Heroes are made by the paths they choose...
A few months into my attempt to run five players through a play-by-post game of Alteregomania, the Gumshoe One-2-One adventure that shows Super Heroes in their least flattering light.
How is it going?
I decided to stagger the five players, and in the end, I’ve decided that running one player at a time is most sensible, given that I have a family, work, and more RPGs to run!
The current status is;
One player finished
One is underway
Two paused
One more to start
The game takes around 15 days, this excludes weekends and with a 24-hour turnaround for each turn.
What have I learnt?
A few things, it is an enjoyable low-effort way to run and play RPGs. The style for me is almost like a con one-shot, so you have to be disciplined, have regular turns and have clarity on In Character (IC) vs Out Of Character (OOC). Clear communication on when a player’s turn is done, a deadline of when the GM will respond and this keeps the momentum. It’s good to have a break too, so weekends there were no turns.
How have the players approached it?
I’ve had four players progress through scenes, and they all took different styles into the game;
some were very verbose
some planned a lot, “if this then that, else”
some were quite minimal
some made use of the Discord Markdown to present actions versus speaking IC versus OOC queries to the GM
Certainly interesting to see how forensic some players are, I’d hate to be a criminal with them on my case! Others were much more into the story, enhancing some of the character aspects through internal monologues, all great to read for the GM.
How have I approached it?
I’ve tried to improvise more as I’ve run more players through the scenario, this includes not just copying and pasting the text, but adding more flavour and character to NPCs. All this depends on the time I have each day. I have ideas to add more scenes and challenges along with cards, but it feels a bit unfair to do this to the players that come later, I’ll see. I also used a clue matrix that tracked Klara’s investigative abilities against those that get you clues in each scene, in addition, the matrix tracked for each of the five players who had completed each scene.
What did I get wrong?
I think things have evolved, the key thing is communication, making it clear when a turn starts and ends. I also misunderstood the Extra Problem which comes into play if a player wants to add an extra die to a Challenge.
So what is next?
Finish off the remaining run-throughs. There are still four players to go. Also, I’ve agreed with the first player to run some Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops. I’m also looking at the possibility of doing something more free-form, a campaign with open-ended turns, something for 2025. I’d recommend trying this out, Gumshoe One-2-One is an excellent system and play-by-post can be a relaxing, less intensive way to enjoy it. Maybe just keep it to one player at a time!
Many thanks to astronocky, drdm_, erlik03, jerodleupold & kearia.zakir for taking part.