The Nuts and Bolts of FallenAsh Pbp games

[Cearnach]

Welcome to our community! We try to be nice, but sometimes we screw up. Please forgive us if that happens. In this post, I'll be sharing a couple things that are true across campaigns on FallenAsh about how we do business.

Time

Because people play Play-by-Post in our community from all over the world, we have to run games asynchronously. That's actually the great advantage of Play-by-Post: you can have your character say something, walk away, and come back in an hour or so to a reply. However, time has to be organized in order for this to work, so we create a Game Schedule. You can see this in the Weather area: a list of all of the time slots for each in-game day.

You can join 1 thread of posts per time slot. It's as simple as that.

In game-days are longer than real-life days so that players in different time zones can sleep, eat, work, and still play the game. This game follows a 1:3 ratio, meaning that there are 3 real life days for every in-game day. You may encounter other ratios in other games, but 1:3 tends to be fairly gentle on folks while still preserving a little sense of urgency.

Events and Rolling

Events are scripted...well, events that occur in the game that require you to roll some dice. They have specific rules and outcomes and tend to be quite controlled. You may encounter other situations that require you to roll dice, particularly if your character is trying to do something really difficult or dangerous. You'll notice that the old hands are using an online dice-roller called Sakkaku that was designed for l5r (it works for both 4th and 5th editions! It's really neat!). You'll want to do the same thing. You input your dice rolled and kept and the TN, enter in the description box what you are rolling for, the context of the roll, and whether you are calling raises or spending Void. You then copy and paste the link to the result into your post on the board. That lets us check that you rolled what you said you did.

Player-vs-Player
There is an inherent element of competition in l5r. That doesn't mean you can't reach out across clans and make friends and allies, but it does mean that everyone has an interest tugging at them. It can be challenging to maintain that in a play-by-post setting, because people tend to identify with the characters that they play. In order not to hurt feelings and ruin your playing experience, I strongly recommend talking character conflicts through with other players before they reach a problem point. You might want to take advantage of our Feuding rules, in fact.

But there is a deep, abiding rule: Do Not Be Murdering PCs.

I mean, Fukurokujin and I are meant to put your character in a little danger from time to time. It's our job to present you guys with challenges as well as opportunities. And, from time to time, the character will come up short. Sometimes, they may even die. But you should never kill another PC without that player's consent. Sometimes it is the natural result of a conflict, but you have got to make sure that the other player is on the same page with you before you start reaching for your initiative pool.

I will welcome suggestions from veterans about additions to these general, foundational concepts. This post may update.