open-pbp

An open roleplay gaming system for Play-by-Post sessions

why

After years of frustration with finding time to commit to organized, in-person play, I've decided what the gaming world needs is a modern solution for supporting post-by-play (PBP) sessions. Participants play when they can.

who

For now, this "engine" will go with the standard practice of having (at least one) gamemaster (GM) and at least two players.

what

Some features that I aspire to:

• Agnostic gameplay. Bring your own role playing game system. Open PBP makes few assumptions.
• Tools, not rules. No vendor-specific rules are implemented. Open PBP provides only the tools to automate and coordinate post-by-play gaming.
• Campaign and scenario-driven, text-based gameplay. One of the features I want to implement is clear distinction between in-character discussion and out-of-character discussion.
• Automatic post-session archival. The game organizes your sessions in a easy-to-read format that's searchable and entertaining to read. Has it been awhile since the last session? A synopsis of what happened last time will help jog everyone's memory. Long after the game is over, all participants are left with a wondeful story that they created together.
• Dice rolling. Extensible and customizable dice mechanics, using your rules for determining outcome. Each participant can have their own dice pool. The gamemaster can make reusable dice pools to share with players.
• Document sharing for handouts, like maps and game notes.
• Character sheets. But better: Track transient character experience, statistics, equipment and supplies, and other essential bookkeeping.
• Notifications. When the gaming session is waiting for input to move the plot along, participants get brief notifications to alert them that the game is waiting.

join me

I wouldn't mind a hand with this. I usually fail when I take on ambitious projects by myself.

tech stack

Intentionally minimalist, to avoid upgrade churn, popular with so-called "modern" frameworks.

• HTML, JavaScript and CSS.
• HTMX (in protest to aforementioned frameworks).
• NodeJS
• Mojo.js (again, in protest to the proliferation of redundant, overlapping frameworks)