In one of the groups I'm in, I GM and play. My co-GM and I do play by post when one of us is behind the screen. It keeps my character adventuring and it helps add story elements. My group benefits from our play by post in the main part of our campaign.
We like both styles of play. Thats just my group.
I find PbP works for me. I get weirdly shy and self-conscious at a table-top, which is strange considering in real life I'm rather confident and outgoing.
I also like the added depth and consideration the PbP format allows, and the ability to hone my writing chops.
I prefer my tabletop games, but I've had a lot of fun in pbp as well.
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I gave PbP a try several years ago and had a hard time keeping track of what was happening. I also tended to forget to check the PbP thread often enough, which left the other players waiting for me to take my actions. A further challenge for me was that all the other players were in a different time zone, so they'd do their posting hours before I got online.
I clearly work better in a face-to-face situation.
I more often than not split the difference and play via irc/maptool/skype. You still have the realtime communication angle going, but gain the benefits of not managing the logistics of getting everyone in the room, erasing fog of war instead of describing rooms and hallways, and shy players getting to type everything.
Only real downside is it's a little harder to maintain everyone's focus since distracted players give no awkward sign of such until their turn comes around and they aren't saying anything.
I tried play by post a few times and I just cant manage the pace, dont have the patience. If I'm playing I want to play. I've played a bit on virtual tabletops but nothing yet has convinced me it works nearly as well as a simple table with some tools and people in person. I also am a very social person and like having people around to do things with, so gaming provides an interaction that is fairly vital to my personal social needs. So definately at the table as much as possible.
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I enjoy a mixture of the two. Both have their own benefits in their own ways.
To me, a tabletop game has a lot more of a feeling of just hanging out and socializing, often has more of a tactical aspect to it for me and is certainly a lot more fast paced and able to advance adventures and see new parts of characters and just be more fluid and adaptable.
Obviously a big setback is trying to get everyone together and its much easier to have distractions during game and all of that and you are working with just the people you can find nearby so they may all have different expectations of what they want from a game.
In a PbP it can be easier to find people who suit your style better just because you have a larger pool to dig through, I find that often times the RP and dialogue are done much better even if just because people have time to sit and think of what they are going to say and able to better put things in their characters voice and you can get a little time of RP in throughout the day whenever you have time.
Drawbacks end up being the fact that things are going to advance much slower just by the nature of the beast, you are much more likely to lose players through the way and games are known to fall apart, and it normally becomes much easier to keep house rules to a minimum just because you don't necessarily know the people so everyone needs to have the same basis.
Both the options can be a lot of fun as long as you are aware of the challenges that come with and are ready to overcome them.
Tabletop is my preferred method by far. The only drawback is of course the fact that it takes a huge chunk of time out of the day, which isn't something my friends and I can always manage at this point in our lives.
I would probably enjoy pbp a lot for how descriptive you can get and how much little time it takes out of the day to participate, but so far the only one I got into fizzled and died pretty quickly, so I barely got a chance to play. I don't want to try running a pbp until I've at least played in one.
face-to-face or virtual tabletop is my preferred medium (using virtual as I know of no one in this town as my play-buddies all moved). I absolutely cannot stand pbp. Just something about it really rankles me.
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Realtime online games combine the two, roleplaying in chat takes longer than on a table but much faster than PbP, and you still have the option to do it over voice if the table goes with you.
Fortress of the Nail had one of the best roleplaying encounters I've ever seen in online play, and it would've been difficult to impossible for me to run at a table - I can't think up those important answers quite that quickly.
Realtime online gaming is in this weird uncanny valley for me. The first game I ever ran was that way (over G+), and I had a lot of fun with it, but now that I've started doing it in-person I just can't get into video/audio chat games as much. I want to either be really right there, doing it together or be completely separate, taking it slow.
EDIT: To elaborate, when I'm sitting down for a skype game, I realize more readily that I'm just sitting in a chair talking as opposed to being in a magical alternate world.
Face-to-face tabletop is most preferable. I'm playing in an in-person Skull & Shackles game currently.
I've run (and am possibly still running) a mostly-in-person game with two remote players who Skype in. We all use a VTT (MapTool). Pacing is MUCH slower, (regularly have to ask remote players to repeat themselves, they miss dialogue at the table, etc).
I'm playing in my first PBP currently. It's fun-- it scratches a different itch. Its more a collective creative writing exercise than improvisational acting.
Virtual is all I can do where I live. Unfortunately, it is extremely easy for people to be distracted during play. Since you are playing over the internet, there's a huge chance that the other people are browsing Facebook or some other site, and not having their full attention on the game itself. I do greatly miss face-to-face tabletop.
One good thing about vtt over traditional, is you don't need a map that is to scale for 1 inch=5 ft.
Vtt for me, its just easier to schedule that way...also pants arent required ;)
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Realtime online gaming is in this weird uncanny valley for me. The first game I ever ran was that way (over G+), and I had a lot of fun with it, but now that I've started doing it in-person I just can't get into video/audio chat games as much. I want to either be really right there, doing it together or be completely separate, taking it slow.
EDIT: To elaborate, when I'm sitting down for a skype game, I realize more readily that I'm just sitting in a chair talking as opposed to being in a magical alternate world.
This is a really interesting phenomenon, because I've been running VTT games for PFS over the past 3 odd years, and we have a hard time getting players to stick around to the higher levels or getting them to GM after a long time of play - after a while they seem to trail off and lose interest in online play for seemingly this exact reason.
It's never affected me that way, but I'd really love to find a way to work out how it happens. How do you go from having a ball doing it to begin with to deciding later that it's not for you?
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I'd like to try VTT but for me personally it has the issue I'm currently having in tabletop - getting people together (whether virtually or not) for an extended period on a regular basis.
Playing at the table is a social thing for me as well and some times we spend more time talking amongst ourselves than actually playing (which is both a good thing and a bad thing). But pbp allows me a lot more time to build atmosphere and characters, I think the actual role-playing element is far more successful.
I have introduced several house rules which allow me to keep things moving on pbp games but yes, it is definitely a much slower medium.
Realtime online gaming is in this weird uncanny valley for me. The first game I ever ran was that way (over G+), and I had a lot of fun with it, but now that I've started doing it in-person I just can't get into video/audio chat games as much. I want to either be really right there, doing it together or be completely separate, taking it slow.
EDIT: To elaborate, when I'm sitting down for a skype game, I realize more readily that I'm just sitting in a chair talking as opposed to being in a magical alternate world.
This is a really interesting phenomenon, because I've been running VTT games for PFS over the past 3 odd years, and we have a hard time getting players to stick around to the higher levels or getting them to GM after a long time of play - after a while they seem to trail off and lose interest in online play for seemingly this exact reason.
It's never affected me that way, but I'd really love to find a way to work out how it happens. How do you go from having a ball doing it to begin with to deciding later that it's not for you?
Games over the table are just more fun for me. When I run I usually like to stand up and walk around, pantomiming and acting things out. It's also much easier to get distracted in online play, since you're looking at your screen 100% of the time, instead of openign the laptop just for rules look up, or to check your skill bonus, etc.
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Games over the table are just more fun for me. When I run I usually like to stand up and walk around, pantomiming and acting things out. It's also much easier to get distracted in online play, since you're looking at your screen 100% of the time, instead of openign the laptop just for rules look up, or to check your skill bonus, etc.
That's how it is now, but you mentioned it was fun when you started playing. I don't know if it's because you notice the distractions more after a while or you have some bad experiences overall with it, or maybe more bad than good with the different players you party with?
When it comes to roleplaying I have long felt there's no greater way than Play by Post, provided the people playing are capable of expressing their roleplaying in a manner which surpasses the physical limitations. That is to say no one will be especially verbose with their actions or thoughts when talking around a table on the fly, nor are they likely to go into great detail about their inner thoughts or feelings -- in opposite of that is the benefit of having time to think and compose your turn with Play by Post. As the DM it also allows me to present the scenario and anything else with a greater sense of atmosphere and detail than otherwise easily available (images, music, sound effects, all things that I can link/insert into a singular post with merely seconds of work on my part).
Though there is an appeal to the physical game that I understand. And I do appreciate the act of people physically acting out their roleplaying. I, however, prefer more novel-esk style roleplaying with great lengths gone toward expressing feelings, thoughts and actions, with walls of text being my bread and butter -- Play by Post is the natural outlet I've found for it.
I will say though that we use a VTT for combat and scenarios which demand placing. Trying to replace that aspect of physical playing is something I attempted for years in Play by Post, and eventually couldn't stomach anymore. Once we made the jump there was no going back (though we do especially miss the detailed combat scenarios and actions which had a much more cinematic flair to them -- as the DM I do not miss having to write all of that).
We once tried keeping strictly to VTT too, but found that people will being to lose interest in the current session if it's hours long and it's being used primarily for pointless fluff. Our happy ground has been to keep the roleplaying to our forum, and the combat/key placement scenarios to the VTT.
Play by Post certainly isn't for everyone though. I gather that people with less interest in roleplaying would much prefer playing strictly on a VTT or in person because of the faster flow and more time spent doing something productive. The entire appeal of PnP for me has always been the roleplaying aspect of it, though. I wouldn't turn down someones invitation for a game around the table, and I would enjoy it for what it is, but I'll always prefer the other.
I was lucky enough that the people I wanted to play with the most (friends of youth) also shared my interest in not only PnP but also heavy roleplaying so everything turned out good in the end. Of course none of us living within driving distance of each other also had a hand in our decision I'm sure.