Paper and Pen thread

Torgrimmer

Howdy all,

I was wondering, who here think it would be an interesting ideal if one of the Mods, started a Dungeon and Dragons PnP thread or section in the Forums. This would be different then RP thread, bc within this thread i see multiple game sessions of 4-6 players coming together once or twice a weeks and playing DnD. Of course the setting would be in the Forgotten Realms, and it could grow from there from feedback from the community. I think it would be fun and interesting, our own, little Paper and Pen DnD section.

Rik_Kirtaniya

Good idea, @Torgrimmer! I'm interested! But we need a Dungeon Master!

By the way, I don't know much about PnP (cause I've never played a Pen and Paper DnD game before). Can someone provide a link or something like a guide, so that I can acquaint myself of its rules and technicalities?

I think it'll really be fun and interesting! I will be looking forward to see a session started!

JuliusBorisov

@LadyRhian used to be a moderator for the Roleplaying section of this forum. She had a few awesome RP threads, like https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/40915/rp-castle-greyhawk/

But she has left the forum, so if anyone would like to start turning this idea into reality, it'll be awesome.

Tagging several participants of that Greyhawk thread:
@Nonnahswriter
@deltago
@reedmilfam
@scriver
@kcwise
@Permidion_Stark
@Vallmyr

Also tagging @Buttercheese , @Grum and @Awong124 for ideas.

Of course, a lot of dedication will be required.

Buttercheese

I am not sure how much sense it makes to play proper P&P in thread form.
If you wanna play online I can only reccomend Roll20.

Nimran

I would totally go for this. I just started PnP a few months ago, and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had.

Rik_Kirtaniya

If this starts (which I hope it will), I'll be a Sorcerer! That's for sure!

scriver

I'd be interested. Time zone shit is always an issue though.

As for it getting it's section I don't think it's necessary. The planning threads for the play-by-chat games can just go alongside the play-by-post games in the RP section.

I've actually considered running a game here on the forums set in the aftermath of BG1 - I think it's a very interesting time and BG2 just doesn't do anything with it, it's all "now you've beaten Sarevok and everything is totally fine and Sarevok's plans and actions had no repercussion beyond his death at all". It never went beyond a bunch of random ideas and plot concepts though.

Rik_Kirtaniya

scriver said:

Time zone shit is always an issue though.

@scriver Yeah, that's a major problem. I wonder what might be done about that.

Also, I fear it might not be possible for a long single-time continuous session, as most people are so busy nowadays (nevertheless those who are busy also wish to enjoy a PnP game). Probably, half an hour or at most one hour is possible for most people, so the duration of each session (as well as their timings) is a serious thing to be considered. After all, everyone wishes to enjoy this.

deltago

It worked; it was fun, and IMO a good read as well. I miss the banter between my Anomen and @Permidion_Stark's Alora.

It does take a lot of dedication. A lot from the DM who pretty much does all the rolling and behind the scenes paperwork, and from the players to keep on top of it, so if this does happen again, I probably won't be able to take part in it.

scriver

In my experience, the main problem with play-by-post dnd is that the pace tends to be incredibly slow. It just takes forever to get anything done. Likewise, play-by-chat tends to be slower than real life dnd, but not to the same degree. Using voice chat reduces the time somewhat too.

Slow pace was never a problem in @LadyRhian's games of course. They were on fucking speed. Like several hundred new messages every time you logged in to check on it. I had to quit because I just couldn't keep up with it all

I miss her. I hope she's okay, where ever she is.

BelgarathMTH

When you do roleplaying by post, you wind up spending large amounts of time just sitting there waiting for other people to type. You also have the problem of not being sure when others are done speaking, so it's hard to know when your character should say something or respond.

In-person roleplaying is basically like improvisational acting. You're supposed to work off of what everybody else is doing or saying. "Always say 'yes...and' "

In trying to do it with typing posts, often one person posts something that contradicts what the other person just said. None of the players are intending that, it's just that unintentional ninja posting is a big problem with the venue.

I tried doing something like this when I joined a roleplaying guild in World of Warcraft. It was basically the same thing doing it in a chat window as it would be doing it in a forum thread, although we had the advantage of being able to move our avatars around and do emotes while everyone was typing.

I mostly just found it extremely boring, because of the constant waiting on the typing. And there was no way to know that other people were actually typing responses, and not waiting for you to say something.

Also, in the case of doing it in an MMO game chat window, I found it irritatingly distracting from playing the actual game.

kcwise

I think everyone getting together at a specific time to play would probably not be necessary, and might even lead to confusion as BelgarathMTH mentioned. Unless, of course, the DM designated a specific order in which everyone acted and posted. The way the Greyhawk thread went people posted when they were available, and if they weren't available for a while LadyRhian would control their character in combat situations. Otherwise, the non-active character would follow along silently. This kept things moving and prevented one player's absence from grinding things to a halt. Of course, that sort of thing again adds more work for the person DMing the game and might lead to conflicts if a player felt the DM made the wrong decision.

I think it might be advisable to use a premade adventure of some sort or pick a game adventure (Like BG and BG2) as the basis for the forum game. Having that bit of structure and lore to draw upon makes the DM's life much easier than having to create everything from scratch.

In some cases it might be easier to have the players choose from a list of characters rather than create their own. In the Greyhawk thread we were all using characters from BG. This makes the DM's life easier as they don't have to argue with players who swear they rolled all 18s for their characters, or who insist their psionic bat rider simply MUST be allowed. For the player, a well known character makes it easier to define the personality and actions the character would likely take and other players already have an idea of how all the characters interact. More experienced players and DMs might not need or want this, but a bit of pre-existing structure can help.

All that said, I have never DMed an adventure in my life and would be a poor choice for such duty. I've played a few pen and paper games in my time, but I never had a regular group. I might be up for joining another RP game though, as the last one was a lot of fun.

elminster

I think a forum section for PnP would be good. Not just games (which as others have mentioned might be difficult to pull off) but also advice on how to run PnP games for people new to it.

Grum

For this, I would recommend using Paizo as an example

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/campaigns


(1) A place just for recruitment
(2) The ability to have a 'campaigns tab' for each person in their profile, so they can find their active campaigns
(3) A dice roller EX: [dice=To Hit]1d20+5[/dice]
(4) GMs should have the ability to moderate their own threads (optional)

The Paizo site has a very robust online RP community. I'd recommend copying what they did right

scriver

There's no reason for Beamdog, a computer game company, to copy a site that's devoted to playing rpgs on their own forums. Particularly when there is very little demand for it.

Also it bugs me to no end that the thread title says paper and pen instead of pen and paper.

Mantis37

I would suggest that a forum environment isn't really conducive to a system that relies on combat to push the narrative. Designs like the letter writing game De Profundis might be more appropriate. For example some members of an adventuring society might be corresponding with each other to boast & report news, and gradually uncover some sort of conspiracy through their correspondence.

Torgrimmer

Another Idea is maybe Beamdog, investing in a Free Discord Server, for the community. It would help with PnP games, Setting up groups for BGI, BGII, IWD, SoD, NWN, Multiplayer games, Beta testing, ect. Just an idea. Any thoughts @JuliusBorisov .