It is just my small exposure is it not unusual for Play by Post players not to talk between themselves besides in character.
I don't see the OOC chats get used much except when someone says they will be away from the game.
Is it because most of the players are strangers?
What about an Local Game stores or conventions? Do the players work together usually or rarely?
Some may be going for 'immersion' from the session. No OOC talking. I've run into this frequently and as an admin on an RP chat, had to deal with the fanatic version of that. And over on BGG on rare occasions seen the cultist version of that.
Some may just be chatting privately. I do that on occasion when playing. "Hey, want try and set up a flanking maneuver on the troll?" and so on. During the PBM age I saw a fair share of interplayer private messaging, either official or unoffocial.
Some may just not know its allowed.
Some may be paranoid of the DM.
Some may be afraid of being accused of "quarterbacking". eg: making suggestions to other players or becomming the leader of a group. Something that more than a few designers over on BGG are absolutely obsessed with putting an end to.
Some may have been discouraged from OOC discussion by past experiences, or bad experiences with some of the above.
Some fora dont have an OOC thread for Campaigns. BGG tends to have OOC threads for players and DMs. Varies alot from one to the next. Everyone has their own ideas of what should and shouldnt be allowed.
At a minimum, especially with PbP, I think it helps keep players involved.
With the time between posts, it can also provide something to do while you wait for others.
It can just as easily distract or derail a session if it takes over. Never seen it as a player, but seen it once in someone elses campaign.
So ooc chatter can detract from player involvement. Especially if you have players leaning heavily to "immersion!" as the closer they edge to fanatic or cultist the more stringent they can and will get.
Seem that on a few MU**s. No less that 2 played on had the cultist level "immersion!" types who wanted to remove character sheets, paging, game mechanics, the works. All you'd have was talking and personal desc. Which on a MU** with myriad different interests and wants was a recipe for disaster and rampant abuse.
Lot harder to pull of those sorts of trouble on fora or PBP.
All that said we did have a fair amount of ooc chatter in the Metamorphosis Alpha and Rifts campaigns I played in by e-mail back when Yahoo Groups was still functional.
Quote from: Greentongue;1120364It is just my small exposure is it not unusual for Play by Post players not to talk between themselves besides in character.
I don't see the OOC chats get used much except when someone says they will be away from the game.
If I GMed a PBP game, I would expect the Players to have chats with each other, outside the game, so that I wouldn't know what they were saying.
As for OOC Chats on a forum, what is the point of them? I'd rather use Skype, Hangouts, WhatsApp or something similar for chats and emails for other communication.
Quote from: Greentongue;1120364Is it because most of the players are strangers?
Everyone is a stranger until they meet. When they meet and play a game, they are no longer strangers.
Quote from: Greentongue;1120364What about an Local Game stores or conventions? Do the players work together usually or rarely?
in face to face gaming, people talk, Players will discuss an issue and might even ask the GM to step away for a few minutes while they discuss things.
I can't believe that in this day and age people still play by post.
Quote from: Greentongue;1120364It is just my small exposure is it not unusual for Play by Post players not to talk between themselves besides in character.
I don't see the OOC chats get used much except when someone says they will be away from the game.
Is it because most of the players are strangers?
What about an Local Game stores or conventions? Do the players work together usually or rarely?
Two forum threads are used. One for the role-play, and one for the OOC that players may have about the role-play.
Both are lame.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121418I can't believe that in this day and age people still play by post.
I'm happy that you have so many friends that have no overriding responsibilities that infringe on their time.
It must be nice to be an adult and yet have as much gaming time as when you were a kid.
I suppose I could just buy and read the books. I hear that is what a lot of people do.
They used to play but now just talk about it.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121418I can't believe that in this day and age people still play by post.
Why not?
Asynchronous gaming can be really nice. Especially for people I know with kids or wacky work schedules. Much easier to drop in and take a character's turn in one of those frequent 5-15 minute waiting periods than to scrounge together a regular ~3 hour timeslot.
This reminds me, I should give Role Gate another try...
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121418I can't believe that in this day and age people still play by post.
Its pretty popular still as some folk for whatever reason dont like playing on chats or MU**s. Theres still a PBM business going. A few that have been around since the 80s or longer. Think Flying Buffalo was or still is running theirs as of fairly recently.
Quote from: insubordinate polyhedral;1121473Why not?
Asynchronous gaming can be really nice. Especially for people I know with kids or wacky work schedules. Much easier to drop in and take a character's turn in one of those frequent 5-15 minute waiting periods than to scrounge together a regular ~3 hour timeslot.
This reminds me, I should give Role Gate another try...
Another reason is that it gives the player time to think. Which for some players is vital, others just like the lack of pressure as it were.
And also collaborate and co-ordinate with other players in a way you oft cant with other forms of this media.
And one really big reason which goes back to the PBM era predating RPGs is... It allows players in differing lands and time zones to play together. Play slowly. But together in a way that might be otherwise impossible.
Quote from: Omega;1121476And one really big reason which goes back to the PBM era predating RPGs is... It allows players in differing lands and time zones to play together. Play slowly. But together in a way that might be otherwise impossible.
Just frustrated writers sending letters to each other, is all.
Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1121516Just frustrated writers sending letters to each other, is all.
Your application for village idiot is duly noted.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121418I can't believe that in this day and age people still play by post.
It lets you get way deeper into the experience, so it serves a niche that isn't covered by other mediums.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1121591It lets you get way deeper into the experience, so it serves a niche that isn't covered by other mediums.
Maybe. It never worked for me.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121749Maybe. It never worked for me.
That is totally understandable too.
But there was, and still is a huge variety of PBMs and PBx-s out there. Still several commercial ones. Pre-internet and up to around 2000 PBMs were predominantly wargames and hex-crawlers. There were a few pseudo-RPGs but the were mostly still exploration with a little interaction if you bumped into another PC or NPC. But it can be glacially slow which has ever been the barrier for some and the boon for others. Even PBMs with turn-arounds of a week can seem really slow. But you have to allow for possibly international players and having to collelct, collate and then compose turns for those.
BGG hosts PBPs for board games and RPGs. Never participated in one so will leave that to others to comment on. At a guess they probably have the same sort of turnaround as the old YahooGroups PBEm sessions.
RPoL.net has a huge number of games hosted and great functionality to support them.
I have run several in the past and one currently. The only weakness I have found is mapping.
While you can upload images, they are not editable by the players.
The posting rate varies by player but a couple times a week per player sometimes happens.
I wonder if anyone still literally does it by mail?
Quote from: RPGPundit;1122052I wonder if anyone still literally does it by mail?
I know there are games where the play is through the characters writing letters to each other but haven't seen any games lately that are by actual mail.
That's if you don't include the pay versions that still exist which seem to be more "war game" than RPG.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1121749Maybe. It never worked for me.
It's definitely, actually, a completely different game, in a sense. It's the same way playing D&D online. It invokes a whole different kind of experience, especially if you don't do voice chat but do text chat. Play by post is a longer form slower than that, and it offers its own experience. There's players in all three mediums that prefer one over the others, and then there's people who enjoy them all.
In my experience, strengths and weaknesses of the three:
Offline D&D:
* fast moving
* you can talk over each other and still understand what's happening, so it's easier to communicate
* more jokey, laughs and banter happen
* you can catch up about real life
Online text chat D&D:
* often more tactical, you can place all sorts of graphics and tokens and maps with a grid, and move it and keep track of it easily compared to IRL, you don't need to buy 80000 tokens or spend money on them
* you can have music which makes it way more immersive
* the game in general is more immersive because you can use your character avatars, so it's not RPG Pundit talking but his character
* with a serious group of players, its better for immersive RP
Online play by post:
* the slowest, but it gives you a chance to think in depth about how your character would respond -- so you can flesh out the character more here
* unlike the former two, it only requires a little time each day instead of a solid 5 hour block, but as a tradeoff it never ends so it's a steady commitment
* the most writer friendly, and least tactical based, as it emphasizes writing novel excerpts, basically
* often go the longest, and can make a very satisfying feeling when it finally ends
Quote from: RPGPundit;1122052I wonder if anyone still literally does it by mail?
Yes. Why? I am not sure. When I ran my little company I had the option for email or snail mail. More than half opted for snail mail. But at a guess. Because they like the physical aspect. Or lack a printer. (I currently lack a printer - which is no end of frustration.)
PBeM has pretty much supplanted PBM at this point.
Quote from: Greentongue;1122066I know there are games where the play is through the characters writing letters to each other but haven't seen any games lately that are by actual mail.
That's if you don't include the pay versions that still exist which seem to be more "war game" than RPG.
99% are wargames or explorers, or empire builders. Etc. Even most of the dungeoncrawlers and hexcrawlers have no real role playing.
I should know. I pioneered the first true PBM RPG. Before that the closest was probably Atlantrix which sadly seems to have shut down many a year ago and I have not heard from the owner in quite a while now. We used to correspond and compare notes. We were players in eachothers games too.
After mine came out there was a surge in tries at a simmilar approach but most found out its an extremely taxing job unlike normal PBMs. You cant automate it.