Reflections on a PBeM : An Essay

[T'oma]

(... this perhaps should have been posted in Theory: you be the Judge...)

The Great Experiment Has Begun:  I'm in the deep-End of CyberSpace with my commitment to GM a PBeM.

(it should be understood at the beginning of this essay that I am an Analog Person:  I have been off-line for 6 years, having been repeatedly revolted at the signal-to-noise ratio involved in the OnLine experience)

What initially strikes me about this experience is, firstly:  the slow and poetic formalism that is inculcated by the medium.  It feels much less like a table-top than I was expecting (no big suprise there, of course) but much more like a formal excercise in collaborative creative writing (which, to me _was_ a suprise).

At this initial stage of character and Plot development, the interactions appear to be self-limited by the players to expansive descriptive ornamentation:  I provide the Set and Setting, the players provide the internal orientation of the characters within that structure.  It doesn't sound that much different from a table-top, but most assuredly _it is_.  
The key element added to the equation is _Time for Reflection_.

The Players are not limited by the needs to balance the Other Players demands (wants and needs) within a _limited time-frame_of a session: as each Scene is allowed a Full Week for resolution, it appears to be giving the players an unusually high potential to engage in Reflection amd Creativity, vice spontaneity.  This feeling of not having to wrestle for 'their' part of the story in both real-time and game-time :  
It is _different_.

Likewise, the lag-time allows me, as GM, more than adequate potential for meditation to analyze the players descriptions and interactions looking for potential story-hooks and idiomatic inflection that I can reflect back in their direction, vice the "oh, I should have done 'x', not 'y' !!"
 It is _different_

So: Is this _really_ RPG?

I personally had wondered:  the numinous quintessence in an RPG has always been, for me at least, the ritualized social dynamic of the small group.  I am a neo-luddite by phiosophical bend (though obviously not very comitted to it as Dogma) and have been Hyper-aware of the superficiality of the on-line experience.  The social Masks of the On-Line experience appeared to me to be precisely opposite of the do-it-yourself jungian gestalt analysis that, for me at least, defines the RPG milieu and sub-culture.  Needless to say: being on-line:
It is _different_

In fact: my movement into the uncharted waters of CyberSpace was nothing less than an act of complete and total desperation.  4 cross-country moves in as many years and 2 small children I am the primary caretaker for doesn't allow for an easy mesh back into RP with an existing on-going group.     Furthermore, as a natural Introvert: creating a new group ex nihlo has been, shall we say, problematic.   "No RPG and No Social Interaction Makes Daddy Something-Something."

 I should also mention at this point that I tend to be a Simulationist by prediliction, with serious Dramatism tendicies (I know, I know ; these terms shouldn't be used so cavalierly as personal desiderata descriptors). Moreover, the powerful post-computer-age Gamist meme written into D20 has been, at least for me, an incredibly Toxic element poisoning the potential well of new Players both buy is ubiquitousness and its permeation into the depth of the subcultures weltanschauung. This combined by the generalized Smack-Down assumptions of the post M:TGccg generation.... But that's a different thread...

Everyone knows where this is going, so I'll cut to the Chase:

The on-line experience has given me more of the numinous RP 'buzz' than I have had in my last three years of RP-Gaming combined.  

The only Game Session that came even remotely Close (and indeed is providing the bluePrint for my new understanding of the Potentials of PBeM) is Baron Munchausen.  The open-ended nature of that Dramatist-Simulationist beauty forced a paradigm crack in the _entire_ group of 15 post d-20 kinderlochen I GM'd it for: a wonder to behold.

This is indeed a long way to go for a pun, but, we needs march inevitably onwards:

In summation: the experience of PBeM can be termed IMO
(and I'm truly, _TRULY_ sorry for this) :  "Munchausen By Proxy".

(dives behind the podium as
the hail of spoiled fruit avalanches in his direction)

T'oma  
Most Exalted and Revered
Grand High Librarian
of The Grand High Counsel
of Her Majesty's Royal Order
of Memetic Engineers

[lev_lafayette]

I'm running a pbem at the moment, and I think it's working reasonably well.

There are a few things I've had to pay attention to however.

1) You need slightly more than normal active players. I've found that five or six is better than four or five. Just to keep the conversations rolling around.

2) You need to create situations where if no particular players reponse is critical for further game development. Do that and the game freezes entirely. Bad juju.

3) Combat, if and when it occurs, requires players making numerous contingent statements and with narrative descriptions of the results.

Like I said, just my experiences. In general having online resources to draw upon, visual aids and so forth, has been very beneficial.

[Ginger Stampley]

I'm running a long-term large (20 players) Amber PBeM with my husband, and my experiences also jibe with y'all's comments. The Amber community is heavily online, so I had a lot of resources to draw on when we were starting out, which was useful. I don't know if I'd have tried GMing without having played first.

One thing I have found about PBeM is that it can consume you. FTF sessions occur when they happen, and while you spend prep time as a GM outside the sessions, you're not "on" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. My husband and I had to go to a schedule where we answer posts on certain days and not on others to maintain a social life, because our group would keep us busy all the time otherwise. I love the game--we've been doing it for 3.5 years--but I do like to play FTF, go to movies, see concerts, etc., and answering everything every day would keep us too busy to do that.

Diceless/low-dice systems are easier to GM online, increasing the creative-writing feel of the game. I'd hate to try PBeM D&D, although I know people who have done it. We use Everway as the underlying engine for our game; it's about the upper limit of rules-heaviness I could stand for PBeM unless it happens behind the proverbial screen. In FTF, though, I'm really enjoying Dogs in the Vineyard, so I think that's a medium-related preference.

You don't have to worry about the party sticking together, although the players may want the PCs to do that anyway.

Last, but not least, my personal experience is that bricolage is key to PBeM, at least long-term PBeM. We recruited from several pools of friends and acquaintances for our game and our biggest job has been to weld all that creative input  into a consistent and fun vision. Sometimes we've lost players whose creative vision has gone in another direction from ours, which is unfortunate, but if you have five (or 15) players driving one way creatively and one driving another, something is eventually going to break.

Good luck with your game--I look forward to reading play details.

[T'oma]

I am just _too pleased_  with the success of this Format!!

  I have often been frustrated by my inability to Discipline myself to get the Novels that have been percolating in my Head 'lo these many years' comitted to Print, but I am finding the Demands of My Players are forcing me to evoke that  Muse into hyper-activity:  this is _absolutely_ the Way for a nascent Writer to practice his or her chops!

Man: Finally!!

All that study of Literature and Mythology is coming into Focus!!

[nellist]

I have also got a lot out of the PBeM experience and agree that it is different.

In fact, I feel that it is in a similar state to FTF RPG in the 80's - no one quite knows how tro do it, everyone thinks that other people are doing it right. All the cargo cult theories of D&D can, IMO ,be applied to the different PBeM methods and styles going on.

That was a Munchausen style digression.

My main point in posting is to give a bit of a warning - the buzz from a new and exciting PBeM can take over and make you extremely busy - it can also burn you out if you don't take a break, plan your times, make clear what you expect to do, what you will be able to respond to etc. No one has free time at the same time so you sometimes find yourself either unable to keep up or hungry for some posts from other people when you have free time.

That's just my experience. I do think that they are an interesting version of RPGing where a lot of techniques are underdeveloped or remain to be discovered.

Keith Nellist

[Mandacaru]

Keith:

That's just my experience. I do think that they are an interesting version of RPGing where a lot of techniques are underdeveloped or remain to be discovered.

I just suggested a specific forum for such discussion.
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=14583

Sam.