead be Discord/WhatsApp/instant messaging. Perhaps millions of people are quietly playing with their friends or with strangers that way, the dark web of PBP. Maybe PBP is way larger than we expect our can ever truly know.

Discord is massive for play by post. I’d even go out on limb to say it’s the new norm for play by post games.

A valid point. I'm aware of several people doing that and I myself have run a bunch of PbP (or play by chat) on Discord.
Also very good points.
Another good call, especially for PbtA games, those heavy on passing metacurrency chips around or generally relying on a lot of back and forth discussion between participants. I can't imagine, say "Alice is Missing" in a PbP format. Likewise, games like Blades in the Dark, Dungeon World or Wicked Ones where you need to discuss and agree what the stakes are before every roll, could get quite tedious in a PbP.

One thing I consider interesting to discuss though is the social aspect of being around a table with friends. What I'm saying is, that used to be much more a thing in the 80s and 90s (or when each of us was a kid and had lots more time, energy and less commitments). These days, most people seem to be playing online using various VTTs, especially after covid. In that sense, the live, in person, social aspect has somewhat subsided so it's not exactly the strongest argument for live games over PbP ones.

Unfortunarly I have nothing to add

I actually disagree. Maybe it's anecdotal but people playing on VTTs generally incorporate voice/cideo chat. It captures like 90% of what made sitting around a table fun. It largely preserves that live, in person social aspect.

Regarding the actual prevalence of play-by-post, broadly conceived, I will add that there are other traditions of online roleplaying that didn't arise from a conversion of TTRPGs to this medium.

In my long-ago college years, there were plenty of text-based roleplaying servers that developed from the architecture of multi-user dungeons (MUDs) and went by various acronyms, including muti-user shared hallucination (MUSH), multi-user shared experience (MUSE) and multi-user experience (MUX). PernMUSH, based on Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern novels, was a big one; in its prime it drew upwards of 100 players a night. Eventually these games did dovetail somewhat with TTRPGs, especially the World of Darkness games from White Wolf. At one time I helped to run a MUSH based on the Werewolf line of products, called GarouMUSH; even our smaller game could draw 40-ish players on a good night.

The writing and roleplaying in these games could be quite good. With the advent of MMOs, however, MU*s became less popular. I don't think there are many still around.

Another non-TTRPG tradition is forum roleplaying. I haven't done the research on this, but my sense is that these websites, often called 'roleplays,' arise from the fan fiction and amateur author communities. These forums often focus on romantic or slice-of-life stories, and the writing and roleplaying tend to be more 'literary' than what you'd find in an average play-by-post game. Jcink.com hosts a plethora of forum games, and there are sites dedicated to advertising games in this medium.

Disagree!

...about going out on a limb. If not #1 for PbP, it's definitely high up on the rankings.

But again, problems abound: GMs/mods who've run their servers for years, and refuse to listen to new ideas...poor player-to-GM ratios...servers with 745 different channels, so you don't know where to start...people who join to hang out/meme/cause a ruckus, not RP...etc.

Another point: I'm only really familiar with D&D 5th Edition Discord servers, but most of those servers offer the illusion of RP, at least for a significant portion of the experience. You might join, make a cool character, be ready to rock & roll...but there aren't any missions available, so you end up low-stakes chatting with others in the tavern/town square/wherever, while you wait for a DM to cobble something together. Often you'll be waiting for weeks.

No doubt many are fine with this arrangement, but I think for most people, it's a hard sell. And so many quit PbP entirely, rather than searching out more niche options.

Though much smaller, the vibe of Gamers Plane is superior to Discord, IMO. Join a game here, and it's usually one GM per 4-8 players. A public Discord server might have 10 GMs/mods for a server of 200 people.

I agree with part of what your saying, but I don't think PBP should be compared to traditional RPGs (even if you're using their rulesets.) When PBP is good, and the group is meshing, and everyone is writing things that either contribute to the story, or are entertaining to read (ideally both) then it's a pleasure. It's fun to write, you look forward to it, and it's fun to read. When you have GMs and Players who read everything and give considered reactions; when everyone is responding to what everyone else is writing it can be awesome.

When it's not awesome, it can feel like an obligation. It can feel like the other players (including GMs) actions imply that they've barely read the thread up until their turn, or that they're so interested in their own character or their own writing that that don't seem to be super interested in contributing to the overall collaborative story. Sometimes players contribute so little, or they seem to be waiting for the GM to tell them what happens to the point where they're practically an NPC that can be relied upon to roll the dice when conflict happens, but that's about it. These are the games where I usually stick with it longer than I should, but I always hope that this is just growing pains until we hit the groove. I remain hopeful that every game I join will be one of those games that are an actual pleasure to play and the duds are just kind of the price of admission before you find your group.

I started my current PbP campaign over four years ago after a bad experience trying to run an online VTT game using Roll20 left me completely lacking in confidence and enthusiasm for running any real-time games. I stopped running RPGs for over two years after that and became very depressed and bored due to the lack of any creative outlet or social contact.

The decision to try PbP was dependant on finding a hosting site that I could trust not to screw up my game. So I spent months researching PbP hosting sites and eventually chose Tavern-Keeper.com as the best and easiest to use. Unfortunately, that site is now shutting down due to a lack of adequate marketing and support, and so I am hunting for an alternative. But it kept me active in the hobby for over four years and gave me a creative outlet and regular social contact with players from all around the world.

I'm not sure how true it is to say that PbP isn't as popular as 'real' RPG's. It rather depends how one measures popularity.

PbP is more of a cerebral activity than a spectator sport. I've yet to see a PbP on YouTube, and I suspect it would be pretty boring to watch. There are no Matt Mercers playing or promoting PbP.

I can't say that in the four + years I've been playing PbP I have even bothered reading anyone else's, so it's quite an introverted activity that only really involves the GM and their players. Although I do recount memorable events from my own game on the Game Masters Forum and the PBP forum from time to time. But that's more like recounting a story than showing actual gameplay.

That being the case, it's hard to tell just how many people are playing PbP I only really know of seven, myself and my six players.

But the thing is, we play every single day, whereas my son's TTRPG group only play once per month, and his Roll20 group only once per week. So, in terms of actual mental commitment, which game gets the most time dedicated to it?

It's actually hard to tell.

My love of Pbp, is based on the richness of the roleplay and the flexibility of the gameplay. It's only really limited by the imagination if the GM and the players. It doesn't matter if you have a miniature for an albino goblin, you can still imagine one, and encounters can happen anywhere, even if you don't have the right battlemap.

It also avoids all the techno-babble associated with most VTT's, though it does help to have a decent hosting site like Tavern Keeper that provides easy-to-use features. You are not really reliant on some complex code to work, or everyone to turn up at the right time to play.

And you have time to think, without the pressure to be entertaining.

Personally, I would never go back to TTRPG's again.

You got me in the first half, haha

There are some folks who follow along with the odd game they aren't in, but yeah -- pretty rare to do that.

Some of us are indeed actively trying to promote this corner of the hobby. I've written web articles, blogposts, recorded podcasts and videos -- resulting in at least a couple of folks trickling in to GP, trying some games, and sticking around. I played in the PBeM / PbP style almost exclusively for about 25 years; in 2018/19 I started playing live again and loved it. Wouldn't want to give up either these days, but if push came to shove... I'm keeping my precious PbP gaming.

Personally, I despise 'Discord' with a passion and hate being forced to use it by certain websites that can't be bothered to provide a proper community and support forum. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a social chat site and the last place to go if you actually want any help

But you are right when you say that it sucks in a lot of potential PbP players who might otherwise find a proper game.

Unfortunately, in doing so, it also distracts a lot of the Pbp community away from proper hosting sites and results in excellent purpose-built sites like Tavern Keeper being forced to shut down due to lack of support.

I certainly don't hate Discord. It's a tool, and it's good at what it does (which, as you say, is chat), but you're right, it isn't designed for PbP. I've tried running a PbP game on Discord, and, meh, it was okay, but lightyears behind what can be achieved with a platform specifically built for PbP games.

But Discord is a tool that many people are familiar with, and I can understand that people who want to get into RPGs or PbP might want to make the adoption of a new hobby less daunting by sticking with familiar tools. I wish I still had my old Discord PbP game because then I could post a compare-and-contrast to show Discord PbP players what they're missing out on.

Although, in some ways, I'm kinda glad PbP isn't that popular. It keeps our sites as quaint little hobby niches within a sea of commercialisation. Myth-Weavers and Gamers' Plane don't have adverts, require subscriptions, or that gamers buy loot boxes containing avatars.

---

It might be worth mentioning that Gamers' Plane's code is open source, but running the servers costs money. I believe that Keleth has stated that voluntary donations are currently slightly higher than the monthly running costs, but if anyone has been an active user of GP for a while, AND can afford to kick over a few quid every month to Keleth's PayPal account, AND has made playing on GP part of their daily life, then there's a "Support Us" button in the footer. I only mention it because I think Keleth is too shy to ask for help.

Like a lot of things what you get out of Discord is what you put in. It's a handy way to form a community, but shouldn't be used as a replacement for forum interactions as well.

I had a go at a discord game. I did not like it!
The game itself was fine, but it was the red-discord-dot that demanded my attention all the time.

I remember back in the 3.5 days, there was an article by someone -- the name Warren is in my head -- that talked about the main types of RPG players, and I think it's relevant here.

They were, to the best of my recollection, Storytellers, Power Gamers, Casual Players, and Completionists.

Storytellers, it should be obvious just want a good story, and they want to help with that. TTRPG and PBP both satisfy this.

Power Gamers can likewise be satisfied with PBP. In fact, they're probably more satisfied, because they have the time to strategize more here than in in-person settings.

Completionists like world exploration, side quests, investigation, finding lore. Again, that's probably easier here than in-person.

The Casual Player, (not my term, just the one the article used; I'd call them, social players if it were my choice) which used to be sort of a minority, just likes hanging out, tend to be lurkers, sort of. They're there to make jokes, have fun, and if the medium of that fun is an RPG, then they will do that too, but they're really there for the pizza. (I'm simplifying, of course.)

Everyone is a couple of these, usually. The thing is, if you are in the social category, you will find it very difficult to be satisfied in PBP. And while the social player used to be a minority (and maybe even a bit rare), it's a lot more common now. At the same time, a major piece of media that introduces people to the scene is the Actual Play which highlights the social aspect. That combination makes it hard to get a sizable portion of prospective players into PBP.

Discord is not really the same as PBP, as you can voice chat or have side discussions in real-time at will. That makes it friendlier for social players. That doesn't really happen in PBP.

Any game theory tends to fall apart when trying to apply it to the real world, I'd say more that people are a combination of all four, depending on the system and group you're playing with. I mean, what storyteller is not going to want to find out the lore of a setting, even if they're playing the part of setting it up, and I'm sure most power gamers play the part of casuals (who have always been the majority) when all the talky bits are going on.

You are probably spot on that the more casual you are about a game, the less likely they are to play PBP. Though I'll admit there has been times when RL has gotten me beat and I've just rolled along with a game until I have more time to commit to it again!

Sure, but I think it's fair to say that we prioritise different things and that's a decent model Falcon's offered. I have zero interest in strategy (or even rules). And I'm not a completionist at all. I play for the social aspect - a story is nice, but only as vehicle for the social side of the game.

Maybe we should use a radar charts to describe ourselves. E.g. I shouldn't play games with people who love RAW, and I've already made it a condition that I only play with people who use discord. I've also seen conflict at tables where players are playing for very different reasons (e.g. storytellers and power gamers).

I've never really understood that logic.

The whole point of Pbp and its main advantage, in my opinion, is that it doesn't rely on everyone being online and available at the same time.

I have players from North America, Europe and the UK, most of us are in different time zones, so we are never going to be online at the same time.

If everyone has to be online at the same time, then you might as well use a VTT, and you are not really gaining any advantage from Pbp at all.

It's just evolving. There are many ways to play text-based RPGs, and many of us here prefer the classic forum style. Loads of people not only use Discord, but arrange a time to all be online (without going for voice / video), and I even know people who used Roll20 every Friday night to *play by chat*, essentially. I love the asynchronous bit myself -- it was the only way I could play for -decades-, but I don't mind that others are digging these faster, less literary, more synchronous styles.

Yes! My sons DnD group does this. They use Roll20 as a platform for text-based roleplay. So, they still have all the problems of trying to arrange a mutually suitable time to be online, but when they are playing they post their character actions as text posts in the Roll20 text function and use Discord for background chat and playing music etc.

But I don't think they consider that PbP, I suspect they would call it text-based roleplay. It just keeps a clear record of what their characters are saying and doing as opposed to social chit-chat.

For me anyway, the nature of Pbp is that the players don't need to meet either in person or online. That's the benefit one gains in return for all the negatives of Pbp.

My main group has been doing 2hr sessions for awhile and one of my players suggested we do an asynchronous type of play between sessions to give more room for deeper role play. Longer thinking about decisions and more cohesive story tellings.

Ironically he basically described PbP for me. We are going to try a hybrid PbP and play in person group for a bit but I think all the advantages you mentioned were what made them like the idea. We will see how it goes.

Same. I had an experience on Discord that I don’t want to experience twice. The platform itself is not to blame, but still… moderated sites and no real-time chat is the only way I’ll play PbP. (At least until my major trust issues subside…)

I would say the thing I love most about PbP is the opportunity to perform without the pressure to perform. I like to look at other players and the GM (when it’s not me) as my audience, and I’m also theirs. I see the responsibility for keeping others entertained and invested in the game/story/characters as shared, with the GM having more responsibility on the story end and players on the character end.

We experimented with a hybrid format too, and one of the biggest hurdles we ran into was how to register our live sessions in a digital format that made sense for the PbP side of the game. Unlike pure PbP, where everything is already written out as you go, summarizing a live session turned out to be way more time-consuming than I expected.

I really underestimated the "byproduct" of PbP—how it naturally records everything: what the PCs did, the rolls, the dialogue, etc., all as part of the play process. Trying to replicate that after the fact, even in a summarized way, took a lot more effort than a typical PbP post. With PbP you write in manageable, piecemeal chunks—live sessions don’t break down that neatly.

Being able to search, scroll back, re-read -- Gold, Jerry!

I record my live games and run the transcripts through NotebookLM. This basically makes a podcast of the live gameplay for people.
Example

I also recently tried getting copying a game thread on Gamersplane and doing the same thing...and it worked fairly well.

There are some "inaccuracies" but nothing game breaking or worth nitpicking on for my group at least

Great ideia. Thanks for sharing. =)