Greetings and well met!
After lurking for awhile on the Paizo Messageboards... I have found myself without the time to dedicate to a weekly game of tabletop, or the ability to just sit at my computer for hours on end every night for a chat-based game like the days of old. Now I have decided to take up play by post again after several years.
I have experience with play by post, but not here on Paizo aside from skimming the forums. I use to play a bunch on another website for around ten years off and on. I found it right after high school and didn't leave it until about 2013.
Early in 2017 I completed a two in a half year Wrath of the Righteous campaign. I've also completed several other smaller scale campaigns. The other big ones to my name was an extensively modified Red Hand of Doom campaign and a rather large Legends of the Five Rings campaign that I shared with two other GMs (we had 22 players at the game store so the campaign can concurrent with 3 different groups).
Essentially that all means nothing right now since I have never posted on the forums so I am brand spanking new here. So I need to make a name for myself so I can be able to settle into a much more in-depth and larger campaign further down the road.
One of the things I loved doing at the table was building a comprehensive world through several campaigns and adventures which help to shape it. I would also like to do the same here through a series of one-off modules as I build the world and my own brand!
However I am not green to the pitfalls of play by post gaming (not that other mediums don't have pitfalls... Most systems in general have them as well) so I have developed some unique... tastes. So this entire thread might be an attempt in futility when you take into consideration all these little things. Now for the sales pitch...
Diceless Pathfinder. You heard that right... Diceless... Pathfinder.
Initially when I was considering making a game I was looking at Diceless systems, because some of the slow down in PbP can happen with Dice Rolls. Plus over the years I have just come to prefer story-based role-playing such as Amber DRPG and the system/dice lighter games like Fate, The Window, etc. So I thought... I wonder if someone has attempted this with Pathfinder. A quick google search... and there it was!
Zenith Games Blog did it, complete with an example combat too. I won't bore you with the details yet. The gist is simple... All dice are replaced with a static number. Things like maneuvers, terrain, and just general planning become vastly more important. I am going to include “Hero Points” to give that feel of exceptional luck that comes with dice rolling, but essentially the game is completely story-driven.
I'd probably start with a nice classic module such as the Silver Anniversary Return to the Keep on the Borderlands in this quest for greatness (heavily modified since obviously... I can't leave well enough alone).
Would there be a handful of interested souls to join me on the first legs of this adventure or am I already coming out of the gate entirely to ambitious? You can be honest.
Greatly interested. I love rp focused, world building games. I'll take a look at the diceless rules later on, but they sound interesting.
I come from a background of MUSH RP. (Think chatroom RP, but with more focus on description and dialogue, and much less on dice even when they're in use.) Through this, I've played many completely diceless battles. Usually superhero rather than dungeon crawl, but it usually ends up the same way. Incredibly character focused and fun movie style action, rather than the sense of risk that you get in a dice-based game. The games become more about the adventure and character development than trying to gain levels or get treasure.
Personally, I think it's a lot of fun, as long as everybody knows what they're getting into and expectations are established.
The key to making it work, in my opinion, is description and characterization. The way we did it in most games, the riskier or more difficult things came down more to dramatic effect (and, of course, some logic) than random chance. It can be really satisfying when a player comes up with a crazy idea in a situation, and they describe it so perfectly and with so much character that the other players are practically cheering (or laughing their heads off) and it just makes dramatic sense.
The thing I'd suggest to speed things up, once players advance past the point of every single enemy being a threat, is mooks. Have fodder enemies, distinguished clearly as such, and give attacking players free rein to creatively describe how they're dealt with rather than having to wait for a response.
These enemies don't need to be the only enemies in that particular combat, either. That's actually the most common use, making fewer but larger, more epic encounters that don't bog down because of the format, rather than more, smaller, encounters that take forever.
For example, in many published adventures there are filler rooms of easy to defeat enemies that are basically there just to give XP. Instead, use those enemies as mooks in the next big encounter. It will feel more epic, give more to think about with planning an attack. They could still take actions to defeat, and left alone can still cause a lot of trouble, but the game is sped up in that players don't have to wait for a response when attacking them and things keep moving. (Also, I find, you get to see a lot of player creativity that way.)
Okay, this ended up a lot wordier than I planned. Sorry about that! Suffice to say that I'm interested. :)
I've run more than one campaign at home that served to build a world around the game; up to and including PCs becoming gods and getting to worship themselves with later characters (lol)!
I think this would be very interesting to take part in. The Diceless variant seems totally reasonable, but my interest has a lot more to do with worldbuilding than the actual rules.
How involved were your players in the worldbuilding aspects of your campaigns?
How involved were your players in the worldbuilding aspects of your campaigns?
Several different levels of involvement. On one of the continents I ran a "wargame" using old Birthright rules where they created their own Kingdoms. There was a "story" about the return of a Dark God that they were rushing against so they had a limited number of rounds to play against in the development of their kingdoms before the final scene... that game was followed by a campaign in the realms they had forged.
The Red Hand of Doom and Wrath of the Righteous campaign became linked through characters. In the RHoD campaign one of the players made a Paladin that was the Crowned Prince of the Knightdom of Halstein (Evander Holyshield... the player wasn't always the best at naming their characters or places but we went with it). Halstein was completely made up by the player. I eventually tweaked it a little to fit better but the core was essentially his. The epilogue of that campaign saw this character having to take on his father who had become a Death Knight in essentially what became that campaign world's Worldwound (we called it the Chaos Scar) in the northeastern reaches of Halstein. One of the same PCs in this campaign went on to become a Saint and another one went on to become an Immortal on a Council of Immortals (sort of a half-gods who became intermediaries between the mortals and gods after the previous campaign).
The Wrath of the Righteous campaign was ran in Halstein, for obviously reasons (and many Real Life years later). The former PC was an NPC that struggled the same as his father (essentially becoming obsessed with immortality which is only likely to end in tragedy). One of the new PCs turned out to be the bastard son of the Crowned Prince (though that player sadly had to bow out due to work right after that reveal which sucked!). The Prince (now King), Saint, and Immortal NPCs were all part of the campaign because their former players were playing in this new campaign too.
I had a great deal of other plans for old PCs on how they would impact / replace other campaigns. I am also a sucker for former heroes becoming campaign villains in future stories for whatever reasons.
Interested. I like having some license with world-building as a player, and the Zenith Games diceless rules look very playable. I'm also intrigued by the possibility of a Keep on the Borderlands related lead-in; the original B2 module was my first-ever experience with tabletop RPG back in the day :)
I'm in. I've never played the diceless variant, but it seems right up my alley as someone who prefers strategic thinking as opposed to kick-in-the-door style of play. Plus, the world- building bit seems really fun!
Hmm... looks like there is definitely some interest. Though it might be a bit on the light side at the moment. I'll see if I can't start putting the primer together this weekend while I see if anymore interest comes along which will get us through the holidays.
Unfortunately my track record on the boards has not been the best and I've found myself in a funk trying to make characters for various games on here. None-the-less, I would like to state that there is interest. Diceless Pathfinder does seemed better suited for the boards than the normal time consuming dice rolling alternative. So I definitely wish to see your interest check turn recruitment.
After having taken a look at the Zenith Games blog post you mentioned, that is assuming I found the right one, I'm curious as to what rules you will use.
Edit: Could I inquire into what kind of, or lack there of, critical rules you are going to be using?
I'd be interested in something like this. As much as I love the tactical/mechanical/random aspects of PF, the tactical side of the game doesn't translate as well to PbP, unless you're using an outside program for maps, and even then, it still falls short of RL. That being said, I've seen much better RP on the boards than I have in person, so I'd definitely be down for something like this - it lends itself well to players who type more than two sentences for updates, which would be nice.
Initially... I thought I'd just use the 8-10 over rule for the critical in a sort of overwhelming power kind of way.
After thinking about it though I think the on the nose to 1-2 pts away may actually be the way to go. It could be harder to perdict... And it fits to have someone that is so ridiculously go at hitting you just toy with you by imposing penalties on themselves before delivering the death dealing blow...
Coincedentally this is also when luck or Fate can get them the most as they are assured of victory and some slip or maneuver of the battlefield then suddenly they miss completely in a fumbling critical of mischance and the battle turns against them!
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That rule definitely brings some interesting new uses to various mechanics. Suddenly fighting defensively, raging, the ability to imbue your weapon with enhancement bonuses, power attack, and the like have so much more to them.
This sounds interesting. The ability to directly affect the world through character building and narrative sounds quite enjoyable.
Will you be planning to update this thread once you have the primer ready?