Donjon as PBEM Engine

[Malybdemus]

Hey everyone.

I just purchased the Donjon .pdf's after being intrigued by the player-driven aspect of the game, and I'm still going through it.  So far, very impressed.

My question is, how do you all think Donjon would fare in a Play By E-mail Game?  PBEM is definitely a different gaming experience than a table-top game; it tends towards story-telling and character interaction and would therefore be hampered by complex game mechanics.

Since a PBEM is not live and encounters often span weeks at a time, GMs and players - to save time - condense many possible future actions into a single, narrative post.  While doing so, they often have to use the "if/then" statement, like "If the orc merchant doesn't seem to be trying to swindle me, I'll say such and such a thing, but if he does, I'll castrate him, etc." which tends to make things a bit... I don't know, inelegant, awkward.  I want to read a story passage, not a bunch of what could be computer programming code.

What attracted me to Donjon was the Law of Successes rule: the fact that the players themselves could create details about the game.  No more If/Then's - the player succeeds, its DONE.  The story is written - the game continues, often on a tangential path even more fun than the first.  And the strain of sudden improvisation is alleviated - the GM or player can ruminate for an hour or two before posting a response.

But how would the dice-rolling mechanic be utilized?  Let the GM roll everything in secret and send an e-mail saying "You got x number of successes, what do you want to do with them?" and getting a response?  That may actually bog things down a bit...

Thoughts?

[jdagna]

There are three sticking points I see for making Donjon PBEM.

1) The dice mechanic: EVERYTHING is resisted, which is a problem.  Additionally, the GM sets the difficulty, so the player can't even roll both sides for himself or use a script of some sort.  I'm not really sure what you'd do here.

2) Combat length: Combat always takes a long time in PBEMs and Donjon would be no exception without some changes.  You could simplify it by leaving out damage rolls (damage = # of successes to hit + Worth of weapon - Worth of Armor), though how to figure in mitigating factors like abilities to resist damage would be harder.

3) Fact/Narration Mechanism: While player narration is excellent for PBEMs, the GM normally has to take and finish those facts off into the actual event.  So a character who finds a secret door may have the GM stick a nasty monster behind it in the final narration.  Of course, you could probably leave this step out, especially if you trusted the players to be reasonable.  Of course, failures allow the GM to state facts, which greatly complicated the if/then scenario.  It isn't just a question other whether or not a door was found because the GM can introduce a door even on a failure - or might do something totally different.  Still, this aspect could be streamlined with some house rules fairly easily.

If you get things working, let me know.  I'd be very interested in seeing how you approach it, since I think Donjon has a lot of potential for PBEM.