Thoughts on play-by-post

The play-by-post tournament of Mythic Bastionland was unexpectedly my gaming highlight of the year. I think the fact that we had an obvious ending – finding out who would win the tournament - and that two PCs were in the final, helped to keep the focus. I also really enjoyed the particular rhythm of jousting and interludes and I'm curious how pbp will work out in a more conventional adventure. 

Patience vs Flow

We had two general rules about posting: Post at least once a day (or let us know if you can't) and wait before posting again unless you are alone in the scene. While these are probably solid rules for a normal adventure in the context of the tournament they weren't really relevant: Most of the time a character was alone in a scene anyway either fighting or talking to NPCs.

When the PCs were together in a scene we largely followed the established rules but as the referee I sometimes had to balance adhering to the rules and keeping the momentum.

Synchronous vs Asynchronous

Although pbp is often described as an asynchronous way of playing there were several instances where we played at the same time, most notably during the pvp duels where we also made sure that at every step decisions and rolls were confirmed and made explicit before proceeding to the next step. As a player I enjoy pvp and never had a bad experience but I know that scores of players in the past have been scarred by pvp that went out of hand and I wanted to ensure that we wouldn't add to the trauma.

The horror of pvp

Other scenes that were played synchronously: Anastaz investigating the Iron Knight and Heldris discovering the secret door in the auditorium. In both instances the PC was alone in the scene, player and referee were online at the same time and we were both curious about how the scene would pan out. Watching the three dots of someone writing on discord definitely added to the feeling of suspense.

 

Prep and Improvisation

The only prep I did for the tournament was the list of participants. All the gameplay resulted from the interplay of prep during realm creation, random rolls on the spark tables, improvisation, player decisions and player rolls.

Example 1: Lady Hedwig's joust with Heldris. For her appearance I rolled 11 (Tall) and 6 (Traditional) so I described her as this imposing figure towering over young Heldris but when I later rolled her stats she had VIG 2 and GD 1! How was that possible with her imposing physique? Well I rolled on the ailment table and got: 12 (Obvious) and (8) Melancholy. She wasn't melancholic when Heldrid met her the first time so I assumed that she had this unstable personality that shifted between excited and depressed. With her mail and shield she had a decent chance of lasting at least the first meeting but I wanted to lean into her death wish and had her not denying the attack and using her shield to bash Heldris instead of defending herself.

Example 2: Anastaz and the Snare Knight. Lady Dagmar had amazing stats and she was my favourite to win the tournament so I thought to spice it up with a roll on the drama table. I got 1 (Betrayal) and 11 (Blackmail). As she is the Marshall of Karpat I wanted the Betrayal to be related to the war and the blackmail to be as obvious to Anastaz as possible. I improvised that she betrayed her troops in the war and was blackmailed by someone present at the tournament. The player then decided not only to follow up on the information but to take risks in uncovering the truth: He rolled for eavesdropping on the talk between Gunter and the Iron Knight - and failed which caused a scene in front of the other nobles - and rolled a save to persuade Dagmar to spill the beans (the danger was to lose her trust completely with potentially drastic consequences for the joust) - succeeded.

Anastaz dismounting the Gilded Knight in the final

Example 3: Heldris in the Auditorium

During Realm creation I rolled a detail for Holding, Keep and Bailey. One of the results for Barow Castle was 6 (Wild) and 8 (Dome) so I imagined an overgrown dome at the Castle. Why was it neglected? Probably the building was of no use for the new kings so I imagined something associated with entertainment like a theatre. I already had the information written down during realm creation so for the scene I could draw on my prep and improvise everything else.

I don't think I would have been able to make all the rolls in a live session and come up with creative interpretations. The extra time you have as a referee in a pbp game to consult your prep, roll on spark tables and think about the implications makes all the difference. Also in a live game the longer we play the more I tend to forget to add details like smell and sounds and the descriptions become kind of flat whereas in the pbp game I managed to keep the same level of detail.

Player Feedback

The palyers enjoyed having the extra time to get into character and to carefully think about how the character would react. Players also used the pbp as an exercise in creative writing and liked that the game stayed with them outside of active play e.g. when they were doing chores.

Conclusion

All in all we enjoyed the pbp so much that going forward we will alternate between live sessions and pbp. For the next pbp I could see either a proper hexcrawling session where the travelling itself becomes more zoomed in and detailed or playing the "downtime" winter season with lots of PC-NPC interactions and introspective journaling accounts of looking out of castle windows at the snow covered landscape. 

If you are interested in playing pbp you can read about our set-up or check out Yochai Gal's excellent overview about his ongoing play-by-post game.