There are a lot of game systems played on this site.  Many of these systems were designed for people sitting around a table and playing in person so there are issues.  People make it work.  However the purpose of this thread is not to discuss issues and work arounds of these systems designed around real time play.

This site and play by email have been around for a long time, though I'm fairly new to it.

What I'd like to know about is gaming systems that are designed from the ground up for a PbP style of play.

I do not know of any rulesets were where specifically designed for play-by-post style gaming.

That said, I have had success running games using the Chupa Open Roleplay Engine, an open source ruleset created by the Dragons Landing Podcast community. The two Cthulhu-themed games which I ran using that system were probably the two smoothest games that I have ever run online. http://www.angelfire.com/anime...core/quickStart.html

In reply to CosmicGamer (msg # 1):

I would dare to say that almost any game that was DESIGNED for PbP was probably developed on this site.  Lots of games like that.

De Profundis comes to mind, though how much one considers how that game plays a "system" is open to taste.  Believe the updated version has rules specifically for electronic play as well.

I've seen this subject come up more than a few times over the years, and even brought it up myself once. The consensus was that a system built from the ground up for PbP would be wildly unpopular and maybe even actively disliked.

I disagree - a system that is built with the needs of pbp in mind would be a great thing, and even if many people choose not to use it or just don't like it, more options is never a bad thing.

So, maybe some of us RPoLians should get together and make it happen?

You know, I'm curious: how would any system developed for real life not be useable in pbp, and how can a system be developed to only (or even mainly) work for pbp?

the way I see it, the only difference between pbp and real life is the amount of time that passes between the actions of a player and those of the one acting next, which is why pbp is slow. But I can't see any other gameplay difference, and fail to see how the mere difference in speed could be enough to make a system work for pbp but be unusable (or even just less effective) in real life.

Just curious here - it seems like a strange concept to look for, so if anybody can explain what other differences I'm missing, it'd be instructive to me. :)

The communication is very different, maps and minis don't work very well, and initiative sucks horribly when you can't rely on the order of when people can post.

Yeah, it's not so much a question of whether or not real-time, tabletop systems are usable for PbP, because there's a few thousand games here that prove they are.  And, just like in real-time, tabletop games, each one has its strengths and weaknesses and how well it works depends largely on who you ask.

And that, I think, becomes the problem with developing a 'pure to PbP' system...there's such a variety of ways people approach their games...  I mean, just about anyone who has home-brewed or otherwise kit-bashed a tabletop system to work more efficiently for this environment has, arguably, designed a PbP gaming system (more for the home-brewing...)

But how widely used does a system need to be before it becomes accepted as a 'true' system, as opposed to somebody's home-brewed concoction?

It usually stops being homebrew when somebody publish it in some fashion, I believe.

And whil your points are good ones, DarkLightHitomi, I hardly think they're definitive: many a RPG can be played without miniatures, maps can be used if one can create and update them, and a GM who really cares for having his players act in a certain order can easily enforce it, making the use of initiative-like mechanics a matter of taste.

What I'm saying is, maybe we can say that a "pbp only" game should not focus on moving minatures around and should have a more flexible way of handling posting order than D&D intitiative, but such systems exist in great number for real life games, so the difference seems very minor to me.

This message was deleted by the user at 01:39, Mon 03 Aug 2015.

If it needs to get published; I doubt there'll ever be one. I just don't think enough people would buy a PbP-designed for game, as opposed to a more mainstream game that -can- be used PbP. A lot of people play PbP because they don't have time for a tabletop game; rather than because they want that over tabletop.

ALso, I do struggle to see what a 'PBP-system' would need; that many, especially less main stream systems, already offer.

Depending the defenition of what a roleplaying game is there is always that old game that used to be played on paper — but I've seen it pop up on forums as well — where you write a paragraph of text and then give the story to the next in line to write the next paragraph. You don't play a character but co-write a story, which is pretty awesome. Or at least a good starting point to start off from.

I think word/writing based games have great potentiality. I think games like Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, where you have to use a pre-determined amount of words in one game, could work great if the other, less easy to replicate online actions (the stones in this example) could be hacked/adapted/replaced in one way or another.

There are a few other games that could be adapted this way, like  The Trouble With Rose , which is a story telling game that uses cards. I think there even is a sort of card-system in the on site dice roller, but I could be mistaken.

And in the last two you can actually even play your own character.

What I find hardest in online roleplaying is that the character interactions are less natural. There can be no interruptions or quick reactions to what a character is saying.

That's true; but on the other hand I find actual RPing is more encouraged in online gaming. Because if it's just about combat it gets boring fast in online RPing - you might as well play a computer game. So people who might not really RP will do it if they're playing online.

Most game systems can be adapted to online play, though there may need to be adjustments, especially to combat.  The only one I've seen that didn't work very well (though it was still fun) was Toon; it's just not the same without the contagion of laughter.