It was a fun question on the subreddit r/osr – “What’s happening in your game currently?”
… and it reminded me that maybe I am a little crazy.
I am ten years into my AD&D/1e campaign. The basic premise is that the world has suffered an apocalypse and civilization is declining. What will you (the players) do?
I currently host three separate games in this world.
1 – long running tabletop game, we meet monthly in Gurnee, IL. Takes place on the eastern side of the continent.
Currently, the players are deep in a dungeon, seeking to free human slaves from the Bestials and recover a legendary sword. They just came to an underground fortress that appears ancient and menacing. I may, or may not, be adapting a Dyson Logos map or two for this lovely area.
2 – Online play-by-post, this iteration is about 4 years running – Takes place on the southwest corner of the continent. We just moved the game to my Discord server from Rizzoma, but the move is going well!
Players are exploring an abandoned city to help the Elves find their lost homeland. They are also in a dungeon, exploring a burnt temple.
3 – Online virtual tabletop, meets every other Tues – This game takes place in the north/northwest corner of the continent.
The players are exploring an old ruined castle, which seems to have become the outpost for a warband of Bestials (kobolds, goblins, orcs) and black-robed humans! They’re doing a great job of clearing out the place so far… but the hardest test is facing them.
I also host wargames in my world. I have a solo wargame campaign going on that affects the tabletop and online virtual tabletop games (the PbP is ongoing, but it is much slower in time elapsing, so they won’t be affected). I haven’t had much time to invest in this, having made painting miniatures a priority for the past 6 months or so. I’m feeling the need to push lead around though…
How are your games going?
I'd be interested to hear more about the mechanics of your play-by-post. I've run one in the past and am in one now while taking a DM break.
I just inserted Deep Carbon Observatory into my Razorcoast campaign and so now we will be dealing with flooding and refugees. We play every other Wednesday, face to face.
I would love to have a life that allowed me bi-weekly 4 to 6 hour games… alas, none of us in our group can do that.
"Mechanics of play-by-post."
I'm not sure how to describe it? If you're on Discord, let me know and I'll send you a link to my server so you can see how I do it.
Were there areas that you had questions that I could share my experiences in them?
What kind of PbP did you run?
(sorry for the really long delay, a personal issue came up and sidelined me for a month+)
I am on Discord. I ran a quick 5E through Hangouts but I think for the next one Discord would be better. Did you use bots for dice/anything else? How about maps, particularly combat maps? How did you ensure player engagement?
No worries, Shelby!
I do use a bot for my dice on Discord – RPBot.
For combat, it's mostly theater of the mind. The players sketch out maps and post them into a player content channel.
Player engagement… I try to post every day. I try to ensure that I tag each player with something that's going on. I try to keep the game engaging. These guys have been doing it for 5 years, so there's some serious skin in the game!