Pacing Yourself In the Game

Written by Harry

One of the biggest adjustments tabletop gamers have to deal with when switching to a creative writing play-by-post game is coping with the pace of the game.

During tabletop, or even a LARP game for that matter, players usually have only one night a week to meet. They typically cram in as much game as they can into a few hours.

A whole day or even several days of game play takes place in one real-life night. The next week, the players return to jump time and play some more.

Downtime, the period when characters are not actively involved in the main plot, is usually glossed over with quick summaries of what a particular character may or may not have done while his player was off having a real life. The period could span days or weeks.

Time Warp

A play-by-post rpg game is very different. The focus is usually on the writing and the story. It’s about character development and digging into those juicy little details to find out what makes your character – and the character of other players - tick.

This takes a considerable amount of time. Unlike a tabletop game where you might not have the opportunity for extended one-on-one conversations with other characters, you do frequently have these opportunities in play-by-post role-playing games.

In a creative writing game, you have all the time you want to formulate an in-depth answer and response. When you’re role-playing in this manner, it can easily take two months of real life time passing to have your characters live two days in game.

Put Down The Map

The game is all about living in the moment. For the most part, creative writing rpgs have loose plot. The plot evolves from what actions the characters make.

Action shifts on a daily basis. A storyteller running a particular scene might have a general direction in mind, but the characters or other storytellers could have an event happen that sidetracks plot in a completely different direction.

It’s all one big improvisation session, with everyone playing off what the other characters do.

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