I’ve started a game of ECO MOFOS!! on our Discord server recently, and it’s reaffirmed my love of this form of playing.
In case you don’t know, it’s a way of playing TTRPGs that is asynchronous but fluid, where the person who’s running the game (let’s call them a GM for simplicity) posts a setup post, then responds to the players as they interact with the world described.
I set up a simple set of protocols to begin with. I think it helped that all the players are people that I’ve known through the server for a good while, and we seem to be on the same wavelength.
The rules were as follows:
We’re playing ECO MOFOS. I’ll post 1/day. Any player can post here 1/day. If there’s no response from any particular player, we’ll continue with that inaction as part of the narrative. Moments of high drama may be resolved over shorter time periods if all players are active.
I think it’s a really good idea to be straightforward with expectations. I wanted it to be low-stress for all involved, something that people could interact with or not, depending on how busy they were on that particular day. But I also wanted there to be a sense of momentum, and I hoped that me as GM posting at least once a day would achieve that. So far it seems to have worked.
I remember the first pbp I played, a band of vikings encountering Luke Gearing’s Gradient Descent, run by the inimitable Sean Smith. I was quite intimidated by quite how poetic and verbose other player’s posts were, but absolutley loved it. It’s such a different way of experiencing a game space. More literary, and more drawn out, but intense in its own way.
It’d be nice to hear about other people’s experience of pbp. I’ve run this one straight out of the Eco mofos book, rolling up a random series of locations, then rolling to see what’s present in the next space. A rich world is emerging, as all the players poke about, ask about details, and search for clues. We’re in the tick of it right now, so I’m worried about spoiling it for any of the players, but I’ll write a report as soon as we get to natural “end of chapter”.
All I know is I look forward to every interaction.
So. The rules:
Set clear expectations.
Set a clear timeframe for posts.
Play and see what happens.
The struggle I have with play-by-post is maintaining consistency with post rates: I worry that when I "update" following only one or 2 replies, those who missed the boat feel disheartened and lose interest. Conversely, when I hold off for too long, I feel that those who respond promptly are almost punished for their enthusiasm. But as you note, rules establish (and are established by) player expectations and should manage this.
For anyone of your readers curious, Yochai does a great summary of the nuts-and-bolts of setting up a play-by-post campaign here: https://newschoolrevolution.com/how-i-do-play-by-post/