Play by post game systems

[apness]

Hi all, just wondering if anyone out there has discovered what they think is the 'perfect' or 'best' system for playing by post/forum for the Superhero genre and the Fantasy/D&D style genre.

At the moment I run a long term (3 years so far I think?) play by post superhero game using the Golden Heroes/Squadron UK rule set. The combat system, for any that don't know breaks rounds down into 'frames' like you'd find on a comic book page. Based on initiative you might find that you have up to 4 consecutive frames to use before your opponent acts which means that combat fair zips along compared to the usual round by round breakdown you get in most other games. Where the problem is with GH is that it's mostly a 'street level' game so I've house ruled it to work with our characters who have the potential to 'go cosmic' when they use their inner power.

I've even tacked on the round/frame system to DC Heroes (MEGs) game but that literally had fights done and dusted in one post, so it was all rather anti-climatic (and in need of more house ruling, which I did).

Are there any lesser known supers games out there with a reasonable combat system that doesn't bog the game down when playing by post? I think I have every supers game out there, but will admit to not having played them all, and I'm open to suggestions for tacking on a different system to an existing game (as I did with the GH round system and DC Heroes). Mutants and Masterminds is out - the character creation is like chewing on rusty nails. I've not tried BASH or ICONS yet. Marvel Superheroes I burnt out on back in the day (80s) and have extensive experience with the Marvel Universe RPG (stones diceless version) having run a lot of games and played in loads too. The problem with that is all fights look the same. 'Alpha Strike' with everything you have in round one then try to regenerate enough energy to give em all you have in 2-3 rounds again. Certain things like modifiers are cheap/busted and a clever player could easily min/max to make a Thor/Hulk buster with a starting character (though it by no means easy - you just need a good knowledge of the game). If there's nothing better than the GH system I'll continue to house rule it out of recognition (the PCs are standard level supers who have a symbiote in each of them that elevates them to cosmic level, but if the symbiote goes out of control, they lay waste to everything around with nuclear level devastation. It's happened once so far, and the player was fairly shell shocked, so I guess it got the reaction I was hoping for.)

Open to suggestions. Want a game system that scales from street to cosmic, so not asking for much :P

As for Fantasy RPGs, I haven't found anything that plays as well by post as Tunnels and Trolls does. You get a mountain of D6 for each side, roll, and highest side wins, difference is damage applied to losing side. There's a winner every round and combat flies along. D&D is the opposite - you have round by round and it can drag on into weeks if everyone is low level/crap and misses a lot. Without house ruling that (I use a mechanic that makes attacking a 1 roll process and use 2d10 instead of 1d20, with doubles exploding) I wouldn't see the game lasting long seeing as combat is a huge part of Basic D&D's 'kill em and nick their stuff' mentality. The problem with T&T is that fights resemble a big cloud with fists and feet jutting from them, Beano/Dandy style (for all the old farts on here like me who remember those comics as a kid).

I guess I'm just making sure that what I'm using is the best that's out there for play by post. If anyone has any suggestions for different systems to try I'm all ears.

Also, is there some kind of index for the free rpgs on here where you can cross reference the genre/system without having to trawl back through every page?

Thanks for any advice,

Paul

[Rob Lang]

My only experience of PBP is here using FOG or very story based gaming (with no combat). FOG doesn't really scale so I am not sure what to suggest. As for free RPGs by genre, check out my , there you can filter by tag - which include genre etc.

[apness]

Thanks for the link for the game listings - I'll have a trawl through and see what I can find.

Have played free form/interactive storytelling before (for a couple of years). It's fun, but i had a tendency to absolutely kick the snot out of my own character and have him stuck in a death trap of some kind. It would usually need one of the other players to dig him out of the holes I put him in. Though he was a super hero, he was second rate at best (as I modelled him on the original 'Wonder Man' - the one DC set their lawyers on and subsequently disappeared after one issue. he never had much luck in that so I figured I'd do him no favours in the game either, poor guy...)