My main group started our first campaign in January 2022, and it took three sessions for the scheduling Gods to start cursing us. After a couple of weeks without any session I suggested to go the play-by-post route, after all, any D&D is better than no D&D!

It's been a bit over two years now, playing by post, we have finished one campaign (Dragon of Icespire Peak), two one-shots and are approaching the end of the first part of the second campaign (Storm Lord's Wrath).

The dynamics have changed since we've started and I'll share the tools and techniques we use, alongside some screenshots for clarity.

Group Requirements

When we decided to make the move we had only one requirement, to be able to play using our mobile phones. If the tools could be used in the computer, better, but everyone was excited to be able to play on the go.

Well, as much as would also appreciate it, I'd rather play on my computer, since as you might know, digital GMs rely on at least a few tabs open on the browser, which can be a real pain on the phone. So that was a requirement for me, as the GM.

Finally, the whole point of moving to PbP was to be able to play asynchronously, whenever we had the time. No pressure to be online or to reply within a specific time window.

Tools

Gameplay & Chat: WhatsApp

We considered using Discord, but a couple of players would rather not installing a new chat application just for the game. Since we all use WhatsApp all the time, it was the logical choice.

After a few months having only one chat, it became quite noisy, it was hard for myself and the players understand what was going on between gameplay and general messages. Having two chats greatly improved the experience.

Maps: Owlbear Rodeo

Not only OBR has a great mobile support but it also maintains the state of the map regardless if the GM is online or not. This is really important for async play.

Sure, it will log the players off from time to time, and they need to request access, but that's no bother at all. I can login on my phone and let them in quick enough.

Finally, I opted to restrict the players interaction with the tokens, they are only allowed to use the drawing, shapes and ruler tools. This was a consequence of them trying to pan the map on their phones and accidentally moving stuff around.

Character Sheets & Encounters: D&D Beyond

DDB mobile support is pretty decent, no questions there. Sure thing it can be a bit daunting for new players, but character creation is excellent, as well as the character sheet usability.

As for its encounter tool, since I was running an adventure from WotC, it made my life a lot easier. Even though it is still in beta, it has a good set of features, but there are two things that I constantly miss:

• Adding "regular" monsters to an existing encounter. You can only add a "custom" participant, meaning that you won't have access to its stat block as the other monsters
• Being able to see the character sheets directly in the tool. Clicking on the characters don't give you any options, you need to keep another tab open for that

Alternative Tools

• Discord I suppose I don't have to make any introductions. If your players don't oppose it, there are a lot of other cool features and tools to integrate with, including Avrae, a bot that connects with DDB
• D&D Beyond Maps I will use it in an upcoming Curse of Strahd campaign, even though it will be online real-time I will see how it handles async play. But unless it becomes way better than OBR, I don't see myself doing the switch. Let's wait and see
• Improved Initiative The tool is free and comes with a bunch of monsters but if you subscribe to their Patreon you will have access to a browser extension that can import your DDB monsters, which sounds pretty neat. I might give it a go any of these days

General Dynamics

They aren't much different to a regular session: the GM describes stuff and the players make choices. With time your group will develop its own style, but I can share what ours looks like for inspiration.

• When I'm setting up a scene I try to add the parchment 📜 emoji
• We have an agreement of a "soft" initiative in every scene, to prevent a single player that happens to be online to dominate the interactions
• I try to reply to the characters messages directly so that it's clear to what I'm reacting to
• I also use emojis to catch their attention, like 🚨 ⚠️ ⚔️
• The players should use double quotes to indicate in-character messages

Other than above, good chat etiquette.

Agree on AFK and late replies behaviour

Given the nature of async play, time will come when people won't be able to play for a long period of time. It's a good idea to have an agreement on how to proceed in this case.

If the player knows they are going to be away for a while they usually let us know and says that the group can play on their behalf in case of a combat encounter. For social encounters we usually just ignore the character.

In the case of our group we have a player that lives in New Zealand, they usually defer the control of their character to the group when they're going to bed.

But sometimes the group isn't generally available and they would prefer to wait for the missing player.

We deal with late replies in a similar manner, we ping each other and if the person asks for the group to wait, we do. No hassle. 😊

Optionally your group might want to try using the following guidelines: Absent PC Guidelines Card

Example of Combat Encounter

Once I have the map in Owlbear Rodeo and the encounter properly setup in DDB, I start it and then ask them to roll initiative:

Then I wait for all of them to roll, I roll myself for the monsters and then start the combat. On the first round I usually sent the whole initiative order, tagging the current player:

From that point on each turn goes proceeds as follows.

The movement is usually described by drawing on the map (notice blue arrow) or using some point of reference.

Rasmiel says: I move to the point indicated by the blue arrow, to the right of TumTum (character name)

I make use of OBR's status rings for communicating damage, and token text so that the players can refer to them in their messages, like:

Rasmiel says: I attack Cultist C with my greatsword. HIT 18, DMG 9 Piercing.

For the attack I've started sharing the AC with them to avoid them having to wait for me to find out if they hit or not. I've also asked them to always include to hit/atk, dmg amount and type.

In order to also try to speed things up they also send alternative targets in case they kill the first one. I have been considering also sharing the monsters HP with the players to streamline this, but I'm not sure yet.

Finally, every one, myself included, should add "End turn" to indicate that their turn is done, and the next player should, ideally, wait for me to give them "go".

Notice above how one of the players highlighted that they needed some healing.

The gamechat is used in many ways, mostly to ask clarifying questions, discussing strategy, checking in with players that haven't replied in a while, etc. In the example below I had just checked in with a player that lives in New Zealand if they would be available to play or if the group should play on their behalf.

Caveats

Pulling the curtains a little bit

In order to streamline some aspects of the game, you might need to expose some information that otherwise most GMs keep it to themselves, like AC and HP.

In vs out-of character messages

Even when having two chats/channels the gameplay chat might still get noisy and by having a clear way to identify characters interacting vs player asking questions it's good to agree on how to do it.

For us the easiest way was to always use "double quotes" for characters interactions.

Be mindful of reading and writing skills

In the same way that some players struggle to visualise things in their heads when playing at regular tables, you might find out that some players, and maybe even yourself, might struggle with both expressing and understanding ideas via text.

I got really frustrated a few times during our first campaign, when some players wouldn't comprehend the texts I had sent, after I had put so much attention and details to it! It took me some time to realise that most of the time when this happens it isn't neither on them or on me. It's just the way things go.

Trying to be inclusive and sensible can be challenging, but try to be open about it and get input from your players.

Ask the players to openly discuss strategies

Something that took a long time for us to get right was to enable me to help the players better understand the situation at hand.

After a while the players crated a separate group without the GM for them to strategise. I suppose this is a common behaviour even in realtime/in-person groups, when the GM could have the opportunity to clarify things but isn't able to. And then the players spent time and effort only to learn "sorry, but you can't do that, you're at the base of the mountain, not on the ledge".

Be clear about the risks of excluding the GM from this type of discussions.