RPG Play by Forum

I've now played in two Dark Heresy campaigns, one Deathwatch campaign and I'm currently GM'ing another Dark Heresy campaign. Play by forum can be very enjoyable, so I thought I'd share some tips with you based on my experience in case you ever want to run or take part in your own campaign. Obviously to do any of this you'll need a forum of your choice to do it on ;)

PBF takes time: When you're planning your campaign bear in mind it's going to take time. Alot of time. What you'd manage in a session or two face to face is going to take several months most likely. Our first DH campaign (Maggots in the Meat from the Games Master's Kit) ran between July and October to finish was should be doable in a single evening session. Be prepared for it to take time and plan for the long haul.

Get reliable players: When recruiting players or thinking of being a player yourself, think about the first point. Am I willing and able to run or play in this campaign for the amount of time required? Is it likely that real life stuff is going to get in the way of me playing? Obviously if something unexpected happens, or you have to go on holiday or something then these can be handled, but if you're just going to lose interest then don't bother starting.

Post often: One way your campaign will stagnate is if people aren't posting often to keep things moving. A lack of posting is going to slow stuff down, people will lose interest and things will fizzle out. My advice would be to look for people, or plan on posting yourself, who can post every 24 to 48 hours. This sounds like quite a commitment, but if you think of how many people have smart phones these days, it's not too arduous (Tapatalk is your friend by the way if you're forum playing by phone).

Fudge things: Let stuff slide and things happen without rolling to keep things interesting. Unless it's really vital or unavoidable don't let people die, no one wants to lose weeks of work and have to re-roll.

Don't enforce a posting order: Out of combat, things will slow down if you're all waiting on one guy to post. Let people post when they want when not in combat to keep things and the roleplaying flowing.

Don't be waiting on one player: Try and avoid situations where you're waiting on one person to do something or post. If the majority of players have decided on a course of action, go with it rather than waiting for a unanimous decision.

Have everything ready: If you're GM'ing have all your major posts planned out and ready to hand when you need them. Same thing for player character sheets, reference tables, NPC stats and so on. When you've got it to hand you can quickly copy and paste the next part of the post (especially if it's a long one) and you're away. I've found Google docs useful for this, so I carry all my major posts in one document that I can cut and paste from even when I'm using a mobile device like my iPod.

Credit for many of these insights is also due to Aaron from the Mystical Throne who has GM'ed two of the three campaigns I've played in. Many of these tips I learnt from him so go check his site out.

First Dark Heresy campaign draws to a close

I'm just coming to the end of my first Dark Heresy campaign which I played in via a forum (looking back it's coming towards 4 months since we started), and I've very much enjoyed it. The game was GM'ed by Brother Aaron (check out his site, the Mystical Throne) and it all went very well.

Play by forum isn't easy, and as you can probably imagine, it's fairly slow paced. The GM wisely abandoned posting order when not in combat which helped the game flow on more quickly, but you definitely need a group who are going to checking the forum regualrly for it to work. By regularly, I mean every day. That said we still lost two players from our starting six, so we drafted in a replacement and shared the other character between us.

The adventure was "Maggots in the Meat" from the GM's kit which was a fairly straightforward mission which I think worked pretty well for play by forum as there didn't seem to be too much investigation work to get stuck on. The final combat was pretty tough though. Our party was fairly combat heavy: 2 guardsmen, 1 assassin, 1 cleric, 1 techpriest and 1 scum (me). If you're interested you can download a read full transcript of the game here.

My character, Sham, is now rank 2, so he's taken +5 Fel, Inquiry, Peer (Underworld) and Common Lore (Underworld) to keep in with his hive scum theme. He was pretty handy in combat, but can't take much damage. We acquired some armour in the last game which helped, and I've also changed his main weapon from a shotgun to an autogun. The shotgun only has a two round clip, and takes two full turns to reload, whereas a Full Auto burst from an autogun is pretty nasty.

His next mission is already a foot and should be starting in the next week or two. Our next campaign is entitled "The Lost", and we'll be keeping 3 of the current team together.

In similar news, I'll also be playing in a play by forum Death Watch campaign using the free download intro rules which should be interesting. I'm playing Brother Gregor of the Storm Wardens chapter.

Dark Heresy Campaign

A couple of months back, I managed to pick up the Dark Heresy core rulebook on ebay at a pretty reasonable price. It was all the cooler as it was signed by GW artist Karl Kopinski, as it was Karl's wife that was selling it.

So I've been wanting to try it out, but normally on club nights I prefer to play 40K or Fantasy rather than anything else.

Having said that, I've actually rolled up a character this week, as I'm hoping to play in an online Dark Heresy campaign via the Freebootaz forums.

I decided to play a Scum character, as I've always liked the Underhive ganger type of character so that's what I went for. I haven't really done much roleplaying for the last 15 years, last time I played was Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition I think.

I've written up a background for the character, it's a bit cliched, but I'm still learning and I couldn't think of a really unique angle. I originally wanted him to be a master forger, but I think for that I'd really need to play an Adept which I didn't particularly want to. Instead I went for a more classic Hive ganger by the name of Sil "Sham" Drust, complete with tattoos and ultraviolence. I kind of imagined him a bit like Joe Peschi in Good Fellas: violently underpredictable. Being a Scum class means he get pretty high Fel scores to start with and some Fel based skills, so I think he's probably pretty charming until you either cross him, or you don't give him what he wants, then the ultra-violence starts.

I'll share some updates for how Sham progresses once the campaign get going a bit more