Play-by-forum options?

[Doc Sportello]

Hi all,

Do you have any recommendations on a good site for playing tabletop RPGs by forum post? I've never done PbF, and I understand that it's slow, but I still want to try it. Three sites that interest me are RPG Geek (related to Boardgamegeek), rpol.net, and mystic worlds. Any thoughts on which might be best? I'm especially interested in the FFG Star Wars games and in D&D 5e. I'm interested in playing a bit first to learn how things work, but ultimately I'm more interested in DMing.

Rpol.net has a couple features I like: when you post, your avatar is your character, and your name is your character name. Plus, there seems to be a reasonably large community, so maybe it will be easier to find replacements for the inevitable drop-outs.

RPG Geek has a couple features I like too: it includes pretty graphics of the FFG dice, and maybe more support for things like character sheets. It has a reasonably literate player-base, too.

I can't find any games to peruse at Mystic Worlds. Maybe I need to join first?

Any thoughts or advice? Thanks in advance.

[GunnarGreybeard]

I have never played on any dedicated PbF sites but rpol.net seems to have one of the best setups, at least of the ones I looked at some time ago.

[Doc Sportello]

Thanks, Gunnar. I'm looking at rpol.net and myth-weavers now. They're both pretty serious sites. People seem reluctant to commit to games with newcomers to the sites, which is understandable, but a bit discouraging.

[GunnarGreybeard]

Most of the ones I checked seem to have their own 'clicks' and they seemed to avoid GM's not from within those circles. Things may have changed as it was a long time ago when I looked into it but that's the impression I seemed to get.

[damned]

Thanks, Gunnar. I'm looking at rpol.net and myth-weavers now. They're both pretty serious sites. People seem reluctant to commit to games with newcomers to the sites, which is understandable, but a bit discouraging.

The only way to become known is to start...

[Doc Sportello]

Yeah, I'll just pick one and go for it. Myth-weavers (not "Mystic worlds" as I wrote earlier) has features I like: formatting options, like configurable spoiler tags and tooltips, and players who seem interested in role-playing, not just combat. But it seems slow sometimes. And I wish it had aliases, as rpol.net does. I guess they've deliberately decided not to permit aliases, so you always know the forum handle of the person you're playing with. That might be important to me 3 years from now, but not right now, when I don't know anyone.

I like that rpol.net lets you change your handle to your character name when you're posting in a given game's forum. And rpol.net is fast. But that's because it looks so...1990. Just lots of text.

I'm still considering RPG Geek, too. It doesn't have as many options for organizing forum threads as rpol or weavers. But it has the prettiest FFG dice pool, as well as codes to display all the FFG icons in posts, making it easier for the GM to tell someone what to roll. And I've been posting there for years, so it's familiar to me.

Still debating, while I wait for my copy of "Jewel of Yavin" to arrive. :)