Back when I was a kid I used to RP a bit on aol chat rooms nothing serious, dice rolls were usually fast and loose and we didn’t use any set systems as they didn’t exist for what I was doing (Mortal Kombat, Final Fantasy).

I found this site that hosts PBP with dice rollers set up for different games systems.

Wondering if anyone here has experience with this?

  • 🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦English
    2·
    1 month ago

    Even later here, but I have some experience with PbP and RPOL. Here’s a PMI analysis:

    Plus (good things):

    • The whole game record is there.
    • You have time to think out your actions.
    • In the hands of an experienced PbP GM you can have some sublime experiences. (Chiefly the GM has to have some good skills at discipline for posting speeds.)
    • You’ll find people more willing to experiment with other game systems since there’s no rush to figure out the rules when it’s your action.

    Minus (bad things):

    • A lot of people who are absolutely terrible GMs seem so resort to PbP as a last resort. Playing under these is like pulling teeth.
    • These same terrible GMs are really, really fragile and will smack-talk you or try to engage you in long debates about how great their GMing style is and how it’s your problem, not theirs that you didn’t enjoy the game, etc.
    • The pace in even a well-run game is positively glacial. Not all styles of play can fit here, so if you’re interested in dungeon crawls … uh … might want to look elsewhere.
    • (RPOL-specific) The UX when I played it was nasty. It took forever to internalize the weird way they structured and displayed their site. It has a lot of features, but it’s very hard to find them or use them. (The die roller is a case in point: very powerful, but so odd to use that I tried my hardest to avoid having to roll dice whenever possible.)

    Interesting (good or bad depending on perspective):

    • It may be the only option open for some people to RP without going solo.
    • The different pacing lends itself to entirely different styles of game, allowing you to explore different styles of play.