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?

[Sohisohi]

I'm sure it can be done, it might be easier since you don't have to think too much on the fly... Though I guess that depends on whether you do it Live Posting of Forum Posting style.

[zerombr]

roll init for the players, let each player do half their attacks all the way down the list, then repeat. (make it flow faster) and keep an init tracker visible so everyone knows who is up

[Curbludgeon]

I'd have each player post round-by-round actions, complete with rolls for strike and damage, and including a secondary target or two. If there's any adjudication needed the GM provides that during the synopsis/fancy description of each round. Also, before play each player would submit a nested series of general tactics, and if during a particular round they don't post within what should be a pretty short posting window the GM defaults to that. With a game as focused on actions from second to second as palladium, PBP is a bit of a balancing act between sacrificing player agency and not grinding to a halt.