So, I guess most of us played play-by-post or play-by-forum games at one point or another, and most of us know that there tends to be A LOT of drama there. As far as I know I missed the most of it - never played one of these classic WoD pbfs, where you have, I don’t know, twenty players and no GM, but even in my corner of the internet, where we tried to emulate “normal” sessions on forum, the interpersonal drama and emotional safety issues were sometimes a huge problem.
I think I can pretty easily pinpoint the causes of the fact that emotional safety is compromised in these games - I’d say it’s mostly the fact that there’s not clear cut between the play time and the normal time, you don’t meet with your friends for a game session with a start and ending, this is an ongoing thing. Also I think that the fact that you are actually able write about ALL THE FEELS that your character has makes you more emotionally invested (and the fact that people tend to ignore the very long feels descriptions probably doesn’t help too).
Anyway, despite all flaws I love pbp gaming, and I love exactly the kind of pbp gaming that tries to emulate normal session, with GM, player characters and all. I spent good chunk of my gaming life on a forum and would like to come back to that hobby, but I lack tools that would help making the games comfortable and safe. There are lines and veils of course, and CATS, but there’s no way to introduce X-card to pbp for example, and can’t think of a thing that would help to maintain, let’s call it, emotional hygiene, when you’re in a game for a year and you don’t really disengage ever, cause you’re always either waiting for someone’s post or thinking about your response.
So I thought “hey, maybe these brilliant Gauntlet people have any ideas” 
Safety tools for pbp games
Having played a fair bit of PbP, I think one of the things that makes me feel most comfortable is an active, accessible, out-of-character side channel for communication (Slack or Discord channel, group Google Chat, etc.) This allows for instantaneous communication for concerns, check-ins from the GM or players, and a place to talk through any problems that arise.
While I know you may still run into the problem of not everyone being actively online at the same time, at least this way you have a platform to chat about things that doesn’t require writing a “formal” email/post. It makes it less of a big deal if someone needs to bring something up, which can be a barrier otherwise.
Ways I’ve seen this used/used this myself in PbP games:
- Players messaging privately BEFORE posting something they think might be sensitive, checking in to see if it’s okay with the player it will affect most closely. Sometimes this is just a question, and sometimes they share the actual post they’ve written.
- Players messaging either privately or publicly AFTER posting checking in and letting everyone know they are willing to edit if anyone is uncomfortable
- GM checking in with a “Would you like to fade to black here?” before I have to ask for it
- GM checking in on behalf of another player/the group. “Wow, PC A’s post was really intense. PC B, you okay with that?” (Once the group’s confirmed all is good, def take a hot minute to applaud PC A’s efforts here - like you mentioned @czakita ALL THE FEELS are a gorgeous part of PbP!)
- Checking in with the group on future plans with something along the lines of: “I see my PC headed this direction. Is everyone okay with that? If not, I’ll change courses now before we go too far down that path.”
One of the big differences between this and f2f gaming is that there’s a bit more of a preemptive strike effort done with these sorts of safety checks. Obviously you won’t be able to preempt everything, but I’ve seen that bit of extra effort in PbP go a long way toward making things feel safer in general, especially because it shows that the group is “together” in this (even if not physically together) and willing to listen to each other, edit for each other, and make sure everyone is okay.
Another thing I’ve seen in PbP is players stepping away for a bit – this is the equivalent to physically stepping out of the room during a f2f game just to get a deep breath for a minute. I realize not every PbP game is active enough to even notice if someone has stepped away for a few days, but in games where posting is more active, there have been times where people have said something to the effect of: “I love where this game is going, but I’m having some personal stress in life right now that’s making it hard to play and/or the bleed is getting to me. I need a few days of mental hiatus. I’m going to be away from the game until X day.” [Establishing a day when they plan to return, or at least plan to check back in, is really important in PbP so everyone isn’t left hanging. Unexpected silences can kill PbP games completely, so if you’re GMing and the player doesn’t offer this up front, I definitely recommend asking privately for a day when you could re-check-in with them and see how they’re doing, and making sure they’re truly okay in the moment too, not just “putting on a brave face” for the sake of the group]
This allows the player (PC-player or GM-player) to step away completely without “guilt” or the mental load of having another post to write/read, and without leaving the group hanging, wondering where they have gone.
Pointing out at the outset that your OOC channel is supposed to be used for these sorts of things (and for other fun stuff too) and setting up the expectation of where to go if there’s a problem is a nice tool to have.
Hey Czakita, thanks for posting a question about PBP! I’m also a fan and hope you enjoy dipping your toe back into that medium of play. Heidi’s response is comprehensive and I strongly recommend you consider a real-time chat option as an out-of-character mode of communication for your next PBP, it’s wonderful.
I’d like to gently push back on an assertion you made in your OP and talk about my own point-of-view and experience here.
First off. How is there “no way” to introduce X-Card? I’ve found that PBP gamers are often the same folks I play with live, and the only thing that’s different is the method of communication. Any table, any PBP group, can use safety tools. In fact, in PBP, it’s super easy to do it! Easier than speaking up in a live game, sometimes.
If you’re using Discord, Slack or Google chat for out-of-character communication, all it needs is one player saying, “Hey there, this thing about the implied rape for character Y, that bothers me. I need to X-card this.” And if you’re playing with a healthy and considerate group, the person who wrote that post can EDIT IT OUT after a discussion. Which is kinda awesome, right? In a live game, it can get messy working through X-carded content, it’s difficult to “un-hear” something. In PBP, you can just re-read the edited text and keep playing, no harm, no foul.
Rich
Sure, that is possible, but what I love about the X-card is the… seamlessness? You just tap it the moment you see/hear the content that makes you uncomfortable, and there’s no comment made, you don’t have to say anything, you can just act as nothing happened. Also, there’s immediacy - you can react the moment when things start to go the wrong way, in pbp, where everyone writes bigger chunks of the plot, sometimes there’s no way to prevent the content from appearing. But I’ll agree that the possibility of editing stuff out is a GREAT feature 
On the forum I used to play we usually had more-or-less active topics for ooc silliness and discussion, but I see how a chat could be better, it’s a great advice, thank you
Also, probably actually talking about emotional hygene and safety can go a long way, I suppose? Just normalizing the fact that this game makes us FEEEEL ALL THE FEELS and its absolutely awesome, but also we need to acknowledge the fact that there is a thing called bleed (most of the community on the forum I spent half my life on doesn’t really know the term) and it’s useful to name it and manage it.
Actually, do you have any other ideas on managing bleed in pbp? Except, of course, the brilliant advice from @Heidi_Schlottman, that you can just walk away from a game for some time, which is absolutely something I’m going to introduce.
Something that @RichRogers’s post reminded me of, actually, is the ability to use the x-card mechanic mostly anonymously in PbP via private message to the GM. In games I’ve played in, the GM has messaged the group, and said “Hey, someone x-carded [content]. Player(s) involved, can you please edit that out of the scene and then we’ll move forward in [such and such way].”
This was a nice way of x-carding so that the player who hit the x-card didn’t have to do so publicly. The group edited out the problematic content, knew to avoid it in the future, and play moved forward. Pretty slick!
You’re right that sometimes PbP means people posting larger pieces of the narrative and potentially moving right through x-card territory without realizing it in a way you may not at the table. You could set the expectation with the players of: If you are reading a post and you come across something that is x-card content for you, stop reading, go to the group chat/privately message the GM, and hit the x-card. Don’t continue reading until the group has had a chance to edit their posts and given the “all clear.”
It takes a little self-control (who doesn’t want to read posts that are just sitting there all tempting and waiting!?), but it’s possible still to stop the second something comes up and get everything worked out before play (ie: reading and writing) continues.