Has the announcement of the second edition killed new PbPs for now?

[Scias Starset]

I've always enjoyed lurking in the Recruitment section and latching on to knew PbPs to follow, and I recently decided I wanted to play in some myself, but I have noticed that lately the posting of new recruitments has really slowed down. Is it because of the announcement of second edition or did the slump happen before that?

[Phntm888]

I haven't played PbPs for as long as some on this board have, but I have seen similar slowdowns before, so I don't think PF2E is the main cause of the slowdown - although I can't say for certain it isn't a cause. There are likely other reasons, too.

For instance, there have always been more players than GMs. It might just be that the regular PbP GMs are full up and not looking to start new ones right now, and there aren't a lot of newbies stepping up at the same time.

I think another cause is actually War for the Crown. There's a lot of excitement about that AP in general, and some GMs might have decided they want to run it next, but are waiting for all 6 parts to come out. Since a PbP Adventure Path typically takes several years to run, there might even be some GMs waiting to do a recruitment until Return of the Runelords comes out, since that one is highly anticipated as well.

If you'd like to get started, I recommend the Castamir's Flaxseed Pathfinder Lodge thread. It lets you get used to PbP via PFS Scenarios, so you aren't in a long, drawn-out campaign for a long time. That's usually a fairly consistent recruitment, so it's something to consider.

[DM Papa.DRB]

Phntm888 wrote:

It might just be that the regular PbP GMs are full up and not looking to start new ones right now.

.
there might even be some GMs waiting to do a recruitment until Return of the Runelords comes out, since that one is highly anticipated as well.

The two above are my reasons. I am running three PbP now, although I hope to finish one of them up this summer / fall, and when that one is finished, then I may start up Return of the Runelords, and use P2E rules since they should be out by then.

-- david

[GM Fez]

I'm actually expecting a glut of new recruitment threads in the coming month as students get out of school for summer break. Followed by the vast majority of those games dying when school comes back in session in the fall as people realize just how much time they don't have to run games.

[GM Piratey Steve]

DM Papa.DRB wrote:

I am running three PbP now, although I hope to finish one of them up this summer / fall, and when that one is finished, then I may start up Return of the Runelords, and use P2E rules since they should be out by then.

-- david

Hey David -

Have you given any thought to exactly how you'd run a P2E PbP game? In my excitement, I offered to run a P2E side game set in Kintargo for the players of the Hell's Rebels game I'm currently running. A couple of days ago, I started giving this idea more thought...and now I'm worried. The 3 actions thing has the potential to bog down an already-slow medium to a crawl; I'm thinking the GM will have to post an opponent's AC and even hps beforehand. That way, they player can decide "Well, 1st attack missed so I'll try a second at -4...Darn, now I'll raise a shield as my third action" rather than wait on a ruling for every single action. I'm still not sure how we'll be dealing with reactions: Lots of spoilers, maybe?

I guess we'll have a better idea once the playtest rules release in a few months.

[DM Papa.DRB]

I have not been paying too much attention to the Playtest forum, but did follow somewhat the three action issue. I won't run a P2E game till I have read thru the rules thoroughly, and digested them.

As far as posting HP & AC, I already do that. I use macros in my games and one of them displays the following which I then fill in:

creature:

HPxx xx[xx] ACxx Txx Fxx CMDx; SRx/x DRx/x; Fxx Rxx Wxx

If there immunities & resistance, I add that in also.

Here is a LINK to one of my combat posts to show you what I mean.

-- david

[GM Piratey Steve]

Thanks for the example. Definitely food for thought.