From: draphsor@medisg.Stanford.EDU (Matt "Rollie" Rollefson) Newsgroups: rec.games.frp Subject: PBeM: Running a Game Summary: How to run a PBeM game. Keywords: pbem, running Message-ID: <draphsor.686221520@medisg> Date: 30 Sep 91 09:05:20 GMT Lines: 306

Copyright 1991 by Matt Rollefson; permission is hereby granted to reproduce for private, non profit use provided that this notice is included and the contents are not altered in any way.

[Hmm. This is getting awfully muddled. I have a feeling that some reorganization is going to be necessary. Well, that's why I asked for proofreaders, after all! Hopefully you guys can give me an idea of what needs help the most! ]

How to Run a PBeM Role-Playing Campaign

You’ve got your players. You’ve got your adventure. You’re all set to go, except for one thing - you have no idea how to make this work by e-mail! Before diving in, there are some basic problems to be considered. There are also some strategies for dealing with these problems.

Time

The major problem facing PBeM players is time. It takes time for e- mail messages to propagate across the network. This can range from a few minutes to a few days. And the GM can not be constantly logged on. Therefore, the players must give moves which cover a greater span of time than normal. The normal, face to face method of constant give and take between GM and players and amongst the players simply does not work when the time delay of e-mail is introduced. This is most obvious in combat situations, but occurs to some extent no matter what. Consider the following example.

In a face to face session, a player will attempt to do something and the GM will immediately tell him what happens. The player knows if something he was planning does not work. For instance, a player says, "I draw my gun." If the GM knows that the gun has fallen out of his holster, he can immediately say, "Your gun isn’t there." The player can then react and take some other action.

Unfortunately, if the players waited for their every action to be confirmed by the GM, the game would go nowhere. Given an optimistic turnaround time of one hour (for a GM and player who log on almost constantly), it would still take several days for a character to have a minimal conversation in a bar. To get around this problem, characters typically send moves covering much longer periods of time. This of course brings up new problems.

Simultaneity and Cooperation

With all of the players sending moves which cover larger periods of time, it can be difficult to coordinate actions. If teamwork within the party is not required, this is not a major problem. Still, it can be difficult for the GM. If two characters are trying to do the same thing, the GM has to figure out which character does it first, and beyond that, how the other character reacts. Again, asking the characters constantly what they do in the new situation can bog a game down.

If cooperation between players is required, life gets even more difficult. Messages between players become almost essential, for if the GM must forward every little bit of conversation between characters he will rapidly become swamped. When trying to formulate plans, speed of communication is again essential. Unfortunately, some players will typically receive messages later than others. These players may well feel left out of the game, as they see messages they wish to reply to fly by, followed immediately by responses by other players.

Another problem with e-mail is known as ‘Jumping the Gun’. This is when a player logs on, reads the first message in his mailbox, and immediately replies to it. Typically, this response will have already been invalidated by messages other players or the GM have sent. Often those messages are already waiting in the player’s mailbox. But since he didn’t bother to read them before answering, he wastes time and energy formulating a useless move.

How To Deal

To avoid these problems, cooperation is required between game master and players. The players have got to put more effort into their moves than a simple, "I shoot the bad guy". You have to give the players enough information so that they can react intelligently, and he has to interpret their actions. Depending on the genre, you may or may not want to keep the characters alive. In Paranoia, you should kill the characters when they seem to deserve it. (If you take every excuse to kill the characters, the game won’t last very long!) In more heroic games, you may have to go to great lengths to keep the players alive. In almost all cases, you should make sure that the player’s suspension of disbelief is not challenged too much. For instance, to say that an experienced mercenary unit left themselves exposed at a window when they knew that they were going to be attacked by crossbows, simply because the players didn’t all say, "I duck!", is unreasonable. The player is putting his trust in you, the GM, to play his character reasonably in cases where he hasn’t given exact instructions. It’s your job to make sure he finds the results reasonable, even if he doesn’t like them.

You should tell your players what you want in a typical move. One way to speed up the game is to have the players send contingency plans. This is not only for combat. In a typical encounter, there will be several possible outcomes to a character’s action. If the player anticipates the most likely outcomes and tells the GM what his character will do in each case, the GMs life is made much easier. More game time can be covered in each move because the GM has instructions from the players which cover a wider variety of choices. This will not always work, of course. The unexpected is what’s a lot of fun with many RPGs. But it helps out in a lot of situations.

Another useful device is standing orders. While no one can anticipate everything, there are some fairly obvious situations that the character should have a plan for dealing with. If the GM knows what this plan is, he can implement it without consulting the player. In many cases, such consultation would be unrealistic. For instance, the character probably has a plan as to how he will deal with an ambush, or how he will react if someone points a gun at him. To consult the player in detail when such an event occurs ignores the fact that it is a stressful situation, and the character has very little time to think. Implementing standing orders better simulates the fact that the character has to act on instinct.

Depending on your players, they may send you contingencies and standing orders without any prompting. The better players almost certainly will. It is the more lazy players that you should prompt a little bit. Ask them for more contingencies. Ask what they’d do in this or that situation. While it requires more work on their part (and your part) now, it will prevent them from bogging the game down later on. It’s worth the time.

Conversation and Game Mechanics

Conversation is one of the strengths of PBeM, but it also suffers from the weakness of turnaround time. The best way to get around the problem here is to have each player involved in the conversation write a fairly long piece which rambles somewhat, touching on many of the points he wants to cover. You or the player to whom the speech is addressed can then go over the speech with a simple text editor and insert your comments where they’re appropriate. The end result doesn’t really sound like a normal conversation, but it usually works well enough. If your campaign is prone to long declamations by the heroes and villains, this works especially well.

The game mechanics themselves should be mostly hidden from the players. Description is the heart of the written form, and that is what you should emphasize. Jargon like +1 to hit or three fatigue points should be completely eliminated from moves. Even things such as orc chieftain should be fleshed out, especially if the characters have never seen one before. Show, don’t tell, is the advice to follow here.

Running combat can be especially tricky. There are two main options. You can run the entire combat yourself, rolling all the dice for all the participants for every round of combat. Then all you have to do is record the results and describe them in a convincing, interesting way. However, this can be a real bore for the GM. An alternative is to run combat in the Paranoia style, where flashy action is rewarded more than tactical genius. (After all, a role-playing game via e- mail is hardly the place for tactics. It’s just not well suited to it. Play Diplomacy via e-mail instead.) In this case all you really have to do is decide what’s going to happen based on how clever and/or interesting your players were, as well as what would logically happen. Rolling a few dice helps determine the outcome, but you don’t have to get down to the nitty gritty details. In fact, in all cases that involve game mechanics it’s often easier to simply do the logical thing, instead of rolling dice. If you do it well, your players will never know.

Putting it all Together

There are three major ways to run a PBeM RPG. They are having the GM do everything, having the players do everything, and a balance of the two. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and responds to the problems of e-mail in different ways.

GM Does Everything

This is perhaps the ‘purest’ form of gaming. None of the players know each other or communicate at all. All e-mail is sent directly to the GM. If a character wishes to speak to another character, the GM will forward the appropriate conversation to the other player. But the players don’t send each other mail. The GM takes all of the moves which arrive before the deadline, reads them carefully, and integrates them into one large move. This move is then sent out to all of the players, and typically leaves them confronting a problem which they have to solve. Each move tends to take them from one minor crisis to the next, thus keeping the level of tension high.

This form of gaming is eminently suited to such games as Paranoia or ShadowRun, where secrecy and conspiracy run rampant. The players are never sure if they are speaking to a PC or an NPC. Moving the players from one crisis to another keeps the players as well as the characters constantly on edge, adding to the atmosphere.

One disadvantages of this is that it puts a lot of burden on the GMs shoulders. If the GM is not around, the game stops dead. It can also lead to contrived or forced action. With one major move coming out, usually about once a week, the GM really has to provide something interesting. If the players completely fail to resolve the crisis from the previous move, it is often anticlimactic to continue with that same crisis. This is especially true in Paranoia. Paranoia is full of small, almost meaningless crises, such as which elevator do you choose, or what do you do when the elevator walls go up to the 99′th floor but the floor stays at ground level. If the players can’t solve the problem on their first try, they’re not likely to get it with another try. And making them try will just bog down the game. Besides which, the crisis is completely peripheral to the real plot. So to keep the game moving, the GM solves the problem deus ex machina and moves them on to the next small crisis. The GM must be careful to not make the players feel too powerless in this type of game, or they’ll begin to wonder why they’re playing at all.

Players do Everything

Of course, the players don’t actually do everything. Still, they do most of the work in this type of game. Instead of the rigid ’send in your move, get a big move in return after a while’ format where the GM does everything, this style is much looser. Players send their moves to the whole list. Unless contradicted by the GM, these moves are taken as ‘reality’. The players can interact in almost real time, without intervention from the GM. Cooperation among the party becomes much easier.

This type of gaming is suited to games such as AD&D, where a cohesive party has to confront and solve problems through mutual cooperation. The game moves at a fast pace, as it is not limited by the strict ‘one move per week’ schedule of the GM. However, much time can also be wasted if the players take off on a tangent of ‘impossible’ moves before the GM has a chance to catch them. This style pretty much requires a GM who is able to improvise quickly, as the players will often assume things about the game world as they make their moves. It is an exciting way to play if the GM and players are good, as here more than anywhere else you are engaged in a communal effort of world-building. The GM sends out periodic short moves updating the situation, but does not attempt to synthesize the moves of the players. The only difference between the GM and the players is that the GMs move are law. The players’ moves are only hypothetical until they receive ‘GM approval’, ie until the GM sends out an update that makes it obvious that this or that move actually took place.

Fast e-mail feeds are, obviously, a necessity for participating in this type of game. If all of the mail reaches you a day or even several hours after it was sent, you will be unable to take part in the action. Your character will constantly be following up on plot threads which have already been taken care of. In essence, you will be constantly ‘jumping the gun’ even if you do read all of your mail before composing a move.

Balancing the Two

This form attempts to combine the strengths of the GM Does Everything style and the Player Does Everything style. It is based around a single major move per week, but the players are allowed to communicate somewhat. The general format is, the players send out public moves containing conversation and any straightforward actions that the character takes (usually with a note saying ‘if the GM lets me’ or something similar attached). The GM gets these moves, as do the rest of the players. The players also send secret moves directly to the GM. These secret moves contain the actual actions that the character takes (the public moves only say what it looks like the character is doing), as well as any contingencies. The public moves give the players a general idea of what the other characters are doing. The official GM move shows how it all fits together, as well as revealing what the players didn’t make public.

Oftentimes one character will start a whole plot thread with his ‘conversation’ move. For instance, in a recent move a Paranoia character suggested that the entire Team play a game of ExtremityBall, in order to increase morale. This was something that everybody had to react to. If the game had been proceeding under the GM Does Everything mode, it would have required a new move simply to send out the speech. By allowing public moves, the rest of the players get to see what’s going on before they make up their moves. Again, the player who acts first will tend to control the action. However, fast mail feeds are not so essential here, as the public moves tend to be much more restrained. Most of the interesting action (not dialogue - that’s in the public moves) is in the secret moves to the GM, and doesn’t come out until the main, weekly move.

Which One Do I Use?

The best form for beginning GMs and players is probably the GM Does Everything form. You can control the pace of the game and don’t have to worry about your players running roughshod over your campaign world. The players can be slowly eased into PBeM gaming without feeling that they have to be logged in twenty-four hours a day in order to make their presence felt. Since every player sends in a separate move, each player will most likely attempt to do something interesting. With the added control of being the only one to see what is going on, you can make sure that each character gets his chance in the spotlight. And since you are rolling all the dice, you can ensure a fair implementation of the rules.

This form can migrate into the combination form, with public and private moves, after you and your players get comfortable with the game. Game mechanics become less and less important as dialogue and dramatic action take on a bigger role. Rolling the dice can be largely eliminated - just do what seems to make sense, and what is the most fun for you and the players.

More experienced GMs, gaming with players they are comfortable with, may wish to try the free for all approach. As long as everyone is in it for the fun of it, the results can be rewarding. This form makes the choice of game system almost insignificant, as the game mechanics are going to be ignored most of the time. — Draphsor vo’drun-Aelf
draphsor@medisg.stanford.edu