How to keep the players posting?, Little help for a new GM, non-SR Options

[jesstertwo]

I've tried hosting a game for a second time on the he-man.org boards. Obviously on the He-Man boards, it's an Eternian game, not Shadowrun, but I did borrow heavily from SR when I was creating it.

The first game I tried had to stop, since one of the 3 players was banned from the boards.

Now, it looks like the http://www.he-man.org/forums/boards/showth...ead.php?t=87420 I'm hosting now is about to die after only 100ish posts. Obviously I don't want to bribe my players, and I don't have the authority or desire to force them to post, so what can I do?

I'm on this site once in a while, especially when I'm stuck for ideas, or I'm ticked that noone is posting at the .org. So, any advise would be welcome. Hints, tips, comments?

[nezumi]

I face the same problem pretty regularly. I run games on RPOL.net and playbyweb.com.

Firstly, I kill off characters who don't respond for two weeks. I make it clear that this is my policy and I hold to it, with the exception of characters who have a good record of roleplaying, who I'll let slide a bit more. People who don't respond for days get skipped, and I choose what they do. They miss out on karma and gear, plus end up in compromising positions.

Secondly, I make sure that I am very active in the game. Just because they stop doesn't mean the world does. Make sure the NPCs keep banging on their door. Don't worry about realism at this point, you just want to make sure the game survives. Throw fast and easy stuff at them, no deep plots. Play in the game yourself, so you can gaurantee you always have at least one active character. When the party is moving, other characters are more likely to jump in and follow.

Thirdly, just come straight out in OOC and say 'Hey, no one's responding. If you guys don't want to play, tell me so I can shut down the game.' Some players will not say anything (and promptly have their characters killed), some will try a bit harder for a SHORT amount of time, some will say they like the slower pace.

The biggest problem for me is the fact that, with pbp games, once you have a little lull, it's easy for the game to grind to a halt. Make sure you don't get any more small lulls in the game, even if it means pissing a few people off.

[TinkerGnome]

I've had more PBEM and PBP games die than many people have ever seen ;) That said, I have a few ideas on how to help keep it going.

• Make your posting expectations known from the start. Some people can't commit to a M-F posting schedule. Some are hard pressed to post once a week. If they know at the onset that you expect M+W+F but they can only provide M+F, there's a good chance they won't join up and cause a problem later. You should also discuss any critera you have for leaves-of-absence. I generally want to see a notification prior to the start of any such leave.

• Plan for players to drop out. Face it, not everyone is going to be responsive for the duration of a PBEM or PBP game since you're looking at a potentially long span of time. That said, make sure you have your Plan B in place for when this happens.

• Chop the game up into managable chunks. Sure, you've got a campaign that's going to sweep three contients and six years of game time... but do it in one-adventure sized portions. This lets you readvertise the game at natural intervals. Someone who comes in for the fifth adventure but not the first four doesn't have to catch up on all of the action from those, just a brief summary and whatever they need to know about the world.

• Take responsibility for the pace of the game. Nothing slows or kills a game like a non-responsive GM. I know, I've been that guy. Post something, anything, on the posting cycle. If not everyone responds to the last post, go ahead and post again. It's better to make inactive people catch up than active people wait. I've been in a few amazingly good games over the course of my life (Farthos, Gervasa, a few others) but Shadow from these boards has the distinction of being the only one I've ever played to the real conclusion ;)

• If you have to take a break, accept that it might kill the game. I've had some really hellish work-related absences forced on me in the past, and they've, more often than not, killed at least one game each. It happens, but what else are you going to do?

• Deal with problem players as decisively as you can. I've been on both ends of this. I had a really good game I was running die because I didn't have the spine to kick out a problem player. I've also been kicked out of a game when I had a disagreement with another player (well, that still galls me, but there's nothing that can be done about it now). Of the two, the one that I got kicked out of is still running. While I still feel that the whole experience was BS, the GM apparently saved the game by doing it (I killed someone's familiar while the bad guy had imposed an illusion over it... then no one told my character what had happened and he was too dense to figure it out... and they eventually blew up at him because he wasn't expressing remorse for something he didn't know he'd done, and, being attacked, he got defensive about it... stupid story, really ;) ).

[jesstertwo]

Nezumi:
Well, the only characters I want to kill are those that belong to people who get banned from the boards. At he-man.org we're a pretty closly-knit community, and I don't want to kill off a character unless it's required.

If I shut down the game, it would be the second time that I've had to. If that happens, I don't think I'll have the heart to start another. And as I'm the only one doing anything with Eternian RPG at this time, I don't want the thing to die altogether.

Tinker:
I make known during recruitment that I expect 5 posts per week. I realize that sometimes that won't be possible, and deal with it when the cercumstances come up.

I've already eliminated one player for not posting. If I eliminate one more, it will just be me GMing and one other player. Not what I would like to do, if I can avoid it.

Managable chunks. The adventure I have them in now was intended to be tiny. Less than 200 posts IC. Make contact, do a simple job, get paid. I was hoping that the simplicity of it would encourage them to stay on, and maybe be encouragement for others to join up.

I really can't do anything about the pace when I'm waiting on someone to do something. Check out the thread and you can see what I'm talking about.

I agree, Shadow is the man. Seeing him and his runners complete a run about 2 years ago (the one where they killed the vampire) is the whole reason I attempted the thing at the .org. Now that I've got a 3rd edition of Shadowrun core rules soming in, I'm going to try to get in on one of his games.

Anyone:
Turns out that one of my players hasn't been posting anything online for the last week or so. He's been having computer problems, so I'm hoping this will all be resolved once he gets his comp fixed again.

I don't suppose anyone here would be interested in playing an Eternian RPG, if this falls through? Give these guys an example of how a real RPG is supposed to be done?