D&D Play by Post
People in the other thread were curious so I decided to make a separate thread to see how much interest there was in this sort of thing. Role Gate is essentially an app that lets people play D&D (and other Tabletop RPG’s) asynchronously, in other words you can play at your own pace and jump in when you have the time.
https://www.rolegate.com/
https://www.rolegate.com/
Comments
Rules download is here.
Let me know if interested.
I currently DM every Wednesday night for a group of friends, I could recycle the adventures that I've already written...I'm sure that they'd need adjusting and play out differently, but the bulk of the work has already been done.
The GM should’t delay combat rounds because you haven’t heard from a few people, just choose something for them to do. Rolegate is good in that you don’t have the pressure of writing a whole forum post, the players or GM can quickly interject a short post because Rolegate reads more like a screenplay than a traditional forum.
I’m EST, but need late night games.
I'd be willing to try DMing in that style of game, there will probably be an adjustment period when it comes to pacing, what can be accomplished on a turn etc. I can do a little research to see how others play.
I've been reading up on how to run a play by post game. I think using roll20 to host maps and the characters works best - especially since roll20 introduced their 'charactermancer' tool, it makes making a character very easy and makes leveling up a character easy too (it doesn't let you forget anything!).
Roll20 does have a chat feature, but it's not really designed to track long conversations or archive long strings of text. I think that it would be best to use a message board. I think we could probably set up a pbp section here on the Bald Move forums (obviously have to clear that with Jim & Aron) but having it here might encourage other people from the BM community to play.
How does that sound to everyone?
So for this here, we'll do play by post..and hopefully as others see our game and follow along, maybe that will attract some new players etc.
Once this is established, I'd be more than happy to try to set up a night when we can all play live (in a separate campaign from the play by post campaign!)...maybe do one-shots once a month or something like that.
1. Initiative - save time by not rolling initiative. Your initiative roll is your dexterity score, every round, every combat. That will give each member of the group a static initiative score, opponents will use the same initiative system (their dex will count as their roll too). For both players and monsters, a range of dex scores is likely to be between 10-16, so there will be multiple players with the same initiative - players/monsters with the same initiative score will act on a first come, first serve basis.
For example, Jane has a DEX of 17, Bob has a DEX of 15, Tim's DEX is 14, Kim's DEX is 14 and Mary's DEX in 11.
That means for every combat, your turn order will be:
Jane (17)
Bob (15)
Tim (14)
Kim (14)
Mary (11)
Tim and Kim will both go at the same time, whoever posts first between Tim and Kim will go first.
As a DM, I'll determine the opponents initiative based on their DEX. Say that you're fighting goblins, who also have 14 DEX. The combat order would be:
Jane (17)
Bob (15)
Tim (14)
Kim (14)
Goblins (14)
Mary (11)
On 14, Tim, Kim and the Goblins would all take their turn. Whoever posts firsts - Tim, Kim or me as the DM representing the Goblins - has their action go into effect first.
No matter what happens, a player/monster acting on the same turn will get their action.
For example, the goblin has 6 hit points. Jane and the goblin go at the same time, but Jane posts first and does 8 damage to the goblin, killing it. Because the goblin is in effect going at the same time, he'll still get to take his action before dying.
So for barbarian and one of the ranger subclasses (off hand, I think it's the gloomstalker?) their advantage is a +2 bonus...so if their DEX is 14, their initiative score is 16.
For social encounters, there will be a similar type of 'initiative' but based on CHA instead of DEX - a player's CHA score will determine their turn order in social encounters.
When it comes to exploration ie you enter a room in a dungeon, I provide a description of the room - the turn order of who does what first is based on each player's WIS score.
Functionally, it would work like this:
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Social Encounter
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"Your investigation check has allowed you to learn that the best place to gather information about the local thieves guild is to visit a drinking establishment with a bad reputation called the Drunken Dwarf. It's located in a shady part of town known Rockbottom. As you make your way to the Drunken Dwarf, you can't help but feel that your party is drawing attention from the locals. No one is outwardly confronting you, but you notice more than a few people sizing you up as you walk through the streets of Rockbottom. Eventually, you make your way to the Drunken Dwarf and it lives down to its reputation.
From the outside, the Drunken Dwarf appears to be a run down building in a horrible state of disrepair, it's a miracle that it's still standing. Inside it's worse. As you open the door and step inside, you're immediately met by the stares of a half dozen regulars who don't seem very welcoming of outsiders. From the back of the room, a man standing behind the bar shouts forward, "Welcome to the Drunken Dwarf. What can I do ya for?"
Starting the post with the "Social Encounter" tag would be an indication that the turn order for this scene is based on CHA, the player with the highest CHA would act first. They wouldn't be compelled to act...their action could be "I don't say anything, and wait for Pete to speak since he's a rogue and knows thieve's cant."
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A different scenario, in a dungeon:
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Exploration Encounter
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"You crack open the thick door revealing a room beyond. It's about 30 feet square and from the door way a few features immediately grab your attention. On the wall across from you, you can see a door, very similar to the one that you just opened. In the centre of the room you can see the remains of what might have been a fire - there are scorch marks on the floor with small piles of ash scattered about. On the far left side of the room you can see a chest. The wall to your right is decorated with a tattered tapestry, and you can see a humanoid skeleton covered in dusts and cobwebs slumped over."
The "Exploration Encounter" tag would be an indication that the turn order for this scene is based on the each player's WIS (since these are observation based things and 'preception' is WIS based). Now, if that skeleton animates at any point in this scene, then the 'Exploration Encounter" order is dropped and we immediately go to a DEX based initiative order.