Interest Check -- Play-by-Post RPG?

[jalapeno_dude]

EDIT 10/1/15: We've now decided that we're going to play an Eberron campaign, and we've decided on the general nature of that campaign. Slowly starting the process of defining the campaign in more detail and creating characters, with an eye to starting sometime after 10/19. New sign-ups are still welcome!

Eberron Infopost #1: General Setting Details
First Campaign Scenarios
Notes on Scenarios
Final Scenario
Eberron Infopost #2: Dragonmarked Houses 1: Dragonmarks and the Houses in the World
Eberron Infopost #3: Dragonmarked Houses 2: Sivis, Cannith, Vadalis, Orien
Eberron Infopost #4: Dragonmarked Houses 3: Tharashk, Jorasco, Kundarak
Eberron Infopost #5: Dragonmarked Houses 4: Phiarlan, Thuranni, Medani
Eberron Infopost #6: Dragonmarked Houses 5: Deneith, Ghallanda, Lyrandar


Original post follows:

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(Not actually a board game but this seems like the most appropriate forum)

Is anyone interested in doing some play-by-post roleplaying? Here 'roleplaying' means the sort of thing that you'd do in a tabletop RPG like Dungeons and Dragons or GURPS or World of Darkness, i.e. where each person is playing a single character and the characters are typically grouped together and have some sort of common goal or at least a reason to travel/adventure together, with one person acting as DM/GM/playing the rest of the world. Maybe with some occasional dice-rolling thrown in for aesthetic reasons, though I've moved more and more towards pure diceless games as a DM.

I am happy to DM/facilitate a game on this forum if people are interested in playing (ideally 4-6, but I could probably deal with as few as 2 or more than 6). I'd like for people to be able to post at least once every 1-2 days with some regularity.

If people are interested, I think I would want to first pick a setting, then pick the tone of the campaign, then have people start creating characters. Here is a list off the top of my head of settings I know enough about/am interested in enough to run a game in:

-The Tolkien legendarium (I just re-read the Silmarillion for the first time since middle school, enjoyed it much more this time, and have Thoughts about it and sort of want an excuse to post long digressions/rants about it, plus I am a long-time player of LotRO, the world's nerdiest MMO)
-The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny (I'd want to run this using Amber Diceless specifically but it's well, diceless so it shouldn't be that hard for people to pick up)
-Eberron (Think post-WWI, but with magic--the setting was explicitly designed to allow the entire range of genres in this, from pulp e.g. Indiana Jones to noir e.g. Casablanca; I read so much of the sourcebooks for this in high school that I still know most of it off the top of my head)
-The super-nerdy setting I came up with in college: RL but with the addition of magical powers that come from creating knowledge (where the technomagical singularity is happening because of the Internet)
-I guess just the real world by itself, if we want to RP some Earthfic (potentially including Historical Earthfic for appropriate places and times)
-The terrible D&D campaign setting I created in high school to run a campaign in (thrill to maps I made in GIMP in 2007!)
-I guess ASOIAF (though I'm feeling kind of meh about that lately)?
-The Phantom Tollbooth? I have doubts about my ability to get the tone right but if I could it would be really hilarious.
-Maybe something else if I think about it later.

[Kappa]

I could be convinced to participate in such a thing, but last time I tried to play an RPG where most people playing weren't familiar with the system, it didn't work out terribly well.

I certainly want to hear all about your Tolkein-related rants.

[ErinFlight]

I've never done it before, but it seems potentially fun.

[Bluelantern]

I am interested, but might suffer from "can't remember the rules anymore" >.>

Eberron sounds interesting.

[DanielH]

I might be interested but am not familiar with most of the settings. I do know the real world and Phantom Tollbooth, though.

[jalapeno_dude]

Re rules/systems: I don't think this should be a problem. As I mentioned, I am perfectly fine playing more-or-less without dice; I also meant to imply that I don't really plan to use a particular rules system; we can work things out OOC as needed as they come up. If I do feel the need to roll dice/impose structure I will be sure to explain and stick to very simple "roll a d20 or 3d6 and add some modifiers" mechanics. Honestly the main reason why complicated rulesets exist is to facilitate combat, and from previous experience with PbP I am very aware that extensive combat is the best way to kill a game anyway.

Re setting familiarity: I don't expect that players will have as much setting knowledge as I do; it's sort of built in to the whole tabletop RPG social contract that the DM also provides information/infodumps to the players as needed. For the settings that exist outside my head, I can definitely provide you with summaries of the basics, and then going beyond that is optional depending on individual preference.

[DanielH]

If you don't plan to run it with excessive combat I am definitely interested.

[ErinFlight]

Would we create new characters for this?

[jalapeno_dude]

Would we create new characters for this?

Yep, that's the idea! You're obviously welcome to reuse existing character concepts, but you'd want to at least think about the characters other people are creating, as well as making them appropriate for the setting and tone of the campaign (which I'll talk about much more when we get to that stage).

[PlainDealingVillain]

I might be interested. Unless it's in Eberron, in which case I am very definitely interested because I also read a ton of sourcebooks, and then didn't get to play it much. Halflings on dinosaurs punching robots made from archeological rediscoveries, on the orders of astrologist dragons and vampire definitely-not-Nazis. It's so wonderful.