PbP Help

If we have questions about the rules, or about what action to take, we can discuss them in the General Chat thread or the OOC for the relevant thread and get advice. You are always welcome to PM the GM, but other's can help too, the game is a collaboration.

Quick Links:
Don't Edit
Viewpoint and Tense
Formatting (optional)
Fiction First
Email Notifications
Character Sheet Visibility

Don't Edit
Due to technicalities on this site and the way the human brain processes information and changes, please don't edit the content of a post once people have read it (which means as soon as you have posted). We don't get proper notifications for edits.

Editing minor grammar or spelling is OK but, if this in any way changes the meaning of what was there, drop an OOC note explaining exactly what you changed. 'Not' and 'Now' are such common typos, but can completely change the meaning once fixed: "I thought you said you were not going to do the thing!". "No, I said 'I am now going to do the thing!"

We are not trying to write a book. Play by Post is not for those who may come later and read the game, it is for those who are playing right now. Don't stress about out-of-order posts (they are the only way this thing works) and please don't worry about looking foolish by correcting a mistake in a way all can see, if we can not clearly see the specifics of your correction, then there is a problem.

If you forgot to say something, just create a new post below with what you left out. Some think this may look 'messy', but it actually makes it make sense to anyone reading it and there is no confusion. Avoiding confusion is much more important than looking good. :)

Thanks.

Viewpoint and Tense (TLDR: Third Person, Present Tense)
At the table I encourage players to speak in 'first person' ("I hit him.") as it can increase 'immersion'. Some players embrace this, some find it uncomfortable, and some (myself included) swap between first and third (and of course as a GM I use second person a lot, but that is not for you:).

I don't recommend first person in play by post, as this has the opposite effect to what is intended. Instead of your words showing us what your character is doing, written first person results in your words showing us your character telling us what they are doing, thus adding an additional level of indirection.

This is in addition to the difficulty for the rest of us reading what each PC did, with the pronoun 'I' obscuring who they are. This becomes a clamour of people shouting their own opinion at the reader. There is a reason most books are written in third person ('Bob hits them'), and that books in first person are mostly only from the viewpoint of a single protagonist.

Most of the time what you describe is what is happening 'now', so present tense is almost always the best way to go.

Formatting
A common idiom on many play by post sites is to use "quoted" bold (ctrl-b) text for your character's spoken dialog and italic (ctrl-i) for internal monologue or thoughts, in the form of:

"I am going to help!" Bob informs the group. Man, I hope they back me up. He thinks desperately.

Some players like to give their character's words and thoughts some color in addition to this. This can be handy for quickly finding what someone said. If you opt to use color, make sure it is one that everyone can read easily, on both the light and dark theme. Confirm with the group as some people's eyes don't see the way yours do. If in doubt, avoid color.

Such formatting tricks should not be used as a substitute for proper writing —not everyone can see them on all devices— so keep things clear by always including the usual quote marks and explanations (like: "What!?" Bob exclaims with excitement. or: What!? Bob thinks in surprise.)

It is handy to bold the names of other PCs and players in your posts so the player can know to look at it with higher level of urgency than normal. The GM has to look at everything, so don't bother with NPCs, this just dilutes the effect.

Going back later and adding bold and italic to a post is also fine, this does not change the content of the message, just makes it easier to digest.

Fiction First
What you say matters. More words is not better, and flowery text and purple prose are not what we are looking for. State what your character is doing —if need be add an OOC note to make things absolutely clear what your intent is if it feels janky to include that in the in-character text— and the GM will let you know the possible outcomes of what you described.

These outcomes can range from "That works" to "There is no way for you to do that", with the common "How do you do that?" in between. If we need to resort to dice to decide an outcome we will talk about it and add a roll. The level and nature of the danger should be unsurprising given the fiction that came before.

Clever, careful descriptions help you control the outcomes, if your character is being careful in the fiction they are in less danger.

Email Notifications

One of the easiest ways to keep track of when posts have happened and when you need to make a post of your own, is to make sure your email system is working and able to receive mails from gamersplane.com.

To tell the system which threads you are interested in receiving emails about you need to Subscribe to the thread (link near the top right of the page), or the entire forum (bottom(ish) left). Subscribing to a forum means you will also receive emails about new threads that are created therein. If you have subscribed to a forum, you will not see the option to subscribe to threads within that forum.

Subscribing only applies to that forum, not its children. You will need to subscribe to each sub-forum individually.

Some players don't like —or can not receive— emails and rely on refreshing the front page constantly. YMMV.

Character Sheet Visibility

In order for the other players to be able to see the contents of the character sheets, the sheet need to be Added to the Library.
To do that mark the grey 'note' icon that says Add to Library on your character list.

Red means others can see the sheet.