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[notquitethere]

Please excuse the meta-posting here, I'm interested in game design and forum games are a great lab for iterating game ideas. I've ran some games that were a success and some games that were an outright failure. The majority of forum games I've played in have petered out without resolution. I've got some insight as to why-- but I'm also keen to see other people's perspective here.

Why Games Fail
1 - Single Point of Failure
A frequent killer of forum RP games is that someone disappears and everyone is waiting for the player to return before the action can continue.

2 - The GM is overambitious
This has happened to me a few times! The game is too lengthy or becomes too complex, or updating it requires too much concentrated creativity and the effort-to-reward ratio for the GM no longer feels worthwhile. This can happen if there are too many players, if there are too many updates to write, or the busywork (especially in heavily mechanical games) becomes too much like a second job.

3 - Something is lost
The original spark of a game can go out, the GM can lose their notes or an important file, they can run out of fresh ideas, the players can grow disinterested. Often the GM will get busy for a week and when they come back to the game,  they no longer have enough enthusiasm to figure out what was happening and pick up the pieces.

Solutions
1- Make it easy to keep playing
Forum games should be designed to keep up momentum. You can't reliably have the same RP you'd expect around a table. Having a turn structure that pushes things on regardless is good. Avoiding too much work burden or complexity makes it easier to keep running the game after breaks.

2 - Have an end in mind
No game can go on forever, and even very long running games can be broken up into arcs, seasons or missions. You're more likely to lead to somewhere satisfying if you know when you're going to wrap everything up.

3- Remember why you play
There's often an initial novelty in a game, or an expected experience the players are hoping to get out of that. It's important to make sure the game is still delivering that.

I tried to bear these lessons in mind for my recent Pokefusion game. In the first iteration of the game, players were racing to capture 151 pokemon and when I started the game I didn't really think through how damn long that would take. I was overambitious! The game was mostly player-versus-environment and I had to provide all the environment. In my latest Pokefusion game I honed in on the more interesting element of the first game, the player battles. Then I worked out exactly how many battles I would be able to run and still be interested in running the game and made sure I didn't take on too many players. The game wasn't so complex that I could still pick it up after being busy for a week. As such, we're 13/15 battles in, wrapping up the league within the next week and the players can at least have the satisfaction of a conclusion. I also put in a small mechanical benefit for players to write up their half of the battle reports, meaning slightly less work for me.

What do you all think? Why else do games fail and what can we do about it? Why are the longest running games still running?

[Whisperling]

In my experience, most dead games are the result of GM inactivity. I've seen a few player-related failure states, but the circumstances surrounding them tend to be unusual. Usually it happens right away, if the game doesn't attract much interest, or in very long-running games where everyone gradually becomes less engaged.

Single point of failure actually hasn't been too much of an issue for me, maybe because I don't get too hung up about individual players. Skipping people who don't post hasn't been an issue so far, though. Worst case scenarios are that they keep going at their own rate, or they drop out completely and are eventually replaced by newcomers.

That said, GM inactivity is still a pretty thorny issue on its own. I would assume it's usually a result of procrastination, at least if I extrapolate from my own troubles, but that can also be traced to a million different potential causes. The stuff you listed- being overambitious, sudden interruptions to the routine, OOC complications, loss of enthusiasm, etc. -is probably a good start.


I'm probably a weird case, but I tend to make things too difficult for myself. Perfectionism in regards to quality, long turns, aversion to player caps, that sort of thing.

Honestly, I'm a little curious how much players actually value those things. I enjoy it, before things end up falling apart, but I'm not entirely sure that the effort is worthwhile.

[notquitethere]

I'm probably a weird case, but I tend to make things too difficult for myself. Perfectionism in regards to quality, long turns, aversion to player caps, that sort of thing.

Honestly, I'm a little curious how much players actually value those things. I enjoy it, before things end up falling apart, but I'm not entirely sure that the effort is worthwhile.

As a player I most value regular updates and a sense of unfolding story. Games with masses of players get harder for players to follow themselves, I think they can be a bit self-limiting in that regard.

[MonkeyMarkMario]

I'm probably a weird case, but I tend to make things too difficult for myself. Perfectionism in regards to quality, long turns, aversion to player caps, that sort of thing.

Honestly, I'm a little curious how much players actually value those things. I enjoy it, before things end up falling apart, but I'm not entirely sure that the effort is worthwhile.

I am the same way and I like all the points as a player. I personally prefer good mechanics over big story.

[NJW2000]

If you don't mind, I'm going to go off on one about starting games. This is going to be rather obvious, but I'd like to hear other people's ideas on the topic.

Poor starts and failure to adapt have been a problem for me.

When you start a game, you impose certain conditions on yourself as a GM, generally speaking. For example, you might set given rules concerning character stats and rolling, or player numbers, or possible mechanics, or the nature of the world. Each of these entails a commitment to policing those stats, using your rolling systems, having those numbers, implementing those mechanics, describing that world. These commitments will generally have certain flaws, such as hurting player experience, slowing down the action per turn, making turns take longer to write, etc. But you didn't know that when you committed to them. This has happened to me pretty much every game I ever ran.

Obviously, you can break some or all of those conditions and run what might be called the same game. Willingness to do this is quite important, unless you're unusually competent, lucky or cautious in your initial premise. Otherwise, the flaw may destroy the game in the short term.

Making the necessary changes in the middle of the game isn't easy, whether you do it by changing the features themselves or altering other aspects of the game to preserve balance. For example, consider a change that involves player stats/character information/inventories, etc. We can broadly divide forum games into two categories:

• those where players read the character creation rules once, roll up a character, and let the GM handle the (usually simple/fluid) mechanics
• those where players constantly think about and edit in-depth mechanical character sheets

Explaining and implementing a rule change for the latter will be fiddly and arduous, difficult for both the players and the GM. The former kind of game is easier in this regard, but players will probably forget the rule change occurred and get confused anyhow, or just ignore the change and the now-viable strategies you opened up.


How can GMs avoid this

Only one solution occurs to me, beyond just being an ideal GM from the get-go. This is using formats that you have seen work before, understand, and can make work yourself. But given the need for mechanics that suit both you and the flavour means that if you try to follow this strategy, you'll either follow a very simple format, or marginally adapt a premade one to your needs and most likely adapt your aims to the format. So you end up using basic RTD rules or playing D&D. Which perhaps isn't what you or the players want.


Anyway, how would you try to get around this issue?

[FakerFangirl]

A forum game is good if it has a map or territory.

See, I remember the days of roleplaying before organisms could even see, let alone use see as a metaphor for comprehension. We could barely comprehend that we could comprehend things. Imagining we were something else was a huge leap forward and really passed the time in between absorbing nutrients.

Biggest play I ever made: "I want to eat something over there." Anticipated the trope of "being able to move" that you see in all stories these days.

[NUKE9.13]

Why Games Fail
1 - Single Point of Failure
2 - The GM is overambitious
3 - Something is lost

For me, almost all games I've run have been cooperative/team games, where players can drop in and out freely, so number 1 has almost never been an issue. Usually they've ended through a combination of 2&3; the original spark dies down, whilst the game complexity ramps up, and at some point the effort required to update rises above the motivation available.

I'm not sure how to solve these problems. However, I think you may be looking at things the wrong way, to a degree. The title of the thread is "What makes a good forum game", but then your actual question is "What makes a forum game that reaches a conclusion", which is a different question. Sure, in a perfect world, the best forum games would run until their story was finished. And to be sure, an amazingly awesome forum game that only lasts two turns can leave one feeling rather dissatisfied. But I don't think merely lasting until the end is what makes a good forum game.

To answer the question of "What makes a good forum game", I'd say there are several elements:
-Social: a good forum game engages players not just with the game, but with each other. Otherwise, you might as well be playing a single-player videogame. This can take many forms, from discussing what to do in a suggestion game, collaborating in god games, or direct competition in some cases. This is rarely a problem, but it's worth keeping in mind.
-Organic: a key difference between a forum game and a videogame is that videogames are pre-programmed. Even the most expansive videogame is limited in what it can do, but a forum game can be anything. I'm not saying every game should be a completely freeform mess, as that would obviously suck, but neither should they have rigorous rules and ironclad settings that determine exactly what can happen. This is a matter of opinion, obviously, as there have been many forum games which basically emulate board games, which people have enjoyed, but I prefer more organic ones.
-Engaging: sort of obvious, but players should feel engaged with a forum game. It's hard to pin down what makes a game engaging, of course. There are certain formulas that one can copy for a decent chance at success, but if you want to do something original... well, I don't think there is a way to know in advance whether it will work. Just try it, and be prepared for failure. Don't feel bad about dropping a game that just isn't engaging.
-Flavour: I think most people enjoy a good setting/story, even if it isn't the most important thing. A purely mechanical game, devoid of all flavour, would be strictly worse than one with even a basic backdrop, in my opinion.
-Quality: a tricky element, but a crucial one, is simply good execution. Some people are just better GMs than others, be it by dint of practice or talent. If you're concerned that you may be falling short on this metric, requesting honest, constructive criticism could help.
That's just the things I can think of off the top of my head.

I think if you want to study a really successful forum game, Haspen's SPAMKINGDOM (1 and # specifically) games are very good, well executed, long lasting games, the two mentioned ones of which ended naturally after long runs. There are also SPAMKINGDOM games, as well as various other SPAM-whatever games (by Haspen or others) that didn't last very long, so studying why some lasted whilst others didn't could help determine what the secret to success is.
The Arms Race genre has many entries, of which several reached a conclusion: the original Arms Race (by Sensei), Wands Race (originally by Iituem, taken over by evictedSaint), and Intercontinental Arms Race (by Sensei again)(although technically the epilogue has yet to happen). There was also another AR by Sensei on a different forum (ICAR is a battle between the winners of Sensei's first two ARs).
I'm not personally acquainted with FEF at all, but I believe several games of that genre have successfully ended? I dunno, ask someone who plays them.
God games basically never end, by nature, as there is no natural conclusion for them to come to- that doesn't mean they aren't fun, of course.
Suggestion games... I dunno, maybe a few have 'ended' properly? The ones with an actual predetermined plot, maybe?

[notquitethere]

When you start a game, you impose certain conditions on yourself as a GM, generally speaking. For example, you might set given rules concerning character stats and rolling, or player numbers, or possible mechanics, or the nature of the world. Each of these entails a commitment to policing those stats, using your rolling systems, having those numbers, implementing those mechanics, describing that world. These commitments will generally have certain flaws, such as hurting player experience, slowing down the action per turn, making turns take longer to write, etc. But you didn't know that when you committed to them. This has happened to me pretty much every game I ever ran.

I get this! A while back I ran a game where every round update was certain to be longer than the last because players were always building things that needed to be taken into account, and the difficulty level ramped up each battle with more enemies needed to be rolled up. I think there's a couple of different problems you've identified:

Policing stats & rolls: I always have a single repository of current character sheets. When I make an update that effects player stats, I update that repository at the same time (it's usually the second post of the thread). That means after character creation, I don't ever have to tell players they've made a mistake in their calculation. I also do all rolls myself. This increases the workload a bit, but having a round structure and making sure there's only a minimum of rolls makes it a bit easier.

Writing up posts: It can be a pain to be committed to writing posts, but that's what you sign up for in running a game-- to make it easier on myself, wherever possible I use a template. The danger in using templates (like copying over previous updates and changing the details) is if you're not paying enough attention, you can forget to change old information, creating continuity errors etc.

Implementing Rule Changes: I you know what you're doing is very experimental and you anticipate a high possibility of doing a rules change, then you could bake it into the game structure. Say in the OP that this is the first season of the game, and at the end of each season, if you're continuing on, you'll do any rules changes in the break. (I'm pretty sure the Fire Emblem forum games do something like this.) This way, players can read a changelist between seasons but you don't have to try to coral them into new rules mid-game.

---

A forum game is good if it has a map or territory.

I love maps! Definitely the next thing I'm going to run is some kind of exploration game.

---

I think you may be looking at things the wrong way, to a degree. The title of the thread is "What makes a good forum game", but then your actual question is "What makes a forum game that reaches a conclusion", which is a different question. Sure, in a perfect world, the best forum games would run until their story was finished. And to be sure, an amazingly awesome forum game that only lasts two turns can leave one feeling rather dissatisfied. But I don't think merely lasting until the end is what makes a good forum game.

You're right! The most memorable and engaging game I've played here was Tower of Ragona, and even that fizzled out. Pigeons & Prejudice was five years ago and died after a handful of rounds, but I still think about sometimes to this day. Maybe my question should have been: how do make sure great games don't die? Or how do we fulfill the implicit promise of a story for our players when a story usually has an ending?

To answer the question of "What makes a good forum game", I'd say there are several elements:

These are some great points. Making sure we keep the freeform aspects of tabletop roleplaying games is good. I've run plenty of boardgame-like games, but even those are enriched when players can RP and there are unexpected directions they can take it in. It's tempting to constrain player actions (i.e. err towards the more mechanical side of play) just to make life easier in running the games, but this isn't playing to the full strengths of the medium.

[notquitethere]

Looking at Spamkingdom and Arms Race and why they're successful:

Semi-Opaque mechanics: It's up the GM to set the scenarios, opportunities, weightings and use their judgement over the effects of actions. It's easier for them not to paint themselves into a corner with strict mechanics, and it's easier for them to introduce novel elements.

Active GM: Bit of a no-brainer, but the GM keeps the game rolling on

Suggestion mechanic: makes it easier for larger player base to get engaged in the game, helping its popularity and survival

Constrained choice: in Spamkingdom, players typically have three choices available to them, scenarios that the GM makes up each round; in Arms Race, the sorts of new inventions are mechanically constrained- they have a knowable cost. So players can exercise their choice or creativity but, the game doesn't go off the rails and the GM can still write updates.

Threat: In Spamkingdom, player have to make sure the kingdom's stats don't ever fully deplete, in Arms Race, players are competing against each other.

Competition: In arms race, players spur each other on to new feats of ingenuity, in Spamkingdom players may have competing directions they'd like to push the kingdom in through their suggestions.

Engaging theme: people like fantasy kingdoms and wacky arms races.

[NUKE9.13]

That's a pretty good analysis, yeah. I think the semi-opaque mechanics and constrained choice elements are quite important, whilst being somewhat counter-intuitive. You might think that unknown mechanics would be frustrating- which they can be if done incorrectly-, but so long as it 'feels' fair, people don't seem to mind. As for constrained choices, I mean, the word constrained is in there, which typically has negative connotations- but it can actually make things more entertaining, by creating a challenge in SPAMKINGDOM's case, and forcing players into creative solutions that work around the constraints in ARs.

The threat element is also interesting. I hadn't thought about it, but it occurs that a lot of games could perhaps be improved by adding a threatening element. Although, of course, it needs to be balanced- too much, and things can seem hopeless. Or perhaps it's that the threat has to seem fair/organic? The losing sides in ARs don't necessarily see players dropping off (although it has led to erratic behaviour), but a string of bad rolls can cause defeatism that kills interest. Dropping people into a hopeless situation may cause them to say "this is hopeless, why should I bother?", but if the situation grows dire over time, then the players are already invested.
Hmm. Now I'm thinking about how I could have added threats (slash enhance existing threats to be more, well, threatening) in previous games of mine.

[Egan_BW]

Like anything, practice. I've failed a lot of times, almost all of which are embarrassing to me. But it doesn't seem to prevent people from being interested in my ideas and participating in my games. Can't expect to do anything perfect the first time you try. Or the second. Or the third...

Well, certain skeletons do seem to have an innate ability to maintain like ten RTDs at once with no player caps but those are probably the exception.

[Tiruin]

For me, a good forum game is one with communication between  all parties involved.
Also PTW. Nice to see you again NQT :3

[Rockeater]

Ptw
I don't have much to add, but I wonder if shorter/ less eventful but more frequent gm updates last longer, it would make theoretical sense but so is the opposite and I didn't play enough verrity of games to know.

[MonkeyMarkMario]

Ptw
I don't have much to add, but I wonder if shorter/ less eventful but more frequent gm updates last longer, it would make theoretical sense but so is the opposite and I didn't play enough verrity of games to know.

I have tried a mix of both and it all depends on the type of game. For instance a RTD can usually be updated more frequently especially when all the players don't need to post for the game to go on. Tho others like god games and civ building/management games might have a slower update because all, or most, of the players need to post something weather it being a sentence or a couple paragraphs, somewhere in the middle is usually best. But if the game is an SG than the GM can update it as often, or infrequent, as her/she like. Tho I do recommend updates be at least 24 hours apart so everyone who could see it can if they want.

[Whisperling]

If you don't mind, I'm going to go off on one about starting games. This is going to be rather obvious, but I'd like to hear other people's ideas on the topic.

Poor starts and failure to adapt have been a problem for me.

-snip-

Anyway, how would you try to get around this issue?

As a general warning, my response to this post is mostly conjecture. It's basically drawn from things I've seen work in other peoples' games, or approaches I would try if I were focusing on a similar issue. So nothing here has actually been tested very thoroughly.


On beginning with an ideal ruleset: I think this is mostly a matter of preparedness, or perhaps of prior testing and balancing. Using a simple ruleset helps because there are relatively few moving parts, and therefore the mechanics are difficult to break. Premade rules are helpful because they've already been tested, and you know to correct for any glaring faults.

It might be be possible to simulate that with a new ruleset, if you playtest it before creating the full game. Running a few missions privately would give you a chance to spot major issues, and a relatively easy way to attempt fixes (since your playtesters will probably come in knowing that rules might be tweaked or shifted around a bit). Then you can have something more final when you start the game for real.

On the other hand, that might also use up the game's lifespan. Depends on how long your games tend to last, and whether your enthusiasm will take a significant hit after doing the same thing for a while. It also forces playtesters to scrap their characters and progress, which might be frustrating to them as well.

A less drastic way to iterate is to recycle mechanics from past games. If something you've used in the past suits the game you're making now, you can generally just transplant it. Then you also get the chance to do a postmortem and make any changes you think are appropriate.

-------------

Changing rules mid-game... This works best if your players don't actually engage with mechanics that much. They might ignore the changes until they have to make a new sheet, but at least nobody gets confused. But that's obviously not a satisfactory solution, so I'm going to try looking a little further.

It might be best if the rule changes are accompanied by major changes within the world of the game. If you're already planning to make the transition from mission-based to open-world, players might pay more attention when you introduce version II of the rules, and at the very least the transition from ruleset I to ruleset II will be more fluid. Same goes for a sudden, drastic change to the game world, or if the players move to an entirely different locale (assuming that they had mostly remained in the same place before).

Not that you should force any of that stuff in, if you were't planning to already. Transitions are just a good time to tack on any rules changes that you've been thinking about. It might be an intuitive way to make those alterations, since essentially you're rewriting the entire game at once.