I had the idea of running a play by post game of D&D 5e here on PeakD. This is my first post here by the way. If you don't know what a play by post RPG is here is a short explanation from Wikipedia:
"A play-by-post role-playing game (or sim) is an online text-based role-playing game in which players interact with each other and a predefined environment via text. It is a subset of the online role-playing community which caters to both gamers and creative writers. Play-by-post games may be based on other role-playing games, non-game fiction including books, television and movies, or original settings. This activity is closely related to both interactive fiction and collaborative writing."
There are all sorts of play by post games, but an example of a good play by post RPG game can be found here.
I have played and run some of these before, and I after learning how Hive and PeakD work, I started thinking it could be a fun and motivating way top try to run a game. The idea is to use the D&D 5e system since it is the most popular now and I also thought it would be fun and apropriate to base the lore and the setting on Splinterlands, so a kind of mix of D&D and Splinterlands and medieval fantasy.
So in RPGs characters progress by getting Experience Points (XP) and Gold, basically. My idea here is to have players make accounts for their characters, and then convert the hive power of a player account into it's XP and Gold. I will need to tweak the system out but players should start out with relatively similar amounts of Hive Power, and instead of the getting xp for defeating monsters and challenges like normally, the game master and the players will upvote the posts, helping the player characters level up and acquire more things.
So we will actually be earning money as we play, sort of like a play and earn play by post RPG. I actually have a bunch more hive power I could use but that is currently delegated, but if this works I can use that to reward player posts too.
Not sure what the equivalence will be but I will find a progression in Hive Power over time to match the normal progression rate in D&D, more or less.
So first I need to find atleast one player who wants to try this, hopefully more, and then we can talk about what kind of adventure they might like, and go from there. Players can be complete newbies as far as tabletop RPGs go, or D&D 5e, or Splinterlands, I will help you out and this is all a bit experimental so we will see how it goes.
So for starters please write something in the comments below if this sounds interesting to you.
Game Master Zorn at your service sir!
Definitely an idea worth exploring !
I feel a key issue to resolve is one of immediacy; ask yourself why people would want to play this way rather than (for example) through a virtual tabletop where the action happens "in real time" so to speak. Many years ago I ran a play-by-mail game for a short while, but the reality was that technology overtook it. Why wait two or three days between turns when you can play face-to-face, by email, through Discord or videoconferencing.
The earn-as-you-play mechanism is something I find totally fascinating. To have equal starting "XP", perhaps you could create a second layer token in Hive Engine that players could delegate HP to ? Rewards could be in that token, and when a character dies, retires, or the adventure ends they could then cancel the delegation and convert the accumulated token back to HIVE.
I'm sure there are gaps in my knowledge of how all this works - the GM would probably need a decent sized pool of tokens to start with that could be allocated as XP each session, and the system would ideally be trustless in some way to minimise the risk of a DM rug-pull..
Well, play by post RPGs are not for everyone. I think for people that enjoy creative writing and RPGs it can be very enjoyable though. So it's a kind of cross-section of 2 minority hobbies when you compare it to other kinds of games and hobbies.
It's similar to how you get more people who enjoy videogames or movies and youtube than say reading books, or creative writing. I don't pretend to change that. There are many play by post D&D games though, on other sites (just check out https://www.rpgcrossing.com/ or the many other sites like that out there), and there are people that enjoy them for sure, although a minority. I have played and run in different kinds of play by post RPGs, and in my experience they are slow to advance but in terms of gaming time last about as many months as my face to face RPG group games did. I think of them sort of like writing clubs focused on RPGs. I also enjoy boardgames and all sorts of games but, basically, I am aware of different audiences for types of games, but I still think play by post games can be enjoyable for the right kind of players.
About the equal starting HP, I was thinking players would open up separate accounts for each player character. Honestly I'm not the best writer myself but I have played with people and followed games with people who write game posts that are very interesting to read and I thought having players and DMs but also outsiders who could reward posts directly with hive would be interesting and motivating.
There are many very talented writers on RPGcrossing for example, and honestly I think it would be great for people like them to come over to Hive and be able to earn Hive with their games, and provide content and community.
I would be interested in trying out a PBP game, and I have something like 5 hoarded account creation thingies (on my main account @oblivioncubed) so could help folks set up as well if someone doesn't have enough RC to claim an account.
Sorry for the late reply, I am still figuring out how to navigate Hive and didn't see this until now. That's great! Do you want to just start playing and starting the story with us two while we see if other people want to join in? I can start a solo quest for you too and when other people want to hop in we can talk about what kind of game and story we want to do. What do you think?
Also, just to clarify, my GMZorn account will be the one I will use to continue on this idea from now on.