Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

Hi everyone! I'm brand new here.

I used to DM for a D&D game 30+ years ago, but haven't played RPGs in the past 25. Now I'm getting back into it and setting up a campaign for my son and niece (14 and 9 respectively) plus one or two adults. (Which seems like a common enough scenario here.) BFRPG seems like a great choice because it can easily be made far simpler than D&D 5e, and there are a ton of resources here. And it looks just like the D&D I used to play!

So - I'd love feedback on this plan:

I'm planning on using Discord (this guide was very helpful in that decision), and I'd like to do a mix of play-by-post with some occasional short realtime sessions. Since everyone is on Zoom way too much for school already, I want to minimize the agonizing part. I figure we can move the "boring" slow stuff like character creation, equipping, setting the scene, etc into an asynchronous mode, conducted through text chat over a period of days or even a week or two. Maybe I will augment that with little personal "quests" that might send the kids off to do research on the Internet to flesh out their character's back story, or to find a book IRL and retrieve a clue hidden there (the first word in chapter 3 of "The Hobbit" or whatever).

Then we could do occasional, short realtime sessions - an hour or two - where I'd keep things fast paced and entertaining: Exploring a dungeon, battling monsters, etc.

Once that short session is done, we'd go back to asynchronous chat over the next week or two for resolution of the quest storyline, how to spend all the GP they won, what the mysterious stranger in the tavern tells them upon their return, etc.

Then repeat, alternating fast/fun realtime with more extended asynchronous stuff.

Any advice on this? Anyone tried this mix of asynch (play by post) and realtime using Discord or other tools? I welcome your wisdom!

Love to see more people getting into BFrpg, especially with play by post.

Currently I am running two campaigns via discord using play by post only. One that is a homebrew and the other is the BF1 Morgansfort Adventure Module.

You can get Dice bots for discord that make rolling super easy (I suggest Dice Maiden as it is the easiest to use).

As for transitioning back and forth from PBP to verbal play, keeping an up to date adventure journal will make things much easier for you. Since you have a smaller party to DM for it should make it easier to keep track of the happenings in the campaign.

I look forward to seeing how this goes for you. Good luck

I really enjoy forum based play-by-post, like the games I was in here and on Unseen Servant where I play a lot. I don't really mind the pace of forum PbP, because everyone can play no matter their schedule or time zone. But on Unseen Servant there were folks who did just that, they played by post several times a week, and then once a month met for some big battles, or role playing, or whatever. The DM had it down pretty pat, but they really had to be on top of their timing.
I don't think they are playing any more, that was a few years ago, but I know it worked for a while!

Good luck in your game!!

Thank you for the feedback, encouragement, and tips!

I checked out Dice Maiden and it seems to work great - a bit simpler than Avrae, which is the other bot I've seen recommended.

Thank you!

Avrae is great if you play 5e. It requires some conversions if you want to use it for OSR.