Any recommendations for good forum software for play-by-post?

#1

Originally I tried gamersplane, but it’s pretty buggy and it seems like the team is unable to fix some pretty big issues. It’s so close to what I want though!

I want subforums, access control per forum, and ideally the ability to generate dice rolls with a post.

Alternately I could host a forum myself, but I’m not sure of what a good option would be, especially for RPG specific nice to haves. I also don’t want to get super mired in configuration. I’m technically enough to set it all up, I’m just worried about it becoming a huge time sink…

Any thoughts?

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How to get started with PbP
#2

Hit up Tavern Keeper for sure! Ability to roll dice within posts, have OOC forum discussions, Wiki reference information, privacy settings based on campaign/game, etc.

One of the cool things is the ability to comment on a specific post – the comment is on the “flip side” of the post (it literally “flips around” in the UI), so it doesn’t interrupt the narrative. Best ways I’ve seen that feature used:

  • Discuss mechanics related to the post (ie: “Roll X move” or “I got an 8, so I choose X option from the list”)
  • Give audience reative to a specific post without those getting in the way (“Oooh! I sense romance!” or “Dang, killer post, friend!”). I find this helps give the group a sense of togetherness, even though you’re not in the same room.

There are a few little bugs (mostly around invites to new players) and the game/player search needs an upgrade, but they’ve been working on a 2.0 version for a while that (fingers crossed) will clean that up. It’s definitely my favorite place to play pbp. Feels very clean and easy to navigate once you’ve got a game rolling.

Happy to answer any questions you run into if you go that route! There’s also a TavernKeeper Discord with lots of folks who are helpful in answering any technical questions you might run into.

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#3

I was going to suggest Obsidian Portal, but it looks like only the highest paid tier allows forum posting nowadays. I haven’t used it in a long time, but I remember it having a lot of features.

Anyone have recent experience with OP that might be useful?

#4

That sounds pretty sweet! I generally use rpggeek.com. It’s pretty good. It has more functions than this forum for controlling fonts, font colors, adding headers, etc. and includes a dice roller.

I am interested in the potential for mRPG. It is a mobile PbF app with a dice roll, a clunky way to create character templates, and a very good looking interface to find a game / players. I haven’t tried it yet though.

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#5

RPGGeek is great. I think a lot of people are put off by the UI, but if they can get over the dated interface (which is look somewhat improved nowadays), I think they’ll find a robust tool set.

RPGGeek has put a lot of effort into building out their PbP tools over the years. I think having a dedicated character tracker would be handy, but those can always be housed on Google Docs or something.

#6

I am sure you are aware but for others…We usually get around this by importing character sheets and hyperlinking them to the forum. It’s not Roll20 nice but it’s not bad either.

#7

Oh, I’ve not heard of mRPG. Mobile compatibility is so helpful to have! TavernKeeper works okay on mobile, but it’s not perfect. I’ll have to check that out!

#8

They look superficially very similar. I am sure TavernKeeper has more features but mRPG is currently VERY actively upgrading. It keeps a list anyone can post to for features they would like to see.

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#9

I’ve used Tavern Keeper quite a lot and it’s pretty good because each game is set up sort of like a wiki page.

I’ve also used Role Gate. It’s another pretty good site with plenty of PbtA games going on. I think it might be the best mobile friendly one out there but not perfect but any stretch of the imagination.

There’s also Mythweavers if you want to be able to organize your game to the max. It’s an older site that I think is starting to show its age. Every game is essentially its own forum so you can make individual posts that can be organized into folders/categories and sub folders from there.

Edit:Role Gate also has a discord channel for recruiting and just generally asking questions.

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