I’m thinking of starting a hybrid campaign online, a live weekly session by video with a Discord forum for 24/7 sideplay. Has anyone tried anything like that? Any tips?
I have tried it, and it’s fun while it lasts! I found it very hard to keep my players engaged with the asynchronous sideplay aspect of it.
The experience actually got me to try writing up a set of generic RPG rules that would facilitate asynchronous play better than traditional rules (do a thing, wait, GM tells you to roll, wait, you roll, wait, gm describes the outcome, wait, and finally you can continue). Sadly I didn’t really get anywhere productive with them.
I think that if you have players who are into the concept, and keep interactions that require GM arbitration to a minimum, you could have some success with it.
I got the idea from a server that was very focused on crafting, with online adventures to fuel it. It was fun.
I feel like this is the perfect setup for a true West Marches campaign, where the Discord functions as a staging area for people to set up adventures.
I haven’t played West Marches much. This one is going to be pretty wild, a science-fantasy campaign set in an incredibly ancient and enormous semi-ruined city (built upon the ruins of still older cities) on a bay. I’ve drawn on a huge number of science-fantasy and science fiction works for the background.
There’s lots of semi-working tech of all sorts from many of the civilizations that have been there, much of which is regarded by most people as magic. There are gene-tinkerers, scientists, amateur inventors, explorers, farmers, merchants, guards, secret societies, robots of all sorts, androids and other kinds of genetic constructs, aliens of all sorts (all long since stranded here or the descendants of the stranded, since the world is mostly cut off from other worlds), “ghosts” (hologram computer programs, most of them damaged and/or insane) and much more. There are also energy beings and “gods” of various sorts, although the more knowledgeable claim that these “gods” are either very powerful energy beings or ancient and unusually powerful AI.
The city is a place of many levels and layers, with ancient half ruined skyscrapers soaring imaginably high, providing perches for the city’s many flying denizens (animal, vegetable, mineral, engineered, and sapient). Several different types of underground railway and other forms of transportation lie beneath many parts of the city, although most no longer work or are partially blocked. Beneath that, layer after layer of archaeological ruins and mysterious machinery extend downward - some say to the core of the planet.
Ooooh my god one of my favorite novels is The Book of the New Sun so this is RIGHT up my alley. Do you know what system you’re going to be using?
People get the idea of a West Marches game all mixed up. It’s all about reducing the level of obligation. Rather than you scheduling and preparing games, you expect your pool of players to do that for you. Rather than needing a specific “party” of player characters to keep showing up, the “always return to base” requirement means people can drop in and out as it suits them. Someone from the last game can tell everyone what happened, what they found, etc, and if someone’s interested in something, they can put a party together and go “hey GM can you do a game on [whatever day]? We want to try X”. It’s not for everyone but with the right (and large enough) group it’s a pretty low-stress way of doing things.
I’ll be using a simplified version of the RuneQuest III rules. I know that almost nobody knows them, but that’s no problem; they map really well to reality, and everyone I’ve introduced them to has been amazed at how much easier roleplaying can be. The system was designed by actual combat veterans and SCA people to reflect the reality of combat and action, so it’s much less “wargamey”. Also, it was designed as an RPG from the ground up, so there are a few simple rules that pretty much apply to everything.
I’m starting it with a few players, but I plan to open it up to new players once I’ve had a chance to get comfortable with the hybrid model. I’ve been GMing since the 80s, but apart from a couple of early BBS experiences my games have all been FTF.
Dude I love RuneQuest / BRP. Well, really I mostly love Mythras which was RuneQuest 6e until a licensing change, I think it’s an outright improvement, but still.
I once had a pbp game with fast faced plot action in the weekend combined with chill downtime rolling at all times. Honestly I still think it is the best RPG format ever. The characters really got to know eachother and had dramas of their own.
