Play-by-post vs tabletop gaming
Filed under Love Your Geek on April 23, 2004
Tagged: Dungeons and Dragons, play-by-post
Ah, the great RPG debate. No, the other one. You mean you’ve never considered the the pros and cons of playing in these different mediums? You don’t even know what “Play-by-Post” is? Then let me enlighten you.
Play-by-Post (PbP), and its older cousin Play-by-eMail (PbeM), take advantage of online communication to allow players and DMs to cross distances in their search to find a group of roleplayers. Play-by-Post is forum-based. Typically, the DM starts a thread and the players post their characters’ actions.
I got involved in PbP about a year ago, when an OpenRPG game I was in sought a forum to use for continuing the game between weekly sessions. One of the players who had been doing PbP recommended a site she knew.
I instantly fell in love with the format. PbP gives the game more of a story feel. Because the forums can be accessed online at the players’ leisure, there are no scheduling conflicts that can derail a game session, short of someone not having an internet connection (which does happen from time to time).
The DM also has more time to prepare and present a quality roleplaying experience. There are many free graphical programs that allow the DM to create strong visuals for the players. As a writer, I appreciate being able to take the time to describe vivid encounters and come up with lifelike characters. Not an easy task to do in tabletop games when your players decide to get to know a NPC you considered only ancilliary, and thus hadn’t developed.
Yeah, there’s nothing that replaces the camaraderie of tabletop gaming. But it is much easier to envision your player as a lithe elven monk when you don’t have a long-haired 30-year-old in glasses sitting across from you.
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