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Actually substituting the creatures in the encounter would be a problem. That would be against the run as written rules.
Using a different figure to represent a creature happens all the time. Starburst were used to represent all sorts of creatures at the table where I played Solstice Scar C. I don’t have paper minis for every monster type, so I will often do something like setting down a dog to represent an Akatas or a Dire Rat for a ratfolk.
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I'll keep my thoughts to myself.
The discussion is good. Even misunderstandings can be useful, since you can look at it and try to figure out how best to avoid that sort of confusion in the future.
It is tough to fix something when you don’t even realize it may be a problem.
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I have the 'pleasure' *Cough*Cough* of being sent to a work conference out of state for the next two days. I'll be back Friday.
I apologize for any inconvenience, but this will make my posting slow at best. If needed, feel free to bot me. I don't think I got the 'bot me' spoiler finished yet, but will attempt to do so before we leave.
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Admittedly I was hoping to build a place that the adventure gave me very little (less than a paragraph) to run on and went a bit far with trying to create it.
Watching how everyone acts on PBP role play made me think that I could go that route and forgot I could be breaking the game by doing so. Ill admit I was also have a lot of fun writing all that in.
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I also like creativity, and goodness knows I’ve had cameos of my own characters appear in adventures. Charli Poshkettle has offered tea to groups of Starfinders going in to the Lorespire, and my own characters have shown up as runners in multi-table specials bringing aid tokens or care packages to the party.
Still, if you introduce too much at once it can get kind of confusing, and you might have derailed another group pretty easily. The dwarves and Deep Fried Tofu looked like they were adventure hooks. (Had I not GMed the adventure, I would have been going after those leads, thinking they went somewhere.) Though Mishka does have a good idea about ending posts with a hook to lead the players in the right direction, it helps not to distract them with too many red herrings. Having one of your characters make a cameo is fine, but there might have been too many here.
I’d also be careful about too many in-jokes without your players being in on the joke. I prefer to have my in-jokes build on the shenanigans of the players rather than those from my own past games whenever I can.
Hmm
We should probably talk about combat tracking.
It seems like every GM in PbP slowly developes their own methods for tracking the various things in combat. I'm going to try and hit the highlights.
Initiative:
Pretty much every GM I know of rolls the initiative for everyone. It would delay the start of combat too much if they didn't. Spells like Heightened Awareness can complicate it. I recommend you ask the player if they will dismiss the spell if Initiative is rolled.
Some GMs group NPCs of the same type. As an example if you had 3 archers, 5 melee and one spellcaster NPC they would roll three initiative checks -- one for each of the groups.
I roll individual checks for each NPC.
A few GMs will roll a single initiative check for all the NPCs. In my opinion, this tends to clump the NPC initiatives too much. You are much too likely to get into the extreme cases where either all the PCs move before the NPCs or all the NPCs move before any PC can react.
Combat round tracking:
I list the combatants in initiative order and maintain it in that order. I will then bold the names of the PCs who may act. I always put this at the end of the posts.
The posts start with the results of any PC actions, than go on with any NPC actions if it is their turn, and then finally the combat tracking portion of the post.
I list the hit points and status of NPCs. When dealing with higher level tables where there tend to be a lot of status values, I will list any spells or effects going on such as Bless, Prayer, Bard Song, Haste, etc.
I list amount of damage taken, then any conditions after the NPC names.
Other ways of doing things:
Some GMs will track both NPC and PC hit points in the combat tracking. I haven't done that, but am still trying to decide if that is a mistake or not. With many groups, it works just fine. When taking something like a PbP Special or convention with random players filling the table, it doesn't work quite as well.
Some GMs will list buffs on the slide where the map is. I find it much harder to change the text in Google Slides, so I don't do that.
I'm sure there are other things that are done differently. I listed the ones that immediately came to mind. I would like if others would fill in with things they have seen done, and why they may have liked that method or not.
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I can't say that our run is necessarily the best practice for initiatives as I was originally thinking, mostly cause our table does have a well built balance of melee, such as Foreigner's greatsword and good strength ending bad guys quick.
I am not saying The Foreigner is at fault at all though, with the HPs and ACs provided with most baddies (such as each goblin having 5hp or the mercenaries having ACs 14 and under), a 2 handed melee high strength character would end most fights should his initiative land well and the bad guys roll terribly, even if it were just the level 1 Crowe pregen.
Retrospect perhaps the 4-5 version was the better one to run, or perhaps using a proper scenario over a quest series. Since quests are used to introduce a player to the game its not the best starter for introducing a GM to PBP.
Of course, those are just the thoughts from the logistic side. Overall, I'm still having fun with this.
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I usually post the bad guys' damage, but not out of how many. For instance, I might have the line in my combat tracking of:
skeletons (red -2 HP; blue -1 HP)
Players like this because they can see that I applied their damage correctly, but since they don't know how many HP the skeleton had, they don't have more information than they should.
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Kyle,
I use a system similar to the one Bret described. You can see what it looks like here.
Larry
aka GM Lorenzo
Just to give another view, here is a case where the GM hides all the rolls in a spoiler then gives descriptive commentary. I don’t think my writing is quite up to that style, but thought it was interesting.
I did find it a little harder to follow, but I tend to try and make it easy to see what modifiers are included in an expression.
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I do things very similarly to Bret, rolling separate initiatives for every NPC, posting the initiative block at the end of my posts with those who may act bolded, etc. I don't always remember to post the damage each NPC has taken, but I've been making more of an effort to recently. Here's an example of mine.
I love the way Pirate Rob does his posts (the example Bret just posted), but don't think I'm a clear enough writer to get the info across well doing it that way.
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A way to simplify recaps, provide essential clarity, and add some aesthetic consistency to your posting during a combat encounter:
Find your last post. Hit "Reply." Edit the copied text to reflect the current situation, indicating each PC's and NPC's actions since your last post. Add creative spice to taste. Simmer on "Preview" until satisfied. Hit "Submit" and serve.
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Something to keep in mind with Mishka's suggestion.
Always, always, always copy the post to your clipboard (or a google doc or something) before hitting preview or submit.
The sight has a tendency of eating posts at the most inopportune moments.
Writing your posts in a google doc allows you to easily adapt/reuse them if you ever run the scenario again, as well.
We’ll see you later, GM!
Hmm
I combine both styles. :-P
Foreigner