Munchkins

With no rules or guidelines to restrain them, some players go a little crazy. I've seen invincible demon-vampire princes, sons of the god of chaos, indestructible, ultra-powerful characters of all types. They give themselves the largest magic items they can conceive of and the most powerful spells and abilities. They're immune to everything.

In any game with a GM, of course, this player can be softly told that the PC just isn't suited to the game; maybe the demon-vampire prince could be changed in for a Planescape tiefling? He'd still be part demon... It's in the games without GMs that these folks find a haven. No one can tell them no, and the other players soon need to discover their own superpowers to keep up.

If the game is enjoyable, the other players can try talking to the person. If anyone has the power to kick people out of the club, you might try that. If the "kicker-outer" (in Yahoo! terms, the club or group founder) is MIA, you have little recourse.

On the other hand, depending on the game, the GM might allow leeway to role-play creatures which would be far too unbalancing in a normal game, if they're played with an eye to game balance. They might take a voluntary handicap - youth, inexperience, a reluctance to use innate abilities - to offset their might. As long as no PC steals the spotlight every time, it can work.

I ask my players to think of the game as a novel. Can they see their PC as the hero of a book? Will there be moments of terror and doubt and conflict, or will they easily stride from page to page, slaying things (yawn) without effort? It's a guideline most gamers can relate to.

The Dramatic Duo

They're not overpowered, but they're omnipresent. Either because no one else was posting or because they didn't care, two of your PCs have filled up the bulletin board with one-line posts back and forth, chronicling their angst-filled romantic dialogue.

If you're the GM, your course is clear: make them stop. You could disrupt their meeting with an encounter, but that's not very nice. They're having fun, and that's the point. The problem is that their fun is swamping the bulletin board. Have them carry on their dialogue either over e-mail or instant messenger and then post it in its entirety.

If you're not the GM, you might contact other players to see if they feel the same way. You could politely ask the Duo to stop or move it offline. You don't have the "authority" of a GM, but if they're civilized human beings, they'll try and reach some accomodation with you.

Time

Finding a comfortable rate of posting is very necessary. Some posters will happily check their boards several times a day. Others can only get around to it a few times a week. The trouble arises when you mix the two. The frequent poster gets bored and drifts elsewhere; the infrequent poster feels pressured and gets upset.

This problem can be closely related to how tightly tied together your PCs are. (Group cohesion is discussed further below). If they're all together, having conversations between members can get frustrating if post rates differ wildly.

Most groups fall into a routine; a GM can also try to set one up. In one of my clubs, I try to reply to PC posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If they want a reply, they'd better post before then. Another club I run is more sporadic, with posts cropping up at irregular intervals.

Time is also how much time you're investing in writing posts. This depends on your goals. If you look at your game as a novel in progress, you might post less frequently, but produce rich, detailed ones when you do. If you're just wanting to move things along, you can post short but descriptive posts more rapidly.

Time is also the forward progress of your game. In a word: Slow. In games without a GM, a single day can drag on forever, since no one is willing to declare it "the next day." Even in games with a GM, an important dramatic conversation can take a dozen posts over as many days, all of which occurs in a mere ten minutes of game time.

To move things along, I generally post something announcing that time is passing. If PCs weren't done with actions, they can finish them up, but otherwise, everyone has entered the inn, they've all slept and woken up again, or whatever. Usually no one complains, and if I jumped the gun, the cut-off PC just continues to post. I make it clear that the "moving the plot along" is just for convenience, and if they're not done role-playing a scene, they should be all means continue it.

Group Cohesion

The split party problem is no longer a problem! Or rather, it's a different problem. I run both an ensemble game and a split game. The ensemble game is a typical adventuring party. They stick together and roam the lands, getting into trouble and trying to stop the Bad Guys. Sometimes they splinter, like to read different things in the library, but usually I can deal with all of their actions in a single post.

The other group, on the other hand, are all residents of one small town. They move about it, bumping in to one another occassionally. I have to keep track of their separate timelines and separate actions, and write separate replies for each of them. (I keep this game small!). It feels much more real in some ways - I don't have to invent reasons to keep dissimilar characters together when there's no reason for them to be. But it is more work and more time. Still, it's something I could never do well at the tabletop - the time pressure to finish with one PC and move onto the next would be too great.

Spelling and Grammar

I refuse to be the Grammar Police, but I do insist that my PCs adhere to what they learned in third grade. Occassional misspelled words are to be accepted. A post spel loke this isjust bad. Captial letters start sentences. Sentences end with periods. Sentences are good, and should be used; run-ons are bad and should not. Several paragraphs are easier to read than one huge text-block.

Other indicators will vary from group to group. Usually, quotation marks for speech work just fine. I've used done thoughts in various ways, from nothing, to quotes, to ~tildas like this~. Double tildas can indicate ~~telepathy.~~ I don't like or *more actions,* but that's my personal preference. I try to match the style of sci-fi and fantasy literature rather than MUD or Everquest conventions. But, whatever style you like, you should encourage your players to use it consistently.

They don't have to be another J.R.R. Tolkien, although it has been my pleasure to play with some fine writers. Posts need to be readable and their intent easily understood. Shiny sparkly word-play comes afterwards.

Maintaining Interest

Your tabletop group has it, in some ways, easy. You've all finally assembled; you're all here til 10 pm. Maybe some folks wander out to the kitchen or start to leaf through a comic book, but by and large, the GM has a captive audience. Do the old "handful of dice" trick and suddenly they're all at the table and attentive again.

The online GM has no such ability. Players have babies, go house-shopping, take vacations, get offline lives. Sometimes they'll tell you they'll be offline for a while or permanently; sometimes they just drift away. If the game stops being interesting to them, they'll head for that fridge or comic book, and you can't get them back until they log in again.

My best trick: keep the action or dialogue moving. All of your posts should end requiring some sort of repsonse from the PC. Give an opportunity for action or have an NPC ask a question. If the PC can't figure out what to do next, she won't do anything next, and the game will stall.

This makes ending scenes a problem, as mentioned in the "Time" section. Sometimes the PC will end the scene, which is always helpful. Usually, they even indicate what they're doing next, and you can help stitch the scenes together. For instance, if they write:

"I'm done with you," Dirk spat, turning on his heel. Without a backwards glance, he strode off into the darkness, back towards his room at the inn.

Still angry with the urchin in the alley, Dirk kicked open the door to his room at the inn. Flopping down on the bed, he fell into a troubled sleep until the dawn woke him. More work today: would he question the mage the urchin mentioned, or shadow the ambassador like he'd planned?

If the PC doesn't seem inclined to end the scene, go ahead and end it for her. The NPC she's talking to goes away. Her horse brings her to the town she's headed for. If it feels like you've reached a stopping point and the PC hasn't explictly stopped or moved on, chances are she's waiting for the GM to tell her it's OK to do so.

Just like in tabletop games, NPCs are invaluable ways to keep things going. If the game has been going on for years (I have one that's over two years old now), people forget what's gone on and what exactly the goals were. As the GM, it's your job to remember them, and NPCs can handily remind the PCs about their options. "So boss, we gonna infiltrate the theives' guild or what?"

Size

Just like a tabletop game, the online game can be too big or too small for a GM's tastes. Ensemble games can be bigger, since the GM doesn't have to reply to every single player individually. But after a certain point, it becomes difficult to remember which player was doing what, where and with whom, even in an ensemble. Six active players are about the most I care to process, but I could probably deal with eight. Their individual posting rates, of course, affect this as well. You'll have to find your own comfort zone.

And a lower limit? Well, with no players, you're writing a story, not playing a game. Some GMs are happy even with a single player. The game will tend to look a lot more like a novel then, with the PC as its hero. Other GMs want to see more interaction between PCs and might not be happy until there are at least three.

It's much, much easier to recruit players than to get rid of them, so add slowly until you're happy with your game. Where to recruit? Join a few clubs and play. When you meet someone whose posting rate, personality, and writing style match what you're looking for, send them an invitation (privately, if you can, via e-mail or instant messenger) to join your game. You might give them a brief, one or two-sentence description of your game's theme. But wait until they've expressed an interest before you send them the 30-page world history you've written.

Play-by-Post Ettiquette