How many of you have a roleplay based not only on writing, but also on an RPG mechanic that serves to patrol godmodding and add an extra level of competition? How long did it take you to hammer out a system you liked? Alternatively, did it completely fail or just end up being too much for your audience? Players, have you played a forum RPG that had this extra flavor? Do you like the fusion of literacy and stats? My RPG is intended to be PVP based and the nature of the thing is a fighting universe (I know I'm being vague but I'm not technically supposed to advertise yet). I'm just wondering how most literate players feel about this dynamic, because that's the player I want to attract.
I think designing a mechanic for PVP is more demanding than one that caps things like godmodding and adds layers to a competition With my website we tie things like influencing the game world, quest completion, and artifact acquisition to roleplay activity. It isn't a requirement so much as something that's incentivized, so people can still opt-out and enjoy the site, but I find that it gets used quite a bit and that the interactions tend to be more positive than not
I like having game mechanics in place for tracking progress, setting goals, and allowing for there to be some level of comparison between characters when conflict occurs. I consider my forum's mechanics to be very light, however. Nothing complicated so much as a foundation for narrative character development.
I have been on a few games where there were extensive mechanics and I ran one myself. There were a lot of thoughts that went through my head when I put together the current system I owned. In my previous games I used a rough stat system to equal power for the gae, but honestly, this just turns into a combat game. I run RPGs for storytelling even in my tabletop and I have slowly drifted away from "crunchy" number games years ago. Dice rolls are great if you want an RNG or random aspect to your story but a lot of players are -not going- to like the idea of random deciding the outcome of their story. So I opted for an optional system. Stats cannot increase simply because that's not the point of the game. The stats facilitate what your character is good at and encourages people to think through the limits of their characters as well. We don't have XP because most players aren't going to be focusing on that they are going to be focusing on scheming and plotting.
So, would you say that Playing by Post is better to create at level characters, that is, defining the character at the power level you want them to be at, and then role playing at that level, doing away with character development (in the typical role playing gamer mindset). I would think this would be less maintenance and provide overall more fun and immersion, as keeping an eye on the Stats could prove distracting. Similarly, the option to keep die rolling optional, allows players to create a story that is most likely what their character persona would do in a natural way. While I think that some randomization can be a good thing, I think it's bad for the flow of a game overall, especially in a forum long-post form format where the narrative story trumps most everything else. Did that make any sense? I need more coffee.
