Play-by-Tweet RPGs

First, there was the traditional everyone-sits-around-the-table game. Those were fun and still are. This is probably still the most common way to play an RPG. However, not everyone is able to find a local gaming group to play with. Alternatives were devised and have been gradually improved upon, in terms of interactivity and "features" such as map posting and stuff.

Then there were play-by-mail games, where turns are taken every couple weeks and everything is handled through the postal service. These have largely fallen by the wayside, but there are a few still running.

Next came play-by-email games, where turns are taken every couple of days and everything is handled through an e-mail list. Still common, though it seems to have moved away from traditional e-mail groupings and more towards Yahoo! and Google groups based games.

Around the time AOL released their chat client, play-by-chat came into being. Live interaction, yay! But, all the other difficulties of e-mail still existed plus factor in differing time-zones and attendance issues.

Then there was play-by-post games, which are basically play-by-email games but hosted within a web-forum somewhere. As far as I'm aware, this is the single most popular way to handle remote RPG games.

Now, the new kid on the block is play-by-tweet. The game is hosted at Twitter. The 140 character limit per post is actually a good thing because it keeps people focused on the action, where it belongs. Hashtags can be used for a variety of stuff. Private messages between participants are exceeding easy. The problem? Same as e-mail: everyone has to subscribe to all other participants in order to get all the action. Everything is sort or scattered about and there's no hosting of files for maps, player handouts or character stats.

What's next? Answer: Google Wave. All the advantages of chat/irc/twitter without the downsides. Who will be first? :)

>break<

There are currently two play-by-tweet games I'm aware of: @0eRPG and @MasterDungeon, both using freely available retro-classic class-n-level fantasy games. Really. Tunnels and Trolls is much better suited to PbT, I think.

Maybe I'll start a game. More later, if I do.

First time GMs, this is for you...

A recent post to the Savage Worlds Yahoo! group saw a brief flurry of activity today. I have taken the liberty of posting the relevant bit and my response. Names and dates have been removed to protect the guilty.

=== cue original equerry ===

> Hello,

>

> Well, the time has finally come and I am nervous. I'm trying to get

> ready for my first game and would love some tips for the game. How

> should I prepare? What should I focus on?

=== end querry ===

+++ begin response +++

It doesn't matter what you focus on. You, invariably, forget something seemingly important.

It is NOT important and here's why:

1-- If it's rules, you can wing-it or look it up. Winging it is faster.

2-- If it's character sheets, you can always use a Mk. I Generic sheet (blank piece of paper)

3-- Pencils? Who needs 'em anyway. They're an excuse for people to maintain lazy memory functions!

4-- Dice? Hah! Rock-Paper-Scissors rules!!!

5-- Bennies? Phooey! You have a pocket full of pennies, nickels and dimes right?

6-- Cards (for Iniative, etc)? Bah! Those're for sissies, anyway. Make something up. Chits drawn from a hat or bag, dice rolls, who can do the most pistol-squats without hold onto something for balance... Whatever.

7-- Miniatures? You're kidding, right? Do you remember how to imagine things? This is, after all, Make Believe, isn't it?

Just remember that you WILL somehow screw up. Admit it (most importantly to yourself and then to your players) and just play right on through it. DO NOT GO BACK AND "fix" A MISTAKE. Just roll with it. It will help you remember how to handle it better next time.

If you and your players are having fun, you are doing everything right even if it's not "by the book."

+++ end response +++

Are YOU a first-time games master? Be sure to read the part of my response that's clearly highlighted. Tape it to your bathroom mirror and the edge of GM screen. It's the absolute most important thing you will ever read when it comes to being a games masster, garaunteed.

Our new setting

Well, it has come to pass that we have shifted genre a bit. We are going to start a campaign in a future-modern setting based on real geopolitics. I won't go too much into specifics since there is some hope of publishing the setting, but suffice to say its pretty exciting to all of us.

Outta This World!

So, those tall freaky dudes turned out to be some sort of race who call themselves the "Irda" whatever that is. Anyway, they told us we needed to leave their island. We simply explained what leaving the island meant to us (certain death) and they found a way for us to leave without getting killed by our employers: They gated us to some other world! Grr...

So, anyway, we arrive on this other world in a huge grassland with mountains in one direction, ocean (?) in another (we didn't go that way, but there was a body of water) and a really, really tall black tower in a third. The fourth was just more grassland. What do we do? We walk toward the tower, of course!

Walk, walk, walk and more walk until we get tired and camp. The sun sets and comes back up less than 30 minutes later. Weird. Very weird. So we keep walking until the ground opens up under us and we start falling, falling onto a sticky net. The maw of that spider is large enough to swallow us whole, and I don't mean just one of us; I mean the whole party all at once!

Some friendly, but awfully quiet locals came to our rescue, but our fighter and our rogue foolishly refused rescue and were destroyed, and probably eaten, by that really enormous arachnid.  We get trooped off into a cave complex (whoa, there's an irony, eh?) and pointed toward the inn and the temple. 

It's at this point that we start learning a little about this world. Nobody goes to the surface except in the greatest of need. It's dangerous, they say. Nobody's ever heard of a rabbit or dear. They eat predominantly fungus (Yuck! Where's the meat?). Nobody has a sun tan. The local currency is in that entirely worthless metal: gold. Those of us who had good, steel coins find themselves pretty poor, indeed. Silk is super dirt cheap and is used for just about everything fabric GETS used for: clothes, curtains, flags, banners, tapestries, rope, harness, bags, backpacks, etc. They find linen, cotton and wool items interesting oddities, but of no other value. Leather, on the other hand, is likewise an oddity but, due it's toughness, has value for a number of applications and so its value is much inflated over what we're accustomed to.

A HUGE variety of different sentient racial templates live here, too. We've seen spider-men, dog-men, cat-men, bear-men, cricket-men, hu-men, bird-men, and more. How do they all get along so well? Apparently warfare is very small-scale stuff, little larger than inter-tribal skirmishes. There are no large nation-states. Instead, there are many city-states. Hmm.

Remember that tower? Apparently, it's the reason the surface is not safe. The locals claim it as the source of all evil. And we were going to just waltz right up and knock on the door!! Beyond that, nobody wants to talk about it. Again, hmm...

Interesting stuff, yes, but ultimately not important because we cannot readily capitalize on any of this information at this time. So three of us who still survive hire on as caravan guards and set off to another settlement through the tunnels ...

Introducing Luc

So, the Rippers game has been put on indefinite hold since the game master will be away for much of the remainder of our Winter gaming season. This is a bummer, as I rather liked playing Sgt. Wilkins. I don't often play happy character types, my usual style being the brooding, silent type. We switched to the DragonLance setting under D&D 3.5 rules and I get to play Luc - Human Nomad Barbarian.

The story so far...

For various reasons, the party were all visiting Solace and gathered at the Inn of the Last Home. A kidnap attempt was foiled by the PCs, but we were implicated, charged, tried and punished with the attempt to carry an artifact across the continent. The artifact was, of course, a dummy and we got to be the targets of anyone who may or may not have wanted to acquire it.

As it happens, we were ambushed in the woods a few days out of Solace, but not by thieves. Instead, we were captured and led to some sort of weird bandit/cult enclave and unwittingly enlisted to retrieve the Graygem - the prison of the god of Chaos - so that it could be destroyed, releasing the prisoner to wreak havoc on the poor, unsuspecting citizens of Krynn. Damn, I hate when that happens.

We were equipped, myself with a +1 spear and four potions of bane for which I have yet to devise a use, and sent onward to an island surrounded my a magical "stay away" mist. We managed to shipwreck ourselves on the island and proceeded inland towards a mountain, it being our only landmark of significance and as a likely a place to hide the Greygem as any.

Sure enough, we entered the mountain, fought some bad guys, lost one party member (Kender rogue), gained another (Human Cleric) and somehow managed to land in a town full of tall beautiful people who are not of a known racial type. We are currently recuperating, resupplying and preparing to venture forth again with better information. Oddly enough, asking the local residents about the Greygem in a straightforward manner provided some very useful clues.

The game master has been, perhaps, overly generous with the experience rewards. In four sessions, we've all attained fourth level. Perhaps he is justifying this as needed to confront his final Big Boss and maybe he's decided the island is magical and it Just Works That Way. I dunno. It probably would have been better to simply start us out at whatever level he needs us to be, but it has been kind of fun doing it this way!

The Missive (arden scarlet)

The game in the area is getting thin. No explanation for it. I have seen no large amounts of predators, for they are becoming thin as well. Even the insects are behaving strangely. Flies that wont touch certain corpses, the feeling of oppression permeating the entire forest. Nothing seems right. last night i only caught one rabbit. I never only catch a single small prey. Nigh but two weeks ago this was a lush and fertile hunting ground, and i know that there is no other predator in the area. There must be a reason for it. A reason for the forest itself, life itself, to be scared to a standstill.

I go hunting once more today, hoping to find some decent game to keep me fed for the coming snowstorm. Supplies are running thin, and i may have to go to town soon. London. Bah. Nothing but bricks and bullox.

I return late to camp with naught but empty hands. I have not been this close to worry since i left my boyhood home, torn with cinders and smoke. I have not been this close to despair since i gazed upon that fire and realized that none would walk out of it. These are hard times coming upon us. Dark times, and i fear that i may not survive them. Crawling into my tent, something is amiss.

In the hours since i left the premises, someone has left me a missive. Not a fold of cloth is astray, everything how i remember it. Nothing stolen or moved or opened. Yet there it is, on my bedroll.

"You are invited to dine at the prancing pony, in London one week from now, bring your supplies, and tell nary a soul. I have work that may be relevant to your skills ~ Vanhelsing"

Short and to the point. Oh i know who he is, Vanhelsing. Everybody has heard of him, even a hermit like me. But to be confronted with a missive, with no clear sign how it got there is slightly... disconcerting. Stranger things have been known to happen though, and one thing is sure. If i stay here, i will not survive.

To the prancing pony then. Let us see what this hunter of the dark has in store for a simple man such as myself.

The Chronicle

There comes a time in every man's existence where the foundations of his faith and everything he holds to be true are brought into question. In the dark days of the Victorian world, few people are aware how wrong their pre-conceived notions of life are.

The Darkness is alive and its minions brought back to power by none other than the notorious Jack, but one organization stands in his way. The Rippers walk the line between twilight and eternal night.


You alone stand at the doorway to hell. Do you have the power to close it forever?