GM's Tip of the Week

Cruvis has written a series of GM’s Tips: Ten Things Every DM Should Know About Running a Play-By-Post Adventure, and is sharing them with us as a guest blogger! Please direct questions, commentary and kudos to him.

This week’s tip is: Writing and Storytelling over Mechanics

Play by post gaming can become bogged down and stagnant if the RAW (rules as written) are held in higher regard than the collaborative story. Combat needs to be abbreviated at times; no one needs to extend the combat for an extra week of real time because there are two ghouls remaining with a hit point each! It is more valuable to describe the mayhem of a battle in great sensory detail than it is to worry over which kobold passed its saving throw. Keep it moving, keep it vibrant, and compress it if you can. Recently, I have experimented with having the players declare two rounds of actions instead of only one at a time. It has been successful thus far… I am always learning and trying new things. Now I let a player manage the party’s initiative rolls. Storytelling > Mechanics.

You do not need to love to write to run a PbP but you at least need to be willing to learn about writing. It isn’t news to anyone that a successful tabletop DM needs to be fairly strong in the communication department – particularly with speaking and listening skills. They need to be able to describe a scene, check in with the players regarding their actions, and interact with everyone present at the table. It doesn’t hurt if they have some acting or improv skills and can alter their voice for different NPCs in the story. All of these skills can be developed with time and practice.

In a parallel comparison, a PbP DM has to manage all of those skills and pieces through their writing. In many ways, the PbP DM has the opportunity, and maybe even the duty, to do all of those things better. The PbP DM has the luxury of time –  to read, think, compose, revise, and edit. Take advantage of that extra time, craft your posts with care and artistry, and connect with everyone in your game. You will be surprised how quickly your writing and story crafting skills will develop and strengthen!

In running a PbP adventure, the referee needs to pay particular attention to detail. Detailed descriptions, including plenty of sensory information (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, even evoked emotions) should be included in a way that shows, instead of tells, what the fantasy environments are like. You truly want to pull your players into the story, building a detailed painting for them to immerse themselves. Try to strike a balance though. Too much detail can have the opposite impact, cluttering the description and boring your players.

Swords of Justice – June 19, 2017

Your group wends its way through a constantly twisting array of left and right bends. After walking in complete silence and near-darkness for several minutes, the stagnant odour of the subterranean stream becomes a stench, eventually reaching the point where it becomes burning to the eyes and sinuses and nauseating to the stomach. There can be little doubt about what sort of undead you will soon face.

Sure enough, when the narrow stream opens out into a pool and embankment, there is a gang of ghasts gathered around a mound of wretched decayed debris, including a bloated, white, sheep’s carcass.

The putrid things are so intent upon their frantic feeding, bickering over rotted bits of entrails and sinewy scraps, they take no notice of the obscured adventurers approaching from the watery tunnel. There appear to be as many as a dozen of the stinking ghouls moving around in this fetid pool and refuse pile.

Dialogue also deserves a great deal of time and effort. Your NPCs all have different personalities and patterns of speech which should show up in the conversations you are having with the players’ characters.  Take the time to craft interesting dialogue and mannerisms. Pay attention to those pesky quotation marks too!

Finally, combat may deserve to receive the most attention of all. Make your battle descriptions exciting, full of action, confusion, danger, daring, skill, and ferocity. Rich descriptions of battle can be found in many great examples in pulp fiction and fine literature alike. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery and is perfectly fine, as you get a feel for action writing. My first role model for fantasy combat in my teens was R. A. Salvatore. However, I try to encapsulate some stylistic gems from every good novel I read, and that includes fantasy, history, historical fiction, sci-fi, and other genres.

Swords of Justice – June 21, 2017

Galan steps to the middle of the tunnel, displaying a red ruby tied to a leather thong around his neck. Speaking ancient words of prayer to some long-forgotten god, he gestures at the offending abominations. A red light bathes the room, seeming to transform the frightening ghasts into pale, paper spirits, insubstantial and fantastical. For a moment, they seem somehow feeble, fragile.

Aurelias, by this time, has skirted the left side of the feeding circle, falling upon a kneeling supplicant with twin long blades. He has massacred one of the undead in a matter of seconds, seeing it slump face first into the heap of rotting meat – another offering to the putrid altar of gluttony and death.

Then, Falrik steps to his right, singing a menacing dirge that seems appropriate for this gruesome spectacle. This further bolsters the ambiance of victory and swift judgement that is about to be dealt. The ghasts actually look as though they are terrified, if such soulless predators are capable of feeling anything, even the most minimal, primal emotion.

Lon advances, summoning tendrils of electricity, which branch out like silver tree roots, immolating first the skull and then the chest of the nearest ghast. It releases a strange chortling groan before it explodes and withers in a gust of ashes, steam, and vile smoke.

Kylindra adds the might and presence of the Morninglord to the mix. The ghasts are quaking, wide-eyed, perhaps glimpsing the terror they evoke in others, if only for an instant.

Hazim positions his right foot outward, perpendicular to the targets, raising his elbow past his ear, and then releases a shaft. The arrow hammers into another ghast’s back, causing it to snarl in alarm, shaking it out of its terrified stupor.

Another challenge of PbP is keeping your writing organized by message type. Know when to begin a new thread, if a topic of discussion or action phase has changed. DM out of character messages should be indicated in the titles and not included within ‘In-character” threads. Also, dice roll results and mechanics discussions should not be mingled with either in-character or out-of-character threads. Otherwise, the story quickly begins to lose its flow and people begin to resort to out-of-character posts more often than they should and the quality of your story suffers.

In closing, make a commitment to work on your writing and use the time that this genre of roleplaying allows to craft rich, exciting environments, dialogues, and battles. Keep out-of-character posting to a minimum and contained outside of the main story thread and always choose good storytelling and pace over mechanics. Whenever possible, reduce your workload on the refereeing side so that you can focus your creative energies on telling a great, immersive story.

As always, send me your comments and questions. I appreciate any feedback.

Mind the hippogriff!
Cruvis