Just wanted to know if I am the only one that seems to think daily posting is an ideal and not a standard.
Many years on this board I see recruiting threads ask for daily posting, at least on weekdays. Then I go to the gameplay thread and find out after the honeymoon period, daily posting is gone.
Could their be a Paizo stat that tracks someone's posting frequency to make recruiting easier? I think it would be nice to track a player's posting frequency to DM's posting frequency too. That may be a more indicative measure of commitment.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Daily posting, or better, is obtainable, but it requires commitment and most PbPs fade a bit over time. You need a very active DM to pull it off as well (usually).
I don't think you should track someone's posting frequency. You'd have to do it per alias, and some campaigns are slower than others due to conditions outside the players control. I can post more frequently than once a day in most of the games I'm in, but do not for a variety of reasons (don't want to overwhelm other players, have to wait on other players/DM, etc).
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think it is about daily posting or not, honestly, but about making sure the dynamics of the group work. If I don't know the people, I like a week or more long in-character recruitment to see how the characters interact with each other.
I think out of character, private communication also can play a part. My games where I talk with the other players individually via chat seem to run faster and have a deeper level of commitment from some of the players (myself included) than ones where we only talk in game or in the discussion thread.
That said, I've been very *very* lucky in my games, so your reality may vary.
2 things to consider:
-real life happens a lot and often, especially in campaigns that last longer. Think about a weekly gaming group, there would very often someone be missing too. Different people here are in different parts of their life and have different timings. Be forgiving and more patient!
Talking about short attention spans, i found that many people are extremely short-tempered. A PbP game is not a table game where people can sit at the PC all day and post so often. There are people quitting the games because they are too slow for them. They should go out and find a real life game! Or do VTT.
-I´m extremely uncomfortable with non-Paizo members tracking other people´s posts here. That feels like a crass violation of trust and privacy to me. I´m pretty sure there are more than enough other people who don´t like this! This can come off very jerkish.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
-I´m extremely uncomfortable with non-Paizo members tracking other people´s posts here. That feels like a crass violation of trust and privacy to me. I´m pretty sure there are more than enough other people who don´t like this! This can come off very jerkish.
So you're upset that someone looks at statistics on a public forum where anyone can do the exact same thing. Google does it. I could see being upset if this was a private forum or if your PMs were being tracked, but this is public and open to the world.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So you're upset that someone looks at statistics on a public forum where anyone can do the exact same thing. Google does it. I could see being upset if this was a private forum or if your PMs were being tracked, but this is public and open to the world.
-I´m extremely uncomfortable with non-Paizo members tracking other people´s posts here. That feels like a crass violation of trust and privacy to me. I´m pretty sure there are more than enough other people who don´t like this! This can come off very jerkish.
Yep. Sorry, but once you decide to put your words in a public forum, any assumption of privacy is forfeit.
It is a public forum.
Posting rates in PbP games would be a stat I would like to see tracked. As a dm a list of the rate at which someone made daily weekday posts would be great, especially to show up in the campaign tab.
Number of games dropped as GM and player would be nice too.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
-I´m extremely uncomfortable with non-Paizo members tracking other people´s posts here. That feels like a crass violation of trust and privacy to me. I´m pretty sure there are more than enough other people who don´t like this! This can come off very jerkish.
In addition to what the others already said, you do realize that anybody can click your name, go to your profile, click the Posts tab, and see everything you've ever posted here, right?
And can do the exact same thing for every one of your aliases by going to the Aliases tab, loading THEIR profile pages, and going to the Posts tab there?
You do realize that, right?
Paizo makes following people's posts VERY easy. Heck, your Posts tab has a SEARCH FUNCTION built into it!
And NONE of these functions require you to be logged in to use.
I´m aware of that.
Just doing this by script is kind of another thing.
Think about how this would come across out of the internet.
Would such behaviour be apropriate there?
I also think that a lot of this leads to closed eliticist circles.
Posting rates don´t make good roleplayers.
Good GM´s might have abandoned some games. Or perhaps the players abandoned them.
I had very good games with people who were completely new to this board.
Some others with a lot of postings abandoned my games, because of whatever. I think one can get a very wrong impression from such statistics. Also, just because you can do something doesn´t mean it is your right or right at all.
Posting rates in PbP games would be a stat I would like to see tracked. As a dm a list of the rate at which someone made daily weekday posts would be great, especially to show up in the campaign tab.
Number of games dropped as GM and player would be nice too.
I think it can be tricky, though. I've had games where I post slowly because the GM doesn't update frequently. In games, I run, I aim for 5-10 posts a week, but if I'm waiting on players, I may not post for a few days.
I find posting rate can vary a lot even in the same game depending on what's going on. If I'm in a quick, conversation/role-playing section, I might post a handful of times in a day. If I'm in the middle of combat, especially at higher levels, I may take longer since I have to wait for the players and then resolving everything can be difficult.
It also wouldn't be easy IMO to track whether someone's bowed out of a game or just disappeared, or even if they've stopped using a character because of their own choice or because of the GM disappearing.
Basically, I agree with Verdigris (who plays in one of my games). I post more often if the GM/players posts more often, and I think it all feeds off itself.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Think about how this would come across out of the internet.
Would such behaviour be apropriate there?
What, like keeping track of batting averages or pass completion rates? Like managers keeping track of employee job performance based on sales, customer feedback, or amount of work completed?
I also think that a lot of this leads to closed eliticist circles.
Posting rates don´t make good roleplayers.
Good GM´s might have abandoned some games. Or perhaps the players abandoned them.
I only partially agree. Yes, posting rates don't make good roleplayers. Case in point, I'm in a game that's been going on for almost 4 years and moves quite slowly (we've just started the second book), but I think has some amazing roleplay scattered throughout.
What this information CAN do is properly set expectations for player and DM. If you're the kind of player who (like Oladon) likes really fast paced games and has the ability to run through an entire AP in less than a year, you want to know that the other people you're playing with can actually keep up. And if you've got a busy life and know that you can only occasionally visit the site to post, you want to know that the game and story aren't going to constantly run away from you.
And while I could understand a DM abandoning a game or two among many others due to group chemistry, real life issues, or whatever, I would be extremely hesitant to join a game run by a DM who's disappeared from the last 6-8 consecutive games they've tried to run.
I had very good games with people who were completely new to this board.
Some others with a lot of postings abandoned my games, because of whatever. I think one can get a very wrong impression from such statistics.
Me too. But statistics are just statistics. They're numbers, and can be used for good or bad, depending on who's reading them. I can't speak for others, but I would start with the numbers and then seek clarification to either confirm or explain any meaning I try to take from them. For example, if I'm starting a game and looking at applicants, if I saw someone with an amazing character background and writing style but had stopped posting in the middle of their last game 3 years ago with no explanation, I wouldn't dismiss them by default. Instead, through PMs, I might find out that the player had been in a terrible car accident or illness, and now that they've sufficiently recovered they're trying to get back into the game.
Awesome. Welcome to my game.
As motteditor mentioned, numbers never tell the whole story, they're just a tool. Use the tool correctly and get the whole story.
Statistics are a tool--I agree. I would just like to find a way to reduce the number of abandoned games as it is quite easy to throw out a recruitment or sign up for a game and quite another to follow through.
The statistic that would have the most meaning to me would be the player posting rate compared to DM posts. And the player posting rate compared to the average player posting rate in the game.
And there are many closed/elite circles already in place, so I don't this would create more. It would match players and DMs that had similar expectations AND demonstrated commitment.
@Oladon -- great work with your campaign code, I hadn't noticed it before. Maybe Lisa would be interested?
When done manually it will never have the same amount of data and be as valid as done by a script. With the script you can theoratically see how often someone was on this site since registration and posted something.
You could probably see times, topics, wordcount, words used, devices and browsers used maybe as well as locations.
OF course a lot of companies do that and the government too, doesn´t mean anyone needs to do it.
While i think some of that code ideas from Oladon are actually a good idea and a help, one might consider what to release into the wild.
On a sidenote, how would you identify an abandoned game by code?
Perhaps that player dropped out for some reasons, maybe even the other players who stayed in were jerks? Or the GM couldn´t stand the powercheese gaming anymore? There´s a lot of stuff to think about.
And how do you react to someone who only has 100 or less posts?
Would you deny them because they have no extensive PbP history?
Maybe they are just new to the game.
Maybe they are 16, or 21, or 30 and just got married or a child or a new job or ............
Might as well. Posting once per day is easy and considered bare minimal effort. I prefer games where 2-3 posts per player per day is the norm is would appreciate any tool to track like minded players.
In a day and age where people look more at their phones for fantasy football updates/check facebook every 20 minutes I can't really grasp why people prefer 1 post per day.
Giving notice in advance that you may be unavailable is totally understandable but if you're going to commit to a PBP, commit! :)
I would welcome a tracking mechanism. I'm about to dip my toes into PBP GMing and I'm probably going to look for players who can post 2-3 times daily. Nothing against people who cannot do so, I just prefer a certain pacing to my games.
Sometimes you get into a game and it feels like Chess-by-Mail. I try and avoid those as much as possible. ;)
As a hobby, I'd like to devote as much time to a good series of PBP's as I used to devote to MMOs. I know that's asking a lot for some people but I figured I'd throw in my 2 coppers as someone who considers themselves 'a dedicated gamer'.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In my (admittedly limited) PbP experience and from observation, in order to get players to post once per day (barring RL issues getting in the way), the GM needs to chime in more often than once a day.
-Run-of-the-mill GM info posts/combat posts
-recap posts (acknowledge the PCs turns and explain what happened based on their actions)
-follow-up and supplemental info (adding a little more to a previous post)
-coaxing (prod your players a bit, keep them involved)
Its a lot like a table top game. The GM is typically doing more talking than an other individual at the table. I see the boards as no different.
Well....
Let´s have some analysis there.
-Posting from a phone. That requires you to:
-have such a phone.
-have time to post from a phone, what is more difficult than to post from PC.
-either have the knowledge about your character or have all things with you.
Clearly not everyones scenario.
All of that might be easier with some kind of pad or tablett.
Then there are different posting types:
2-3 posts a day can be
-morning, noon, evening
-3 posts in the morning
-3 posts after midnight
-several posts at totally random times.
Add in that in PbP you have people from all over the world with totally different timezones.
The 1/day thing has 1 very good thing to it, you can simply declare 1 day = 1 round or circle.
With several posts a day that get´s much more complicated.
For example, i´m in a game right now 2 several people crank out a lot of posts (10 or more) during times where i mostly cannot post or even read it at all, and some others neither. They advance the story quite far alone then sometimes or make decisions which might not be the best or to everyone´s liking. (Not accusing anyone here, that is more theoretically). Something like that could lead to the group falling apart quite fast sometimes. It´s very similar to the spotlight problem at tables that sometimes occur. Could be an argument to find a group of people that all have similar posting times and speed, what probably gets very compicated though. That could be a VTT game then i guess.
There are better solutions though in my eyes.
Like having a very good written character, with a behaving pattern and determined actions that come into play when the player cant post at that time. This way the GM can "bot" said character for a round or two maybe. Needs experienced and carefull GM´s and players though and is surely not everyones thing.
I´ve been in a group that succesfully played through Reign of Winter 1 by PbP in 2 weeks. Retroactively i wonder myself why we didn´t do this as VTT. Would probably have made more sense.
Everyone was lurking behind his computer the whole day anyway and if you are honest, you don´t get much things done besides, because you are really busy pressing F5.
Something i saw happen quite often was players posting stuff, making good solo-roleplaying, but not communicating with each other.
You can see that during decision making times, when they talk to a NPC and similar occasions.
I believe players post more and better, when directly involved.
You can have your NPC´s direct questions at them or try to get them into having dialoges with each other. Asking questions that cannot be answered with yes or no is a good thing there.
As a GM you will always do more talking (or writing in this case), but if done cleverly, your players might outpost you. That also gives you something to watch and hopefully smile about.
|
|
Let´s have some analysis there.
-Posting from a phone. That requires you to:
-have such a phone.
-have time to post from a phone, what is more difficult than to post from PC.
-either have the knowledge about your character or have all things with you.
Clearly not everyones scenario.All of that might be easier with some kind of pad or tablet.
All good points, but there are some tools such as Wayfinder that can at least make things significantly easier.
I've seen a lot of games die due to lack of posting.
Clearly real life comes first, but I don't think one post a day is too much to ask.
I have a tech job, so most of the time I can post multiple times per day without an issue.
Why don't we multi-posters start a game. :-)
I call Wizard or Mystic Theurge.
Wayfinder is an option for sure. If I played in games where there was a 1 post per day ca[ I could see myself losing interest quite quickly. All people are different. It's best to look for games where posting is more your speed for sure.
Having the GM or other players NPC you when needed, giving them instructions on how your character behaves etc. Play by posts take time and people (PFS) tie characters to those games which makes them unavailable until is complete.
Another option is be the GM. Especially if you are upset that group mates are doing things too fast for you. Being the GM allows you to set the pace.
Restricting the majority to please the minority just seems unrealistic. If someone poses a question to my character or something happens that directly influences my character expect me to react, and quickly.
F5 ;)
Also keep in mind; if you're wanting to pause a game to have what essentially an 'OOC' chat in character that doesn't really work. If you suddenly started discussing weather or not fighting a thing or talking to a thing was the better option, any DM worth their salt would have the NPCs act accordingly.
Communicating via telepathy however, that might work.
|
|
It does seem like PbP games should start off with the GM saying what the expectations of posting are. eg. GM will post minimum 4/day, players to post minimum 1/day, GM timezone is UTC+-xx:00. Then players can sign up only if they are sure they can meet those expectations.
Bonus points if the player gives and asks for contingencies in place in case a player doesn't reply when they're required to, such as "If I'm in melee and above x hp, and I know the bad guy is lightly wounded or better, I go into total defense." "If we're near the beginning of combat, I would hold my ground and ready an action a melee attack if anyone closes in".
I've never played PbP before, but this seems like it would help a lot.
Avatar 1 is spot on. When you join a PBP the onus is on you to try and find one suited to your time zone. Work it out in the OOC thread what time's you are not able to post and what actions/skills you rely on for expected situations. It's unfair to a GM and players who post frequently to ask them to work around a time zone jump. If you can't come to some sort of understanding then perhaps that game isn't the one for you.
I'd love to find a game where people were heavily active and kept the game going at an enjoyable pace. For PFS a typical module can be completed in one session. If it's taking months to get through a similar module online then there is an issue.
Anyone looking for a dedicated gamer for any ongoing games? I'd love to join a few more, most of mine are slow-to-medium paced atm and I'm looking for something a little...more? :) Spill the beans guys, who is running the secret society for us gaming addicts? I'd love to attend a meeting ^_^
Wayfinder is an option for sure. If I played in games where there was a 1 post per day ca[ I could see myself losing interest quite quickly. All people are different. It's best to look for games where posting is more your speed for sure.
Having the GM or other players NPC you when needed, giving them instructions on how your character behaves etc. Play by posts take time and people (PFS) tie characters to those games which makes them unavailable until is complete.
Another option is be the GM. Especially if you are upset that group mates are doing things too fast for you. Being the GM allows you to set the pace.
Restricting the majority to please the minority just seems unrealistic. If someone poses a question to my character or something happens that directly influences my character expect me to react, and quickly.
F5 ;)
That's great until you realize you're in a different time zone than the GM and nothing happens while you could make a dozen posts and then the game makes a huge narrative jump while you're asleep.
In combat, it's not so bad, since you pretty much wait until everyone takes their action: This can be a huge delay or it can go pretty quick.RP stuff can easily go a long way with just the GM and a couple players online going back and forth - even when other characters would have jumped in if the players had been available. Or it can get stuck waiting for someone who's around, but just doesn't have any input at the moment. A hard balance to strike.
Sadly, its just a way of life when you commit to a PBP. Your character will not always be the star. It goes both ways, GMs post when I sleep as well. All of them have been cool about me interjecting something my character would have done and ret-conned some minor details.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I've long lost faith in the once-a-day standard. It doesn't fit the possible paces of all the PbP games that exist.
Clearly, there are games that have been going a long time with a slower than 1 post per day standard.
And there are games that require momentum and post velocity to succeed.
Different players will respond better the type of game that better suits them. For me, I prefer the higher velocity games and seek to keep things moving. It helps me stay in character and keep the story and focus in my mind. Slower games hurt my ability to stay in character and retain salient plot points.
That said, posts-per-day is a limited requirement.
I consider the good PbPer to be one that advances the story, creates interactions, and responds well (with hooks). There will be times when posting more than once a day is helpful (combats) and times when you will post slower...it's not how often you post, but what you do with your posts that matter.
GMs would be better served with the following statement: "I expect you to post as often as is needed, adjusting to the pace of the group. And when you do post, I expect you to push the action/story or leave/pick up RP hooks when you do. I plan on posting at least once a day."
Very well said Painlord!
Weren´t you the one who wrote a guide on PbP?
I can totally agree with what you say there about hooks and advancement.
What i also like the the "i plan on"...because that reflects reality more.