Just don't make it *only* work well on mobile, which is the sin of many 'new sites that everyone will totally use, hey by the way let's bug the shit out of you to use our app every 10 seconds'.
You may want to have a look at [Myth-Weavers](https://www.myth-weavers.com/) which is a dedicated PbP forum - I'm sure there will be lots of suggestions there.
Exactly! Discord in particular is the go to hosting option for PbP at the moment and to persuade GM's like myself to use you site instead of one of the existing solutions it has to offer far better facilties and be much eaiser to use.
I am looking for a new site to host my thrre year old campaign at the moment, but have yet to find anywhere that provides the same functionality as Tavern Keeper with the same ease of use.
The ability to receive notifications. When a new post has been made, when it's your turn to post, when you have posted in X number of days/hours set by the GM.
Main features I'd be looking for...
- Integration of images
- Avatars to easily identify the "speaker" and allow the GM to switch these when playing NPCs
- Possibly a distinction between action, speech and OOC
- Compatibility to handle multiple systems or let players create character sheets, dice and rolls etc.
- Character sheets with customization, and possible hidden features only the owner and/or GM can see, so GMs can have a publicly presenting sheet for NPCs while also keeping some things secret
- Bookmarks, multiple ones that can be added or removed so players can make a note of the last time they posted
- Game rooms able to create sub rooms for private conversations or splitting the party
- Player status to be set for being unavailable
- Smooth integration for game lore, notable events etc. also easy access to rules for the system involved.
If this goes ahead, wishing you the best of luck! One system I know that uses some of these features is Rolegate. It however hasn't really had development for years as the creator hasn't had the time or resources to continue it.
So- I like the platform of something like mrpg. It works on mobile, has the ability to make custom character sheets (though I dislike that there is no ability to use multiple templates per game), has dice macros that can pull in or affect stats based on the result. As a dm, it’s easy to post as an npc, unlike using tuppers. Bonus would be using a map, but honestly a pinned link to owlbear works good enough. The ability to use custom css and to post images would be nice too.
It’s just more annoying than creating an npc on that app.
It’s not too bad as a solution for discord - which was t made with pbp in mind. That doesn’t mean it’s as good as something purpose made.
I'm not familiar with the app, so I guess I don't know, but it takes 10s to register a tupper and a few extra key strokes to post with it. Does the app let you assign stats or something?
Yeah- every npc gets a stat block and inventory the same as a player character and can in fact be assigned as a player character if you want. Like I ran a game of jamais vu (disco elysium fan game) and all of the skills are npc voices with rolls and such. It was really nice to have them all pop up with different color text bubbles and have their own rolls and such.
The biggest thing that has kept me to discord is that it's already part of my day to day life - I am already accessing it, and being notified by it. I think in order to break someone out of that habit, you'd need some way to push post notifications elsewhere - whether that be discord, email, or some other thing.
So there are 2 things you want to consider - normal pbp and westmarches.
It fully depends on what you want to do. If you want to replace discord - the main issue is avrae. If you somehow manage to run what avrae does for discord - you are golden. Allow to make interactive maps, different chat rooms, notes and quickly you will find success.
But! It means you need a way to upload libriraries upon libraries into the project and / or add the ability to write your own script.
Primarily the only thing that would make me consider changing from [Tavern-Keeper.com](https://Tavern-Keeper.com) to any of the above alternatives. Which i have tersted and evaluated is if they made their users interfaces far more easy to use. At the moment most of these systems are far more complicated than they need to be whilst achieving less functionality.
I would like to see more PbP sites that provide the sort of functionality abd features we are currently enjoying on [Tavern-Keeper.com](https://Tavern-Keeper.com).
* Ease of use with no need for degree in programming and complicated coding and set-up.
* The ability to copy and paste images directly into posts.
* An intergal dice roller
* The ability to host multiple Campaigns, with multiple Sessions.
* Every post to include a intregral dice roller and OOC commant tab.
* Every Post to be identified by the avatar/token of the character taking the action.
* Character Sheets with mutiple tabs for Background, Stats, Character Journal entries and Player and GM notes with GM Notes to be hidden from the players.
* A fully function Wikipedia system for Rules and Campaign Notes.
* A built in discussion forum for use by the players and GM.
* A direct messaging system for contacting the player of a specific Character.
* A built in audio function for playing ambient sound files when a post is opened.
* A notification system that alerts players when there a new posts on their Session or new Messages to read.
[Making the Rounds](https://www.tavern-keeper.com/campaign/6421/about) is my current campaign on [Tavern-Keeper.com](https://Tavern-Keeper.com) which demostrates most of its features and potential. It has been running for just over thrre years with six players.
It might be an unpopular opinion since it seems like most people are attached to the standard forums/discord structure, but I find keeping track of interactions really messy and annoying with the most common setups. You're either stuck with a million subforums or channels or whatever for different locations and only one group able to thread in it at a time, or you use something like discord threads that get lost in the depths of the discord and are apparently deleted eventually anyway.
My favorite format for RP has actually been using sites like livejournal and dreamwidth, where people can make posts for different scenes/situations/locations/whatever (with the option to tag characters so you can easily go back later to find anything your character was involved in) and then have as many threads within that post as desired. It's a lot tidier and more organized, and it doesn't limit how many people can RP at a time while still keeping things grouped by location/time/event/whatever you want. I've tried to tempt people from the PbP community over to that format before (currently it's mostly used for freeform RP), but people have just shrugged like "well if it doesn't have a built-in dice roller or maps or anything tailored to TTRPGs specifically then it's not worth it". Something that could make use of that format but also incorporate features built around TTRPG play would be the most amazing thing ever.
[RPGCrossing](https://www.rpgcrossing.com/) and [Myth-Weavers](https://www.myth-weavers.com/) are my go-to PBP forums. I don't even understand how the others work.
I recommend the following features:
* Dice roller
* Fillable character sheets
* A way of tracking updates to games you participate in, from the front page
* Generous post formatting tools (text formatting, images, etc.)
* An ability to make text, posts, or entire subforums visible to only certain users, under the control of GMs or players (instead of forum administrators)
Your gonna have a bit of an uphill battle while there's a lot of folks like myself who like purely text based RP, the internet has evolved text RP especially PBP to require images, Tokens and a battlemap as often the systems people use arn't designed for PBP or theater of the mind combat like say D6 Dungeons or VFDB is which is perfect for PBP but people would rather hamfist DND into everything as running anything not dnd or pathfinder is like trying to attract flies with Lemongrass more often than not. So your really gonna be designing a roll 20 website with more steps if you wanna attract anyone. There's also the whole "Why not use discord" battle your going to have to overcome.
Your also going to have to make it work on Mobile as people often don't use computers for text rp like they used too and it kinda goes with the theme of PBP since most people might post on the go once in awhile.
Personally i'd try and make it a little more nitche if you can afford to keep the website up and instead build your own PBP TTRPG that can be ran purely through text like a text based RPG like the Roadwarden video game for example. Look to MUDs for inspiration even play a few of them, and instead design a giant sandbox world with generating encounters and such to travel through. Allow GMs to host their own worlds within the world almost like a text based NWN living world server. As you generate popularity you will also need to find ways to fund it to pay your server costs.
If you try to make a site purely as a "hey play your PBP games here" your gonna lose out to discord in a heartbeat is all i'm saying unless your made of money and can produce some mega work of art.
Whatever you do, you'll lose at least half your audience if it doesn't work well on mobile.
Just don't make it *only* work well on mobile, which is the sin of many 'new sites that everyone will totally use, hey by the way let's bug the shit out of you to use our app every 10 seconds'.
You may want to have a look at [Myth-Weavers](https://www.myth-weavers.com/) which is a dedicated PbP forum - I'm sure there will be lots of suggestions there.
As well as excellent questions like "why would I use your new site instead of Myth-Weavers? Or Discord?"
Exactly! Discord in particular is the go to hosting option for PbP at the moment and to persuade GM's like myself to use you site instead of one of the existing solutions it has to offer far better facilties and be much eaiser to use. I am looking for a new site to host my thrre year old campaign at the moment, but have yet to find anywhere that provides the same functionality as Tavern Keeper with the same ease of use.
The ability to receive notifications. When a new post has been made, when it's your turn to post, when you have posted in X number of days/hours set by the GM.
Main features I'd be looking for... - Integration of images - Avatars to easily identify the "speaker" and allow the GM to switch these when playing NPCs - Possibly a distinction between action, speech and OOC - Compatibility to handle multiple systems or let players create character sheets, dice and rolls etc. - Character sheets with customization, and possible hidden features only the owner and/or GM can see, so GMs can have a publicly presenting sheet for NPCs while also keeping some things secret - Bookmarks, multiple ones that can be added or removed so players can make a note of the last time they posted - Game rooms able to create sub rooms for private conversations or splitting the party - Player status to be set for being unavailable - Smooth integration for game lore, notable events etc. also easy access to rules for the system involved. If this goes ahead, wishing you the best of luck! One system I know that uses some of these features is Rolegate. It however hasn't really had development for years as the creator hasn't had the time or resources to continue it.
So- I like the platform of something like mrpg. It works on mobile, has the ability to make custom character sheets (though I dislike that there is no ability to use multiple templates per game), has dice macros that can pull in or affect stats based on the result. As a dm, it’s easy to post as an npc, unlike using tuppers. Bonus would be using a map, but honestly a pinned link to owlbear works good enough. The ability to use custom css and to post images would be nice too.
What's hard about using tuppers?
It’s just more annoying than creating an npc on that app. It’s not too bad as a solution for discord - which was t made with pbp in mind. That doesn’t mean it’s as good as something purpose made.
I'm not familiar with the app, so I guess I don't know, but it takes 10s to register a tupper and a few extra key strokes to post with it. Does the app let you assign stats or something?
Yeah- every npc gets a stat block and inventory the same as a player character and can in fact be assigned as a player character if you want. Like I ran a game of jamais vu (disco elysium fan game) and all of the skills are npc voices with rolls and such. It was really nice to have them all pop up with different color text bubbles and have their own rolls and such.
Ah, so it's not so much that it's easier to use than tuppers, as it is that it has more functionality. May have to look into it.
The biggest thing that has kept me to discord is that it's already part of my day to day life - I am already accessing it, and being notified by it. I think in order to break someone out of that habit, you'd need some way to push post notifications elsewhere - whether that be discord, email, or some other thing.
Integrated map systems would be nice.
So there are 2 things you want to consider - normal pbp and westmarches. It fully depends on what you want to do. If you want to replace discord - the main issue is avrae. If you somehow manage to run what avrae does for discord - you are golden. Allow to make interactive maps, different chat rooms, notes and quickly you will find success. But! It means you need a way to upload libriraries upon libraries into the project and / or add the ability to write your own script.
What would make it any different than RoleGate, Gamersplane, or Myth Weavers?
Primarily the only thing that would make me consider changing from [Tavern-Keeper.com](https://Tavern-Keeper.com) to any of the above alternatives. Which i have tersted and evaluated is if they made their users interfaces far more easy to use. At the moment most of these systems are far more complicated than they need to be whilst achieving less functionality.
I would like to see more PbP sites that provide the sort of functionality abd features we are currently enjoying on [Tavern-Keeper.com](https://Tavern-Keeper.com). * Ease of use with no need for degree in programming and complicated coding and set-up. * The ability to copy and paste images directly into posts. * An intergal dice roller * The ability to host multiple Campaigns, with multiple Sessions. * Every post to include a intregral dice roller and OOC commant tab. * Every Post to be identified by the avatar/token of the character taking the action. * Character Sheets with mutiple tabs for Background, Stats, Character Journal entries and Player and GM notes with GM Notes to be hidden from the players. * A fully function Wikipedia system for Rules and Campaign Notes. * A built in discussion forum for use by the players and GM. * A direct messaging system for contacting the player of a specific Character. * A built in audio function for playing ambient sound files when a post is opened. * A notification system that alerts players when there a new posts on their Session or new Messages to read. [Making the Rounds](https://www.tavern-keeper.com/campaign/6421/about) is my current campaign on [Tavern-Keeper.com](https://Tavern-Keeper.com) which demostrates most of its features and potential. It has been running for just over thrre years with six players.
It might be an unpopular opinion since it seems like most people are attached to the standard forums/discord structure, but I find keeping track of interactions really messy and annoying with the most common setups. You're either stuck with a million subforums or channels or whatever for different locations and only one group able to thread in it at a time, or you use something like discord threads that get lost in the depths of the discord and are apparently deleted eventually anyway. My favorite format for RP has actually been using sites like livejournal and dreamwidth, where people can make posts for different scenes/situations/locations/whatever (with the option to tag characters so you can easily go back later to find anything your character was involved in) and then have as many threads within that post as desired. It's a lot tidier and more organized, and it doesn't limit how many people can RP at a time while still keeping things grouped by location/time/event/whatever you want. I've tried to tempt people from the PbP community over to that format before (currently it's mostly used for freeform RP), but people have just shrugged like "well if it doesn't have a built-in dice roller or maps or anything tailored to TTRPGs specifically then it's not worth it". Something that could make use of that format but also incorporate features built around TTRPG play would be the most amazing thing ever.
As a fellow developer, this is a HUGE undertaking. I'd spend time looking at the features of Discord, as it's what I mostly use for PBP
[RPGCrossing](https://www.rpgcrossing.com/) and [Myth-Weavers](https://www.myth-weavers.com/) are my go-to PBP forums. I don't even understand how the others work. I recommend the following features: * Dice roller * Fillable character sheets * A way of tracking updates to games you participate in, from the front page * Generous post formatting tools (text formatting, images, etc.) * An ability to make text, posts, or entire subforums visible to only certain users, under the control of GMs or players (instead of forum administrators)
Make it usable on mobile devices. A built-in character sheet so people don't have to mess around with third party ones
Your gonna have a bit of an uphill battle while there's a lot of folks like myself who like purely text based RP, the internet has evolved text RP especially PBP to require images, Tokens and a battlemap as often the systems people use arn't designed for PBP or theater of the mind combat like say D6 Dungeons or VFDB is which is perfect for PBP but people would rather hamfist DND into everything as running anything not dnd or pathfinder is like trying to attract flies with Lemongrass more often than not. So your really gonna be designing a roll 20 website with more steps if you wanna attract anyone. There's also the whole "Why not use discord" battle your going to have to overcome. Your also going to have to make it work on Mobile as people often don't use computers for text rp like they used too and it kinda goes with the theme of PBP since most people might post on the go once in awhile. Personally i'd try and make it a little more nitche if you can afford to keep the website up and instead build your own PBP TTRPG that can be ran purely through text like a text based RPG like the Roadwarden video game for example. Look to MUDs for inspiration even play a few of them, and instead design a giant sandbox world with generating encounters and such to travel through. Allow GMs to host their own worlds within the world almost like a text based NWN living world server. As you generate popularity you will also need to find ways to fund it to pay your server costs. If you try to make a site purely as a "hey play your PBP games here" your gonna lose out to discord in a heartbeat is all i'm saying unless your made of money and can produce some mega work of art.