Advice for PBEM GMs

[bblackmoor]

After trying (and failing) to find a Champions 5 PBEM, it occurred to me that potential pbem players far outnumber pbem GMs. Part of the reason is that being a pbem GM is a lot of work. Another reason is that many who would like to run a pbem game do not know how to start. With that in mind, I am going to write up some advice based upon my own experiences as a pbem GM and player, and hopefully others will do the same. As with any advice, some of it will be contradictory: different people like different things. Take it all with a grain of salt.

[Chuk]

Of course, you'll always get the one ambitious soul who wants to go off on a solo adventure while everyone else is asleep. Unfortunately, the reality of a pbem game means that if you were to run them on their solo jaunt, the rest of the players would be sleeping for the next real-world month. No fun for them. The best thing to do in such a situation is -- that's right -- fudge it. Ask the player straight up what they want their character to accomplish while everyone else is alseep: have them name a goal, simply and succinctly. Then you roll dice, tell them what happened, and morning comes and you move on with the game.

I've been handling similar things by running my PBEM asynchronously. We've got threads going about one thing that happened two days ago, threads about another thing that happens next weekend, and then the "current" thread. It is fun, and it kind of simulates the comics (which often had stories appear with little notes saying "This takes place between issue #402 of Action Comics and #67 of the Brave and the Bold" or similar) in that you don't always know exactly when stuff is happening anyway.

[bblackmoor]

It is fun, and it kind of simulates the comics (which often had stories appear with little notes saying "This takes place between issue #402 of Action Comics and #67 of the Brave and the Bold" or similar) in that you don't always know exactly when stuff is happening anyway.

That's in line with the source material, to be sure. Do you worry about continuity issues, such as whether Nightfall in sidebar #1 (in the past) knows something that Nightfall in the main thread just discovered, or vice versa?

P.S. Your Alien Light game sounds like fun. I have never played a Fudge game, although of course I am familiar with the system. Do you allow lurkers?

[Chuk]

That's in line with the source material, to be sure. Do you worry about continuity issues, such as whether Nightfall in sidebar #1 (in the past) knows something that Nightfall in the main thread just discovered, or vice versa?

Hasn't come up yet, but I'm hoping it won't. :-)

P.S. Your Alien Light game sounds like fun. I have never played a Fudge game, although of course I am familiar with the system. Do you allow lurkers?

Lurk away -- I think the navbar has instructions on how to subscribe.

[Magmarock]

And some words of wisdom for all GMs:

In the end... let your players win the ones they earn. If it screws with your plans... well that is to be expected. You are the GM, and the good ones respond to what the players do... not the other way around. Doesn't mean they'll always succeed... but it proves to them that you are fair... that you reward a good plan and effective power use... not just find loopholes to stick it to them because it doesn't fit your story.

Mags

[nexus]

If I might butt in and add some very cynical advice. Be prepared to deal with ALLOT of attitude, particularly in Champions PBEMs. Champs char gen is a big part of the fun, people put allot of work and personal investment into their characters to get just what they want. And many don't take kindly to requests to change them. I've been told I was a hack, didn't know what I was talking about (in regards to my game) and been called pretty much everything but name by various people in my time running Champions PBEMs.

[Rage]

what the hell? there are entire sites devoted to Hero PBEm
Like Worldmakers (the longest running shared world PBEM on the internet) one, or HeroCentral.

[bblackmoor]

Worldmaker has posted some good advice for PBEM gaming in another thread:

PBEM Games

[Worldmaker]

Worldmaker has posted some good advice for PBEM gaming in another thread:

PBEM Games

I got news... Worldmaker originally wrote a bunch of the nuggets of wisdom you've been quoting here in this thread (I've been writing "how to run a successful PBEM" articles, including some of the stuff you've been quoting, for rather a long time...). Be nice if you quoted a source, but I don't really expect you to.

[Kara Zor-El]

After trying (and failing) to find a Champions 5 PBEM,

Global Guardians PBEM

Failure reversed!

[Kara Zor-El]

Similarly, do not micromanage how players post. The important thing is that they do post, and that they communicate effectively who is doing what. A mistake many novice (and not so novice) GMs make is to impose rules on how player posts are formatted, how thoughts are different from what is spoken, what tense the post is written in, and so on. This is a colossal waste of time, and it just detracts from the game. You do not have time for this. Focus on what's important: as far as the formatting of player posts is concerned, there are really only two important concerns:

1) What is being said and done by each character must be clearly identified.
2) What is being said "in character" needs to be clearly separated from what is being said "out of character".

That's all there is. The important thing is not to get worked up over how a player meets these requirements, as long as they do meet them. I have attached a "posting guidelines" document that I used in a recent game, as an example of how I handle these issues. It might work for you or it might not: it's just an example. I stress again: these are guidelines, not rules. It does not matter how players format their posts, as long as they communicate clearly.

The purpose of posting guidelines is to provide guidance to the players so that they have an example for clear communication. If the player is writing clearly, but is not following the letter of your guidedlines, that is perfectly acceptable: if you make a big deal about them not following the posting guidelines exactly as written, you are missing the point and wasting your time, and as a pbem GM you do not have the time and energy to waste on inconsequential matters such as that.

Matter of opinion. If that's how you choose to do things, that's fine. Personally, I'd rather everyone post in the same tense just for ease of reading. Same reason I'd like them to try to use coherent language and do at least basic spell checking. It's not a lot of fun for the other players if one of their fellows has posts that are difficult to get through because of switching between past and present tense and/or first, second and third person perspective, along with so many typos that it's difficult to get through the posts.

Cooperative means everyone cooperates. Not just some people.

[bblackmoor]

Worldmaker originally wrote a bunch of the nuggets of wisdom you've been quoting here in this thread

Anything in this thread which was quoted from you has been attributed to you, but this is the first message in this thread with any such quotations.

I've been writing "how to run a successful PBEM" articles...

...and you quoted a message where I directed people to it. And?

I think you may have mistaken this for another thread, because you aren't really making sense in the context of this thread.

P.S. BBlackmoor thinks that it's kind of weird to refer to yourself in the third person. Unless you are actually playing yourself in a PBEM, that is.

[Kara Zor-El]

This is a GM who just doesn't get it. As a GM, lurkers cost you nothing. If you never need them for anything, they are silent and invisible. There is absolutely no reason to demand that people ask permission to lurk in your game, or to prevent anyone from lurking in your game. That's like demanding that people ask permission before dropping money in your pocket. A polite lurker may ask permission (I generally do), but whether they do or not, their presence as a lurker costs you nothing at all, and will potentially be of great benefit to you. A warning like the one above tells you that this is a "control freak" GM -- a GM who wants to control everything, even at the expense of the game. Don't be a control freak GM: it only hurts your game and drives decent players away.

Or it's a GM who's tired of gettin' spam addresses joinin' their e-mail lists and gettin' everyone on that list spammed. Or people joinin' just to jump in and comment, thus disrupting the game.

It's more like askin' permission before they come into your house than it is puttin' money in the pocket.

Maintaining control of your game isn't being a "control freak". Have you ever played in a game where the GM didn't maintain some control? It's not a lot of fun, I can tell you from personal experience.

Ummm, not meanin' any offense, but is over-simplifying things something you do often?

[bblackmoor]

Or it's a GM who's tired of gettin' spam addresses joinin' their e-mail lists and gettin' everyone on that list spammed. Or people joinin' just to jump in and comment, thus disrupting the game.

Lurkers do not post: that's what makes them "lurkers". If you run the game with a properly configured mailing list (using YahooGroups, for example), lurkers can't post. So that's a non-issue.

[Kara Zor-El]

Lurkers do not post: that's what makes them "lurkers". If you run the game with a properly configured mailing list (using YahooGroups, for example), lurkers can't post. So that's a non-issue.

But not everyone does that, so it is an issue in some cases. And you're addressing PBEM's, not just the specific subset of YahooGroups PBEMs, so it's a valid point.