Play-by-Post Combat

[One Hand Clapping]

Hey everybody,

I’m thinking about running a play-by-post game for one of the Palladium Books settings. I have experience running several PbPs, but these were for systems that were relatively rules lite or freeform. I feel as though adapting a system as crunchy as the Palladium system will be an interesting challenge. Does anyone on this forum have experience running Palladium PbPs? How did you handle combat? What were your house rules?

[zerombr]

I split up attacks into half a round at a time, but don't post the attack rolls until I know what the defender is doing. I also roll init for the players. Its still going to take a while.

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

have players (or do it yourself) roll up twenty, twenty five rolls ahead of time. When combat starts, have everyone give a general gist of what they want to do (shoot the giant robo-dragon!). Then have combat proceed on your side for an entire turns worth of combat, using the rolls previously given. Add dramatic flair to the results for narrative purposes. Rinse, repeat.

[zerombr]

I'm not big on the 'roll ahead of time', I think you just accept that this is part of the game and try to stay on top of the combat.

[cyber-yukongil v2.5]

that sounds like an incredible investment in time. Unless you're using Roll20 or some other livestream platform, combat is going to take weeks of time (especially in a palladium with its mass amounts of SDC/MDC/HPs and offensive and defensive rolls)

[zerombr]

yeah if you've got chars with 200-300 SDC sure. playing a more low-key game is doable, but yeah combat takes a while, it can't be helped. Either you ignore combat or it drags out