Burning Empires Play-by-Post

[IMAGinES]

So I'm in Australia, and a good mate of mine's in Canada. She's not done any gaming in years and I want to GM some Burning Empires. Thus, we're talking about a Play by Post game on one of the forums we both frequent. We'd like two to three more players, especially people who also have the rules (not just because they know them, but also because they have copies of the Lifepaths and such for themselves).

Now, we're thinking of playing either here (http://forums.delphiforums.com/robinsons) or here (http://groups.msn.com/JakesBar/), but I'd be willing to consider any suggestions. I'd also like to try running Conflict scenes and World and Character Burning via live text chat. It's my goal to complete single manoeuvres over two week periods, if possible.

[rogar308]

I imagine we could. :)

I 'may' be able to bring in another player or two if needed. I haven't talked to anybody yet about it but I do have 1/2 dozen gamer friends I can at least run it by.

Steve
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[Paul B]

You have some BIG time zone spreads there, bro. I'm in Arizona; you Aussies are like 15 hours ahead of us aren't you?

(BTW I was in Oz all of October. Lovely country. I could easily spend weeks in Cairns! It was my favorite stop on my trip.)

p.

[Sydney Freedberg]

I'd definitely be curious. But man, with time zone differences like that, you've gotta go asynchronous, and I have no idea how that would work. Admittedly, I have no idea how IM programs, chat, and text messaging work, so I'm not gonna be much help on that front. (Me make fire, make spear, use Microsoft Office, save research notes in .txt format. Me happy).

[Paul B]

It might take some formalization of the turn process. Set up an order of play however you want, with the GM injecting a turn of his choice after each human turn. So maybe something like:

Player A: does a color
GM: Does an interstitial for GMFoN 1
Player B: does an interstitial
GM: Does a building for GMFoN 3
Player C: does a color
GM: Does a color for GMFoN 1
Player A: does a conflict
GM: Does a color for GMFoN 2
Player B: does a conflict
GM: Does a conflict for GMFoN 3

...and so on. Does that seem fair? This schedule puts a lot of pressure on the GM to keep up with scenes. Live text is probably best but really hard to coordinate around our tiny planet. It'd also be a really text-y game -- not sure how interstitials would play out other than as text chat sessions.

Someone with more pbp experience should probably speak up.

p.

[IMAGinES]

Hi, all,

Yeah, I'd add interstitials to burning and conflicts as needing a live chat session. Firefights would also be tricky without some sort of live, multi-user whiteboard program. I've played around occsaionally with a D&D freeware app called Gametable which might work (I've been thinking of using my dry-erase RPGA battlemat for Firefights in a face-to-face campaign).

The time-zones make things awkward, but not impossible. US evening corresponds roughly to Australian midday; a Friday or Saturday night session for a US player means a Saturday or Sunday lunchtime session for an Australian player (I work 9 to 5 Monday to Friday, so non-weekend gaming is pretty much out for me).

So, those of you looking for a pure-PbP campaign may well be disappointed. Would you still be interested in something more chat-based?

[rogar308]

Friday nights I have the 'orcs' aka friends over for DND night. So I'd have to do Sat or Sun eve. I'm in Eastern Standard time and probably close in time to your Canada friend. I'd prefer to finish up by midnight my time since I have obligations in the mornings on the weekend as well. If we can work within those constraints I'd be happy to give it a go. If not, then I'll have to bow out.

I have the BE rules in both PDF & book format. I also have a number of characters generated and I could always bang out another one if needed.

Steve
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[Paul B]

Yeah...unfortunately, I agree that live text chat may be needed for many/most of the scenes. I also agree that the time zones make things awkward. In my case, having to hit a schedule to be in an IRC channel or something may be a deal-breaker for me. :-(

Which is really too bad, because I like the idea of getting into, or even running, another BE game.

Now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, I'm trying to figure out how other RPGs do pbp games, and what makes BE uniquely unsuitable. Granted there's interaction and chat, but that's not unique.

The virtual whiteboard sounds like a really good solution for firefights. Sending in your DoW scripts and GM's maneuver to a third-party proxy seems do-able as well. I know there are die-rolling utilities out there. What does that leave, that other RPGs don't have? I think if everyone kept up with their various chats and scenes throughout the week, whenever they were able to fire back their volley, it shouldn't be hard at all. In fact BE might be better suited than many other games since the players don't have to rely so completely on the GM to fill in details.

p.

[IMAGinES]

Hmm. Fair point, Paul. I sometimes tend to be swayed by negative arguments a little too easily. Let's face it, I knwo about as much as Sydney when it comes to actually playing across the Internet.

All right: Although there are conflicting opinions on whether a BE PbP game is feasible, andI've never managed a PbP game before, I'm willing to give it a shot. To keep things simple I'm looking for three players, tops.

Also, I have an Internet connection at work, and while I can't exactly play - managing a firefight is definitely out, but I might be able to sneak a colour scene in - I can probably keep an eye on things, so asynchronous play won't be too big a deal.

Who's with me?

[Paul B]

I don't know a darned thing about actual play-by-post but I'm game to game.

I think a wiki page is a good idea, with burned stuff (world, characters, tech) in one part and ongoing maneuvers/scenes covered or at least recapped in another.

I think anyone playing will need:
* The whiteboard software. Dunno anything about this.
* Die-rolling software. Dunno anything about this.
* Some form of IM for the rare times we can do real-time talk and planning. I use Trillian and have Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, and MSN accounts. Syd: If you're up for it, sign up for a free Yahoo account and grab their IM software. Easy-peasy, promise.

I think we can probably rely on everyone being cool about scripting and whatnot. Don't know that we'd actually "need" an escrow service for that sort of thing.

Maybe we see if we can slug through world building, character building and maybe 3 maneuvers? Just to see if it's possible to do?

p.

[IMAGinES]

Paul, sounds like the goods to me. By the way: die roller (http://stormsweeper.net/bw/burning-wheel-die-roller.html) (thanks, Abzu).

Also, Gametable (http://gametable.galactanet.com/). Now, when it comes to whiteboarding, Gametable I think relies on a live session, but if we're doing something not-live I can always whip up a map by hand, scan it in and post it on the wiki.

Do we want to play on the BW forum (if we do, I'll need to ask Abzu)? If not, somewhere else? Also, will we use the Burning Empires wiki for campaign tracking?

[Paul B]

Hmm...yeah, the BW forum is a good choice. We can feel our way through in there and see if it's a good format.

Sydney has a lot of experience posting to the BE wiki; maybe he can tell us if it's easy to work with? Wherever we set it up, I do think it'll be useful to have a burned area (world, characters, NPCs as they get Circled up, tech as it gets burned) as well as a maneuver-by-maneuver running narrative and a post-maneuver dispo tally. It's already set up this way, isn't it?

Firefight sketches: If you have some kind of drawing software we can use that as well. I use lots of different programs for my job, and I work at home, so if we can save to an editable format (i.e. anything but PDF) that'd be swell. A vector-type format (Illustrator, InDesign, CorelDraw, Freehand) could rock.

Is your Canadian friend cool with all this?

Sign me up to be the Anvil Zamboni Driver Who Knows Too Much.

p.

EDIT: I'm a BW virgin -- wtf is a black/white/grey die?

[Sydney Freedberg]

The wiki is, well, a wiki: It's got screwy formatting rules and introduces line breaks where I don't want them (sorry -- I work for a news magazine -- I get picky about this stuff), but otherwise it's pretty stupidly easy.

I'll check out Yahoo IM, but since IM is disabled at my office (not just banned, but blocked, last I checked), that means trying to run it off my increasingly unstable home computer, which sometimes like to turn its screen black for no readily apparent reason. F**k, a Zamboni would be easier to handle.

[IMAGinES]

Having mucked around with various MediaWiki-based wikis and a wiki of my own recently, I'm fairly comfy with the BE Wiki formatting. For drawing I use Paint Shop Pro 7; not quite as fully-featured as Adobe product, but still good. I'll have to check with my Canadian friend; my Internet connection is down at home (bloody ISP).

Owning only BE myself, I'm not sure what Black/White/Grey dice are either, but after playing with the roller a bit I'm pretty sure we'll just be rolling black dice. Could any BW grognards reading this confirm or correct that, please?

Hey, Sydney: Have you considered backing up your data, reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling from scratch? I've had to do it with my PC recently and will be doing it with my wife's soon; last time I did it was around three years ago, and hardware changes, driver changes and heaps of uninstall/reinstalls had taken their toll.

Oh, yeah, and my work says personal IM clients are a big no-no as well, but I have ICQ, MSN and Yahoo at home, plus Skype and Xfire.

[IMAGinES]

Okay, it looks as though we've got me (GM), rogar, Paul and Sydney, possibly plus my friend in Canada. I'll check with her, but even if she can't make it, this is a good number. Is everyone cool?

[Paul B]

Cool here.

p.

[luke]

You have my incredibly reluctant permission to play in the PBP forum. This seems like the worst possible way to experience BE -- to the point of mental torture. However, don't like my Old Mannisms stop you. Go for it.

-L

[Paul B]

You have my incredibly reluctant permission to play in the PBP forum. This seems like the worst possible way to experience BE -- to the point of mental torture. However, don't like my Old Mannisms stop you. Go for it.

-L

Based only on my live experience and my total lack of pbp experience, I already agree with you! But ya gots to do what ya gots to do.

That said, the Oz, Canuck and East Coaster are all free to come to Arizona to play!

From your experience, what do you see as the main problems? How is BE uniquely different from other RPGs such that pbp transforms from merely slow and dull (only guessing, here) to "mental torture"? Maybe if we know what the problems will be we can stave them off at the pass.

p.

[Sydney Freedberg]

I warily raise my hand, with various caveats based on having a toddler and deadlines and minimal computer skills.

[rogar308]

rogar is wandering around dazed and confused...I have 1 definite and 1 most probable interview for next week (for a new job) that I have to prep for...my home laptop decided to blow up so I'm busy doing damage containment. Hopefully in another week, maybe 2. I'll be back in action. I'll stay in touch with the forum here.

Rogue Robot Rogar308 (aka Steve)

[IMAGinES]

Folks, that's two BW/BE old hands who've said they foresee agony over this. Add in the scheduling problems (timezones, work pressure, kids) and technology (non-functioning laptops, unfamiliar tech) and ... as much as I want to play some BE sometime, I keep hearing the phrase, "no gaming is better than bad gaming".

How about we cut our losses early?

[Paul B]

Yeah...we can can it. Better now than later.

My live game probably died tonite as well. Simply too jarring, too much work and too unlike how an rpg "should" work for my group.

p.

[luke]

Yeah...we can can it. Better now than later.

My live game probably died tonite as well. Simply too jarring, too much work and too unlike how an rpg "should" work for my group.

p.
wait! NO! What happened?! (Perhaps in a new thread?)

[Paul B]

wait! NO! What happened?! (Perhaps in a new thread?)

Posted over in the BW clinic.

p.