So my best friend and I started playing a RPG. Since we’re both sci-fi nerds and I really liked Ironsworn (RPG), we decided on Starforged, an Ironsworn set in space. Ranging from space opera Star Wars stuff to Star Trekkian movement across the galaxy and exploration of the far and wide, I thought it would be a good idea to see what we could cook up together. I decided to fill the roll of both PC and DM/Guide, where my aim was to play as much GM-less as possible using oracles and adventure prompts provided by the Starforged book. All well and good.
But here’s the kicker: my buddy and I were on different sides of this planet. How the hell are you supposed to play if time-zones differ this much and you can barely make time for a videocall?
Play by post, that’s how.
Although there are legions of articles written about Play-by-post, the actual workings of it are not that exciting. I opted for a Discord-server, with a couple of different channels: out-of-character, in-character, journal, reference (and some might later be added as well). Adding a couple of discord-apps like Dicemaiden and oracles, we’re off to a start involving the ‘Truths’ set out in the Starforged book. Both of us have a copy of the Starforged rulebook and the playkit, so that makes sense. Adventure hooks come in the form of locations we might come across and simply rolling a bunch of times on the oracles. I can’t stress enough how cool the oracles in Starforged are: from planetary trouble to settlement discontent, to weird ass monsters on Precursor-ships… it’s all there. Everyone should give it a go.
Since we’re both busy, but do want to play, sometimes the discord isn’t touched for a week. But then we’ll both have some room in our schedules and suddenly we’re simutaneously updating the server multiple times a day. It’s not perfect: my notes aren’t that great and I tend to have to look back a couple of times, and sometimes we’re kind of stuck but we’ll figure it out along the way.
It’s also about taking ‘liberties’ along the way. You’ll have to like writing prose and imagining a story coming to life. So at times I’ll just write ahead, thinking about how my mate’s character might react but not necessarily asking him, just to keep the story- flow going. Again, it’s not perfect, and the ‘collaborative’ part of story telling isn’t great, but it’s a good way to work a-synchronously on a shared narrative. Right now, I love it and it might die a slow death over time while we’re too busy to do anything but work, sleep, care and work out. But for now: Play-by-post works and is the shit.