The Play-By-Post Games You'd Want to Play

[LordKruelos]

The thought struck me (and it hurt) that while it's easy to slap together a PBP game idea and throw it up for people to possibly join in, there's not much of a sense for the unmet need for PBP games. In other words, if potential GMs had a better sense for what sort of CraftyVerse game the denizens of this board wanted to play, perhaps they'd be more likely to propose such a game, and we'd see more active games (and more variety) on these boards.

For the heck of it, I've thrown together 10 game ideas that might appeal to people, and enabled 2 votes per user, to gauge what kinds of games people might be interested in. The descriptive titles should be seen as flavor, not commitments to any given cannon.

[VisualStatic]

I voted for Space Cowboy, but I would do a few of the others as well, including the 2 espionage, Modern street and the other futuristic depending on what it is.(Save the galaxy SW style i'm in)

[MilitiaJim]

I'm more for the gonzo fun, but I'm open to most things.

[LordKruelos]

I'm more for the gonzo fun, but I'm open to most things.

That's. What. She. Said.

[LordKruelos]

I wouldn't presume to tell any prospective GM how to run a game, but as I typed these up, a few thoughts popped into my head as possible steps forward for some of these ideas -- use or disregard as you choose.

Of Mallets, Ninjas, and Magical Cat-Girls (Gonzo Fantasy)
- Larger than Life heroes
- Wire-Fu
- Fickle Universe

This is why we can't have nice things (Campy Comedic Espionage)
- Comedy of Errors
- Bonus Action Dice for clever 1-liners
- Triumphant Heroes

Cloudy with a chance of Zombies (Modern Apocalyptic Horror/Survival)
- All weapons come with a significantly reduced starting ammo
- Bleak
- Bloodbath

See You Later, Space Cowboy (Futuristic Bounty Hunters/Smugglers/Mercenaries)
- Each character starts with 1 subplot
- Hewn Limbs
- Luck Abounds

[Mister Andersen]

2 is too few choices. I went Cowboy Bebop and Conan, though I'd also happily go with anything that wasn't gonzo or comedy. "Light hearted" is a different kettle of fish to comedy, but there's a fine balance and PBP just doesn't give you the energy of interacting with people in real time, playing to them and building off that energy which is what a good comedy game requires. Even live, its easy to misread a situation or just come off as a rat bastard.

At this point I'm really over the whole modern zombie genre, so an apocalyptic/dystopian game would probably have to go somewhere interesting. Something along the lines of Eclipse Phase for instance would do nicely.

Mistborn? I suspect that I wouldn't mind an Alloy of Law era game because it's inherently less crapsack than the original trilogy's millennium and is far far more openended, unlike the Final Empire where you know that nothing you do is going to have mattered because it's there in the text that the baddies always win

[RusVal]

At this point I'm really over the whole modern zombie genre, so an apocalyptic/dystopian game would probably have to go somewhere interesting. Something along the lines of Eclipse Phase for instance would do nicely.

What about one where aliens invade, humanity punches back hard enough to defeat them but "breaks their arm" while doing so, but humanity planned for that so they put select people in cryogenic freeze.
Fast forward 200 years, humanopsicles wake up, and try to rebuild civilization in a world transformed by all the weapons used in the war.  The wilderness has mutated, some of surviving humanity has mutated, even a few surviving aliens have mutated.
And speaking of aliens, some of the invaders still survive with tech akin to humanity's before the war (sort of their version of being tossed back to the stone age), so the original 2.0 gear tables could still be used with some "flavor" editing.


Also, if for some crazy reason you guys don't mind me GMing, if I were to do a Space Opera game, it might lean heavily towards an Aliens/Starship Troopers vibe in style (kinda dirty, kinda gritty, fairly human centric).  Though considering how much trouble I'm having with the one setting I am doing... yeah.

[MilitiaJim]

That's. What. She. Said.

I am coming to accept that I am catnip for the crazy ones.

Also, if for some crazy reason you guys don't mind me GMing, if I were to do a Space Opera game, it might lean heavily towards an Aliens/Starship Troopers vibe in style (kinda dirty, kinda gritty, fairly human centric).  Though considering how much trouble I'm having with the one setting I am doing... yeah.

The Mass Effect 'verse, IMO, lends itself to a bit of gonzo action.  (Biotic opens a singularity over the bad guys and throws the Vanguard over it.  As the Vanguard curves down from the pull of the singularity, he pops his charge and plows down on the bad guys who thought they were missed clean.  )

[LordKruelos]

That's. What. She. Said.

I am coming to accept that I am catnip for the crazy ones.

It is my humble opinion that everyone has a case of the crazy, the variation comes in:
a) how frequently the crazy flares up b) how severe the flare-up is and c) how aware the afflicted is of their own crazy

[Mister Andersen]

When it was around, I actually really quite liked settings such as Jeremiah and The Morrow Project, as well as the idea of Twilight 2000/13.

Problem is, 2.0 has become a deal breaker for me; it was the sole reason I didn't put my hand up for the Terminator game. After Master Craft's cornucopia, I just can't summon any interest in using 2.0's decompressed character options anymore.

[MikeS]

In addition to what is listed above, I can be talked into running any of the following:

1. All the King's Men (Fantasy espionage, with the Fantasy level somewhere around the original Warhammer RPG)

2. FantasyPunk (Shadowrun reversed, so to speak: dystopian fantasy/steampunk crossover, with cyberpunk social elements and flavor)

3. End of times (post-apocalyptic fantasy, where a magical apocalypse happened ~20 years ago)

All three of these will require a little work before they are ready, but if there is interest, I might be able to accelerate.

[tfwfh]

I'm just going to toss this out for whatever it's worth.

I would love to play a game using most any of the styles on that list.  The thing is, pbp isn't something I enjoy.  I should, because the character and world building are the parts of a game that i like most, but I just can't enjoy pbp games.  Now, I would be more than happy to play using some other online medium.  Video chat, text chat, voice chat (no video) in that order, or possibly others I haven't thought of.  Those I have enjoyed in the past, and would do again given the opportunity.

[LordKruelos]

Well, if a single-day's results are worth assessing, at minimum someone should be dusting off their Traveler/Firefly/Cowboy Bebop game ideas. If no one else jumps on it, I may make a go of it myself.

I would love to play a game using most any of the styles on that list.  The thing is, pbp isn't something I enjoy.

Speaking only for myself, while I prefer real-time games, the appeal of PBP is the asynchronous play. I've run real-time internet games with players on 3 continents and the scheduling is nightmarish. With PBP, I can play or run a game with little more time investment and scheduling pressure than maintaining an email correspondence.

[MilitiaJim]

I would love to help with some sci-fi 'verse building.  I want to set up and economic order that makes interstellar shipping profitable dagnabbit!

[VisualStatic]

I would love to help with some sci-fi 'verse building.  I want to set up and economic order that makes interstellar shipping profitable dagnabbit!

I would mind helping on that either.  Back before I found Crafty, I was looking at using the Traveller T20 (D20 version) to run a Firefly game for friends.