On Death of PbP Games

Why do you think pbp games die? Are there any common factors that signal the game's soon-to-happen demise? Signs of impending collapse?

STs/GMs and players who are in 1 year+ chronicles/campaigns - what contributed to your game's longevity? Any advice for fellow players/STs on that front?

Any "resurrection" stories?

In my experience, the groups that engage with both the game and each other tend to go the distance. Best pbp game I ever played here (so far) was very active. If we weren't posting, we were chatting about our lives and the game. Getting to know one another. I think that is a core element.

So my red flag is the opposite. I know the appeal of pbp for some is that they can pick it up when they have time. But inevitably if you want something special, you gotta put the effort in, and it doesn't stop at making posts at the required rate.

Oof, big questions.

Lots of reasons why PbP games die. And unfortunately lots of those reasons folks night not have much control over. (i.e. life changes)

Outside of that general, nebulous category? A big factor that I feel is important is player turn over. Nothing will kill a game like high player turn over.

It's already hard to keep in mind everything that has happened in a long term game that plays out slowly over months and years. Add to that multiple players leaving the game over time, and it can cause a growing detachment to the game. i.e. if or when you have to bring in new characters on shakey premises, or even solid ones, that players lack of background with the story or connection to it or the group, can just cause them to either be less active ("The other guys on the team know better than me what to do."), or just not be as invested, not feeling like they're really a part of it.

Players leaving can also be demoralizing for the GM and/or other players. We all know we each have "IRL" lives that take precedence over this hobby. And we all know intellectually we shouldn't take it personally when someone leaves the game, especially for life reasons. But, particularly when that person still continues to be active on the forum, it's hard (for me at least, whether I'm GM or another player) to not wonder if there was something I could have done better, to make it "worth it" to that person to stick around. (Again intellectually knowing them leaving may not have anything to do with some subjective or objective "worth" of the game.)

There's also just mismatches in gaming styles or personalities that don't emerge or are not understood until everything is in motion. You can try to head these things off with descriptions of your style and the game as GM, and for players by stating what they want out of a game. But things can still come out of blind spots and sink the game.

Doesn't mean anybody's right or wrong, just people wanted different things out of it, and didn't realize it until now, and the differences may be intractable.

Then there's more touchy subjects like "poor execution" on ideas that seemed good in theory but didn't play out well in practice. I've ran investigation games and sandbox style games that sounded great in my head, even great "for pbp", but just didn't work well in practice, whether that was due to the pbp format, or with how I was trying to execute on the premise, or with thode particular players whom I recruited.

List goes on, and probably isn't unique to pbp from here. But those are the big ones that come to mind ...

As for what contributed to longevity??

I wish I knew!

I'd do it every time, if there was One Thing that always worked, right?

I've ran and played in many games that have ran for multiple years over the years, and I don't know that I can say what lead to their success other than it was the right people, for the right game, at the right time.

And I don't think you can know that that's all going to coincide ahead of time.

As a general rule, I do ofc find that it helps to have players you know you can "trust". Players who have been active in the forums for a long time, or even just a little time. Users who are active on the Community. Users who've showna willingness and ability to invest time here.

But that's by no means a silver bullet. You will still have the above problems emerge with those players.

And also... part of what I love about PbP is the very fact that I have the opportunity to introduce people to the hobby, and the medium, and to a rpg system that may become their favorite ever. And so I absolutely don't want to exclude people new to the hobby or forum or system etc...

So...

The biggest thing is, you just gotta really relish it, and appreciate it, and feed it, when you capture that lightning in the bottle.

And try not to take it too hard when things don't work out.

A big one is overcommitment-- its easy to jump into/start more games than you can handle. I did that the last time I was here- I was juggling too many balls and I dropped them all, which is why I'm trying to be more measured and stick to only a few games despite wanting to run so many.

Also the style thing for sure-- I run very combat/tactics heavy games and games that require a lot of character input- they aren't for everyone, and sometimes a group just doesn't gel because they are expecting something different or slower paced.

Probably the biggest threat I've seen is loss of momentum. I've seen a campaign go splendidly for what I'd call an 'anime season' (it was a very GitSy kind of campaign, played through a period from 2021-01-27 to 2022-11-02). The season was good, the finale was awesome . . . and then we all realised we are very unsure how to continue at anything resembling that pacing, and the campaign was put on indefinite hold and the party disbanded. Some of us did play other campaigns together afterwards, but nowhere near as successfully.

Sometimes loss of momentum is acknowledged and discussed, like the above case. But many other times it's something that happens more sluggishly and unacknowledged. People waiting on someone else to post due to lack of inspiration without staying in contact. People silently waiting on each other to add something to the scene before daring to move forward. People forgetting to post for multiple days. People silently ghosting while plot threads depend on a character or when inserting a replacement is difficult and jarring.

Things that seem to help:

• Personal emotional investment in the group of players, not just characters.
• Staying in contact to increase confidence that nobody is a ghost.
• In addition to the above, also discussing stuff OOC helps deal of many of the abovementioned risks of momentum loss (but is no panacea). If a bad day happens in someone's life, leading to a delay of posting, a single OOC line can make a difference between uncertainty and a sigh of relief. Detailed feedback about builds and actions also helps build confidence and ensure everyone is on the same page.
• Having parties predominately made of 'usual suspects' who are known to be reliable (thanks to prior games together) helps a lot, but also is no panacea.

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"
- Anna Karenina
Games live by not dying, and there are oh so many ways to die.

Every game that survives to the end avoided ghosts, the tar pits of tedium, the illusions of not-the-game-I-thought-it-would-be, the psychic damage of burnout, the demons of familiarity spawning contempt, the player buried under an overencumbrance of games, and a thousand other deaths.

And even for games that survive, many spend their final days morose - the players a deathbed vigil, praying that the end comes soon and painlessly, steeped in bitterness that during their time their words forked no lightning.

Half my games fizzle out. Of the half that make it to the end, half of those lie forgotten in a pauper's graves, devoid of flowers or remembrance.

That leaves a quarter, that precious quarter, where at their end, great monuments and mausoleums are erected. Where we, we happy few, we band of siblings, shall be rememberèd. When we feast in other games, we strip our sleeves and show our scars, and say, "These wounds I had in the Forgotten Realms."

But for that one game to live and shine, two must die young, and one must die agèd, dull and forgotten.

I am bothered by that quote, as it implies that families/groups having very different needs for happiness (and thus with a very non-alike-looking success) are not real/valid/existing. One's eutopia is another's dystopia and all, and that applies to campaigns too.

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good quote"

I'm not an expert on PbP. I've only been around for a short while and I haven't run any games to completion. That said, if a game stalls out, my 'go to' approach is to "kick in a door and start firing!" It doesn't have to be a battle - you just introduce something exciting to the scene.

It can be a new NPC, an existing villain, a random monster, or just something happens in the scene that encourages a reaction from the PCs. It gives everyone a chance to react to something new. Hopefully, the excitement builds and the story continues.

I find momentum and faster posting can sometimes help longevity. But then if someone gets busy and falls it they either can't catch up and end up leaving, or things grind to a halt, when sometimes the once or twice a week games keep plodding along.

I find that as a DM I tend to struggle when players start dropping, or posting slows as I worry over lost interest. When I was newer to pbp one player dropped due to busy life, just as the start, so there was a pause while I recruited someone else and got character built, this led to another player claiming it was inactive and also dropping, which sucked, and at the time I didn't have the confidence to message them reminding them gently it was just while we were getting a new player, which people were aware of. Another player then followed so I just called it.

Players/styles clashing also another big reasons. I have played with some players very vocal about things they dislike, and not always good at putting it gently. Once case unfortunately led to a DM just stopping running and then disappearing from the site. So be kind to your DMs , have constructive criticism and point out the things you like as well, instead of just bluntly having a go at things they have put a lot of time!

Though also that effort and such can also unfortunately lead to burnout, another game ending reason.

Though to be honest most all of mine have just.. petered out. No big arguments, or defining moment. They just game to an end with players being busy, or less interest, and posting slowly slowing.

I find a discord or similar can help prevent this, and I do have a small group of players who I am on the same wavelength as nowadays were games have been going on a while, and also because its only 2 or three players, so less people to wait on.

Also I have slowly come to the realisation that a lot of the time most systems just bog down pbp, unless they are really light or don't call for many rolls. This won't stop me still using some of course, but some are definitely better suited than others, and some better reserved for real time play.

On GP, I have had only a few survive for any appreciable length of time. Part of that is my fault. Because of circumstances in my personal life, I am slow to post, sometimes going for a week or more without posting. This is both becsasue I have chronic depression and because, with my wife's blindness, I have extra work that I must take care of. I am her eyes for everything from answering emails to driving her to appointments. That said, I have had two success stories. On the Paizo boards, I have two games that I have been running for more than 5 years each. The secret, I think, is players who are engaged in the story. Those two games are Adventure Paths, and the players want to see them to completion as much as I do.

The main reason 'in my opinion' is boredom and distraction.

PbP games are slow, and if the GM has not modified the game system to minimise this problem players can often find themselves waiting ages just for the chance to do something. That gets boring and undermines their commitment leaving them open to distraction.

Real world distractions can step in to cause a player to forget your game. It's not that important if they are ill, or suffering a real world crisis. GM's need to factor in the fact that their players have real lives and provide mechanism that can allow a leave of absence from the game. If only for vacations.

Commitment from everyone to keep the game flowing is important.

We used a posting pledge system, where we all promised to check the game site at least once every 48 hours.
But I also encouraged party bonding by the use of Post Comments that encouraged players to react to each others actions.
And I insisted on a direct contact address for every player so that they could be contected if the became a ghost.

PbP games die for three reasons.

Reason 1. Real Life. It is surprising how often your GMs get a child or get a piece of shrapnel in their head. Also, prison, deportation, and many other "fun" adventures. Real life is bad. Don't support it.

Reason 2. Laziness. It is not surprising at all how often GMs and players alike sign out of a game just because they don't feel like playing. Those lazy blobs of fat and filth only want to consume. They can't really handle effort. A healthy role-playing society would shun those people, but in 2026 we have left anything that can be called healthy healthy far, far behind.

Reason 3. Toxicity. Conflicts are abundant in role-playing community — everyone and their transgender cat is a drama queen. Can it be helped? I don't think so. Ironically, even filtering out the "problematic" players doesn't help, because, let's face it, literally everyone is problematic in this creative field eventually. It is about whether or not they've learned to resolve a conflict without damaging the game. But, of course, you can only learn if you fail at least a few times.

In the longer games I ran, it was my superb story, systems, and settings that kept the game going. Much like an anime series: excite your viewers, reward them, and do make those keyframes 24 times per second.