Successful methods for play-by-post RPG

[RogerBW]

@Scribbs

Think about mechanisms to tackle players dropping out. The GPC that I’m playing in has had nine different players over three years. The setting of a quest each year easily facilitates players coming and going. Far better to have PCs as key members of a large company than a group of individuals in out on their own. Star Trek’s bridge crew rather than Firefly’s ragged band. Also think about the game structure. Something episodic again works very well to allow a changing of the guard with players.

Looking at this makes me think “but hang on, what about a campaign that’s basically ‘the story of this particular ship’?” Let’s say it’s a Traveller/Firefly-type setting, and finagle the economics so that the PCs don’t have to pay for the ship; then new PCs join, and old PCs leave, but the story of the ship goes on.