HQ Resolution on PBEM

[Kao Nashi]

There may not be an answer to this question, and it is more an issue of logistics than play, but has anyone found a good way to streamline contest resolution for email play so that it does not take (a) day(s) per round?

One thing my group has done is to limit the number of extended contests. Nevertheless, they are sometimes necessary. Going around and asking for everyone's actions takes a lot of time. We can't IRC because we're in different timezones.

[contracycle]

I would extend the scale of the contest to take advantage of your text based medium.


For one thing, a whole contest can be calculated in the form Leader +9 Followers and there can be good reasons for doing so.  Sone one possible device would be to determine the bids and rolls up front, and then pass the narration to the most competant combatant to produce the text describing the whole exchange, with however much in game time that requires.

You could rotate this narrator power if the other players felt it was necessary.

Again it all comes down to framing your extended contest.  Getting into a fortified keep might be seen as 4 scenes each wityh a mutlitude of contests and rolls, or one scene with 4 exchanges in a single contest.  Obviously, if your follow the latter option, you speed through game time a lot faster proportionally to real time.

[simon_hibbs]

I have mixed feelings about PBEM roleplaying. I've been involved in a number of PBEM games but they've never realy worked out the way I had hoped. I don't want to get into a long discussion of my opinions on this right now as I haven't realy formed my opinions into a coherent argument yet, but here's a few thoughts.

First, I don't see why extended contests are necessery, and IMHO they are simply more trouble than they're worth in a PBEM game. I think that PBEM games benefit from a far more structured format than traditional roelplaying forms. Story focus and a palpable sense of progress are important in PBEM games, and this means maintaining as quick a pace as possible. Extended contests by their nature will take a huge amount of time to resolve by email, and I think that's anathema to these principles.

I realy must sit down a write up a more comprehensive and better thought out opinion piece on PBEM.


Simon Hibbs

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, what Simon says. :-)

Extended contests are a pain in IRC, but I still do them. I don't think that I could in PBEM unless, as people have pointed out, the contest is actually so long as to take large chunks of time anyhow. For example, in a recent game I was involved in a long-term seduction that actually played across three sessions. That would have been fine as an extended contest. Basically, it was several simple contests that had a cumulative effect at the end, instead of being individually decisive.

Mike

[Kao Nashi]

for the suggestions, guys. Our group has indeed tried some of the things Contracycle suggested (expanding the scale of the contest and condensing the main actor into one PC augmented by all the others). It still leaves us with the more contests than we really like.

I'm intrigued by Simon's hints about getting rid of extended contests altogether. How do that without getting rid also of the randomizer effect?

Just btw, I really like PBEM otherwise. It solves a lot of the logistics problems of roleplaying (like getting people to show up on time), works well when playing with a new group (can't judge people by appearances), and gives lots of time for thoughtful answers and roleplay. Since I enjoy writing, it's a fun medium to work in. Except for those  damned extended contests! (or any kind of contest, really)

[contracycle]

How about this.  Instead of using extended contests in a manner that requires the exchange be resolved before the next step of play proceeds, have extended contests almost as framing devices that stand long term in the footer of each email.

So you could have a contest which is large scale, like say "the production of my farmstead", and scatter exchanges referring to that contest over real and game time throughout the actual play.  This famring contest has a timespan of a fixed year for the sake of this example, and you can use the resolutions of specific exchanges to underlie or present issues in the rest of the game. Pulling off a cattle raid, for example, might improve your AP stock as if it were a transfer as a result of an exchange; when harvest comes around you can roll an exchange on your farming skill in the extended contest (unless you've been drafted for war, frex).

In this way extended contests can be used to frame the setting and the scope of the story, and the actual rolls which constitute an exchange in the extended contest can be interspersed with rolls for other contests of either type addressing more immediate concerns.

And at the foot of each email sent the current status of each ongoing EC can be enumerated.  That sort of structure is quite suited to email, as is topic threading, so you could have one topic header for for, say, everyones progress in the annual farming EC distinct from the one in which direct action is going on.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm intrigued by Simon's hints about getting rid of extended contests altogether. How do that without getting rid also of the randomizer effect?

Totally can't parse that. What he's saying is use nothing but simple contests (I think, right, Simon?). That still uses a randomizer. I must be missing something.

The steps I'm seeing would be:
1. The GM states the nature of a conflict, and asks for abilities, augments, goals and a roll (are you useing a server?) in the first mail.
2. The player sends those four things in to the GM, possibly with a little lead up narration.  
3. The GM then looks them over for Improv Mods and general suitability, and determines TN from this. GM determines resistance, makes the opposing roll, determines outcome, and narrates the outcome in the responding email.

Total of three mails per contest, max. More if the GM is feeling like getting clarifications, but he can always just decline, making all neccessary judgements on the spot, to keep things going fast.

Problems with this model?

Mike

[simon_hibbs]

I'm intrigued by Simon's hints about getting rid of extended contests altogether. How do that without getting rid also of the randomizer effect?

Totally can't parse that. What he's saying is use nothing but simple contests (I think, right, Simon?). That still uses a randomizer. I must be missing something.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean Kao, but perhaps it's the fact that simple contests tend to have more standard deviation in their outcomes than extended contests. Since extended contests consist of many rolls, the final result will tend to be more statisticaly 'average'. Is that what you mean?

If so I see this as a feature, not a bug, but there may be more to it than that.

Mike's sequence seems good. As I've said, I think PBEM games benefit from being well structured so that everyone can see what is going on easily and get the information they need with a minimum of wading through text.  This looks like a good framework to build on for contest resolution.

Simon Hibbs

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not 100% sure what you mean Kao, but perhaps it's the fact that simple contests tend to have more standard deviation in their outcomes than extended contests. Since extended contests consist of many rolls, the final result will tend to be more statisticaly 'average'. Is that what you mean?

I was going to say something to that effect, damit. :-)

Simon, that was a very Ron answer. Huh. :-)

Actually, in my rant about Opposed Rolls, there's some debate about the standard deviation point for those interested. But it doesn't matter. The point is that simple contests do just fine one way or another.

Mike

[Kao Nashi]

Contracycle, could you give an example, please? I think I understand how you would deal with contests that take a long time in game time. How would you deal with a combat?

Mike, you are right. My interpretation of Simon's post was pure wish-fulfilment. Our group has started to use more simple contests instead of extended contests. We also use a structure similar to what you suggest for posting in contests.

I guess our problems are that 1) we are online at different times, 2) we are in different time zones (8 hours apart), 3) there is a lot of back-and-forth over what can and can't happen, 4) our GM has a real life, through no fault of his own. [ ;) ] Unless the GM and the player are lucky enough to be online at  the same time, each instance of negotiation over rules can take 24 hrs+. I think we've been on our current HQ for months (can't remember!), and the last round took what, 2 weeks?!

I guess we could give the GM more discretion. I think we are comfortable with this. The problem is that you're comfortable with it until all of a sudden you're not. This happened once before and the GM is now trying to be very careful and give us options every step of the way.

[Jane]

I think we've been on our current HQ for months (can't remember!),

We got pushed onto the Other Side on 22nd October last year. And this is towards the end of the current scenario (I hope!)

Started current contest (with the dragon) 28th January. Round 1 was it trying to illuminate us, then we hit it (and missed) in round 2, now it's created a maze for us to solve/smash in Round 3.

"Fast" is not what this game is about.

[Mike Holmes]

3) there is a lot of back-and-forth over what can and can't happen,

OK, this is a problem, and one you can solve. Usually in this case, there's one of two problems, acually.

1. You have a GNS issue. That means that people see the rules as indicating different styles of play. "What's possible" then revolves around things like whether or not I can as a player decide that an NPC can just show up out of nowhere between sessions to become a Follower, and other issues like that. What may at first seem like a "realism" issue or something, is probably more related to this.

2. As a group, you haven't agreed on the "genre conventions". That is, some people might be thinking Wuxia, others low fantasy. It's very important to ensure that everyone playing is "on the same sheet of music" regarding genre conventions before play begins (or that the GM is authoritative enough to deliver on by fiat). Are you playing in Glorantha?

Do either of these problems seem like yours? There are different solutions to each.

Mike

[Jane]

3) there is a lot of back-and-forth over what can and can't happen,

OK, this is a problem, and one you can solve. Usually in this case, there's one of two problems, actually.

In fact it's even simpler than either of those. We keep forgetting which set of house rules or even ordinary rules we're working to.

Are we allowed more than one mundane augment, for instance?  (No, at present.)

If we're all augmenting one "champion", can the skill we're using to augment him with be augmented itself before we use it? (Apparently not, but a lot of us were assuming it could and presenting numbers on that basis).

On a semi-realism question, if we can only augment our champion with one skill and/or follower, what are the rest of the followers and/or Heroes actually doing? Standing around twiddling their thumbs?

And so on... Face to face, we could resolve this quite fast. If we used the rules more frequently, we'd remember them. I suspect it's just an in-built problem with PBeM, and insoluble, myself. But I'd love to be proved wrong :)

[Kao Nashi]

Hi Jane!

I'm sorry about this pseudonym, and it's not meant to hide from the people on The Forge. It's The People Watching. Er, potentially: Yahoo at least has membership requirements so you don't get as many browsers. Yes, I'm paranoid.

Mike, I think we probably have some mild GNS issues. Some of us, including me, brought a tactical mindset from Runequest, treating the NPCs etc almost as wargaming adversaries. (would that be Gamist then?) But we also enjoy and want to do Narrativism and Sim at the same time (at least as I understand them. Narr = addressing premise, Sim as sort of recreating an immersive world in loving pervy detail.) During contests, some of us, including me, sometimes get confused about what we're up to.

Fortunately, I don't think we have any irreconciliable differences about the agenda. I think we're just confused. Email makes it tougher (limited bandwidth) to address and discuss these issues.

I was hoping we would find a mechanic that would allow us to overcome our bandwidth issues eg by passing the game engine around among the players so that in game actions are always getting resolved  and never stopped. But I have learned other, unexpected things from this discussion. Thanks all!

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, what I suggest is that everyone should just agree to abide by the GM judgements in these areas. That is, discuss these things as you go, but for anything that gets produced in play, the GM's interpretation is law. Yes, this might be dissapointing in the short run, but it'll speed things up. The side conversation will serve to inform players back and forth about what's important to each other in terms of GNS or genre conventions, or whatever.

It sounds like there are trust issues. And until those are worked out, until you all agree to trust each other completely, you're going to have the slowness that you're describing.

In the IRC game, we have two channels always going at once. In the Nar channel you see only in game stuff, the kind of stuff that you'd see in PBEM posts for the most part. In the OOC channel, you get the kind of kibitzing that you see at the table in a FTF game. The value of that channel is that it's there that everyone discovers everyone else's priorities. So, have a channel like that constantly open, probably one or more threads, that gets as much or more activity on it as the other channels. What's cool about these channels is that players can be commenting on things while their characters are "down" (meaning waiting for a response to their last posts most times). This also keeps attention focused on the game better.

Good luck with it. Have any of you lurked on Indie Netgaming at all? See my sig and join up. Lots of good examples of play to be found through that channel.

Mike