Post by teramis on Sept 21, 2010 22:12:47 GMT -6
Hi, all,
I mentioned in my recent introduction that I run a correspondence rpg. Kesher asked me how that works. Rather than hijack the Introductions thread for that purpose, I thought I'd write about it separately.
Here's what I do (below). If anyone else plays by correspondence, I'm curious to hear how you handle your game, too. (By the way, it looks like my last player wandered off indefinitely, and I'm considering starting a new game of this style this winter (after Xmas). I'll probably be looking for 1 player to do this with at that time. If this sounds like your cuppa, feel free to drop me an email (my address is visible in my profile), and we can talk more.
So, about this game.
My correspondence game started because I wanted to read (and present) a grand narrative, rather than the terse, mainly action-only oriented events that most play-by-forum-post games tend to do. Free form role playing by journal entry (like, for instance, Harry Potter fans will do - a version of the epistolary style used in De Profundis) did not yet exist as an RP form. When it did become popular, I still wanted more GM shaping of events than that form alone permits.
My solution was to do this:
I provide a set-up scene/encounter in narrative form. That is to say, it reads like a scene from a story or a book (what can I say. I'm a novelist, too.) A player then writes me, in first-person narrative, about their actions as well as "internal dialog", so to speak, like you might read with a book character. Their fears, concerns, scheming, ambitions, likes/dislikes, etc - whatever is dramatically appropriate to that encounter. (This is the part that resembles the journal-based RP of today.) To this is added, in separate OOC notes, whatever the player may want to address.
On my end I write a narrative that advances the story to the next character interaction or decision point. It's based on the character's actions, and also OOC notes if appropriate. Combats, random encounters, reaction rolls, initiative, etc - all those mechanics apply, but they are executed invisibly to the player (who provides me with a list of pre-generated dice rolls for that purpose). What the player sees is the narrative reflecting the results of those back-stage calculations.
In this sense this content is like a GM's response in play-by-post games, except that it never mentions actual dice rolls and is much more, well, verbose
. Players essentially get a scene from a novel in response to their actions.
I step outside of this format, or supplement it, with single-character interactions, where I am playing an NPC and that NPC is having critical interactions with a PC. For this purpose I have at times shared Live Journal entries and correspondence with players, or maintained in-character contact through unique email addresses. In this way, the game has some ARG-like qualities (alternate reality gaming), where an in-game NPC may show up in your email box as their own person.
Players don't need to know any mechanics in order to play this game, but there is a complete set of rules behind it which help me adjudicate events. I share bits of them where it seems it will be helpful to the player.
This gaming happens after the (very involved) character creation phase, which is something of a game-within-a-game and quite substantive. By time the PC starts adventuring, they know themselves, their backstory, and their world pretty well. This seems to make game events more meaningful. Players are already pretty invested in their character by time the game actually begins - the creation process can take a month or longer, correspondence being what it is. It also goes far to create the cultural feel of the society and world they have entered, which adds a lot of versimilitude.
I've used this approach to great effect in an Oriental Adventures campaign, which let people really get into the feel of my Asian culture; in exploring a corner of my fantasy world that I wanted to flesh out for book-writing purposes, and more recently to bring my science fiction setting alive for a player who wanted to experience a serious honor-code and tradition-bound, samurai-inspired culture. I had a chance now and then to game in person with that most recent (solo) player. The game transitioned neatly to table-top gaming and back again, but the two style feel distinctively different.
Obviously, this is a gaming style only suited for people who like to write and don't have any problems doing so copiously. The format also lends itself better to events and campaigns that are not combat-centric (although with today's virtual table-top utilities, I'm not sure I can say that anymore. I could see resolving a combat real-time, then incorporating the events into the narrative). I once had a PC who played a scholar collecting antiquities. Man, that was a surprisingly rich set-up for this style of gaming! It lets players and GMs find adventure in all kinds of unlikely corners.
I haven't found anything quite like this for bringing a world alive, as long as a person has an "experience-by-reading, express by writing" kind of bent. One player said of this approach, "This is like living inside a book about me!"
- Teramis
I mentioned in my recent introduction that I run a correspondence rpg. Kesher asked me how that works. Rather than hijack the Introductions thread for that purpose, I thought I'd write about it separately.
Here's what I do (below). If anyone else plays by correspondence, I'm curious to hear how you handle your game, too. (By the way, it looks like my last player wandered off indefinitely, and I'm considering starting a new game of this style this winter (after Xmas). I'll probably be looking for 1 player to do this with at that time. If this sounds like your cuppa, feel free to drop me an email (my address is visible in my profile), and we can talk more.
So, about this game.
My correspondence game started because I wanted to read (and present) a grand narrative, rather than the terse, mainly action-only oriented events that most play-by-forum-post games tend to do. Free form role playing by journal entry (like, for instance, Harry Potter fans will do - a version of the epistolary style used in De Profundis) did not yet exist as an RP form. When it did become popular, I still wanted more GM shaping of events than that form alone permits.
My solution was to do this:
I provide a set-up scene/encounter in narrative form. That is to say, it reads like a scene from a story or a book (what can I say. I'm a novelist, too.) A player then writes me, in first-person narrative, about their actions as well as "internal dialog", so to speak, like you might read with a book character. Their fears, concerns, scheming, ambitions, likes/dislikes, etc - whatever is dramatically appropriate to that encounter. (This is the part that resembles the journal-based RP of today.) To this is added, in separate OOC notes, whatever the player may want to address.
On my end I write a narrative that advances the story to the next character interaction or decision point. It's based on the character's actions, and also OOC notes if appropriate. Combats, random encounters, reaction rolls, initiative, etc - all those mechanics apply, but they are executed invisibly to the player (who provides me with a list of pre-generated dice rolls for that purpose). What the player sees is the narrative reflecting the results of those back-stage calculations.
In this sense this content is like a GM's response in play-by-post games, except that it never mentions actual dice rolls and is much more, well, verbose
. Players essentially get a scene from a novel in response to their actions. I step outside of this format, or supplement it, with single-character interactions, where I am playing an NPC and that NPC is having critical interactions with a PC. For this purpose I have at times shared Live Journal entries and correspondence with players, or maintained in-character contact through unique email addresses. In this way, the game has some ARG-like qualities (alternate reality gaming), where an in-game NPC may show up in your email box as their own person.
Players don't need to know any mechanics in order to play this game, but there is a complete set of rules behind it which help me adjudicate events. I share bits of them where it seems it will be helpful to the player.
This gaming happens after the (very involved) character creation phase, which is something of a game-within-a-game and quite substantive. By time the PC starts adventuring, they know themselves, their backstory, and their world pretty well. This seems to make game events more meaningful. Players are already pretty invested in their character by time the game actually begins - the creation process can take a month or longer, correspondence being what it is. It also goes far to create the cultural feel of the society and world they have entered, which adds a lot of versimilitude.
I've used this approach to great effect in an Oriental Adventures campaign, which let people really get into the feel of my Asian culture; in exploring a corner of my fantasy world that I wanted to flesh out for book-writing purposes, and more recently to bring my science fiction setting alive for a player who wanted to experience a serious honor-code and tradition-bound, samurai-inspired culture. I had a chance now and then to game in person with that most recent (solo) player. The game transitioned neatly to table-top gaming and back again, but the two style feel distinctively different.
Obviously, this is a gaming style only suited for people who like to write and don't have any problems doing so copiously. The format also lends itself better to events and campaigns that are not combat-centric (although with today's virtual table-top utilities, I'm not sure I can say that anymore. I could see resolving a combat real-time, then incorporating the events into the narrative). I once had a PC who played a scholar collecting antiquities. Man, that was a surprisingly rich set-up for this style of gaming! It lets players and GMs find adventure in all kinds of unlikely corners.
I haven't found anything quite like this for bringing a world alive, as long as a person has an "experience-by-reading, express by writing" kind of bent. One player said of this approach, "This is like living inside a book about me!"
- Teramis