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If storytelling is weaving events together, how does play-by-post stitch separate replies together?

Welcome to part 2 of this series on play-by-post design. In this installment, I aim to trace four core concepts that I strongly believe form the foundation for understanding and designing better play-by-post experiences.

When people outside my usual circles ask about my hobbies, I often explain play-by-post roleplay as collaborative writing events where I speak with a few online friends to weave an overarching story together. While it’s not a new rephrasing, I’ve realized that stretching the weaving analogy makes it a lot easier to explain certain concepts vital to clarifying how play-by-post operates.

I’d like to preface that I don’t claim to have invented any of these terms. I can no longer recall where and when I first encountered these terms. In fact, these are adaptations of terminology I’ve read in old forgotten forums and chatrooms, which led me to believe that many of us may already be familiar with these concepts in broad strokes but may not have had the words to express them.

Synchronization: Tying Up Connection Points

Before a weaver can start, they must tie up the loom. Each cord and knot determines how the threads will rise and fall, ensuring smooth and predictable movement. Without tying up, the result would be a tangle of confusion since nothing was properly aligned.

Synchronization refers to the process of aligning each participant’s perception of the fiction to match the most recent developments. It is how we allow everyone to move in step with the unfolding story. A player’s synchronization with the fiction is a spectrum, which can range from complete understanding of the entire space to being utterly lost in the narrative.

Understanding this spectrum enables us to talk about synchronization points. These are the key moments where everyone pauses and realigns their sense of what is happening in the story. And that’s one of the key secrets to great play-by-post games: they are not made by talented individuals but by groups who know how to move together. If a group can stay synchronized, it means fewer retcons, less backtracking, and a lot more momentum to keep the story moving forward.

In general, the more complex the narrative, the more vital these synchronization points become. If the play-by-post sprawls across worlds, timelines, or dozens of active participants, the risk of losing the thread grows greater.

I’ve witnessed many different approaches to synchronization, tailored to different communities. In games with sprawling worlds and kingdoms, gazettes and in-character news bulletins were lifelines. A well-written summary of “last season’s events” does a lot to refresh the world, sometimes even inviting new or returning writers to come back into the fold.

For more immediate, tightly knit groups like Lacie’s Box, we lean on brief summaries and recaps. After everyone writes their multi-paragraph replies, we often put a combat summary at the end. In a short D&D play-by-post campaign I ran years ago, one player stepped up and posted a bulleted timeline after every round. Here’s who struck whom, what spells were cast, and where everyone stands now.

Sometimes, the best synchronization strategy is simply to open an out-of-character (OOC) conversation somewhere. You can use Discord, Facebook DMs, text messages, a dedicated OOC space, or even make a quick call. All of those methods can allow for quicker real-time clarifications. That said, if the space is a group full of strangers, you need to set some ground rules on OOC communication.

I wouldn’t say there is a definite best strategy, but I invite you to reflect. Where are your synchronization points? How do you know when everyone is on the same page, and what do you do when they’re not? Like a weaver checking their tie-ups before every new project, we must keep revisiting how we synchronize our play-by-post games. Perhaps a new strategy could tighten the weave.

Liquid Time: The Stretching of Narrative Threads

Sometimes the threads stretch willingly, flexing between the steady lines. Sometimes, it snaps back, resisting pressure. A practiced weaver eventually learns the subtle flexibility and elasticity of their thread. For play-by-post storytelling, we encounter a similar phenomenon of stretching and pulling time itself, letting narrative moments stretch or contract to fit our needs, and smoothing out the wrinkles of asynchronous play.

Liquid time refers to the tendency for time within a thread, scene, or reply to be bent so it can fit the story in a convenient manner, much like how water takes the shape of its container. If a reply is longer than expected, time can be condensed to align with the others. Conversely, a brief reply can be expanded to ensure it fits more cohesively within the narrative.

Nowhere else makes it more apparent that talking is a free action. Replies aren’t being spoken or performed in linear time. They are read. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. It depends a lot on the length, writing style, play culture, and the reader’s own pace. In a live game, we still take turns talking, but playtime is limited, so people tend to be more cognizant of time (but not always). In almost all play-by-posts, time in the fictional world is dictated by the narrative’s needs and the player’s styles.

Freeform roleplayers may be very acutely aware of this phenomenon. However, this is not only about duration. This tendency happens even in games that rigidly enforce round times, such as with D&D’s 6-second turns. Even with groups that uphold word counts and action limits, liquid time seeps in. Some might write a brief action, while some might cram it with a flurry of 4 consecutive attacks, complete with dialogue. The collective sense of “when” and “how long” becomes a negotiation at the play space.

It is very important to know how liquid time will affect the cohesion of your games. This elasticity can become jarring, especially when players have different styles. A multi-paragraph reply might make it feel like a significant amount of time has passed, while a single-sentence reply can feel like it happened in a heartbeat. There is pressure from both sides to equalize in some manner for the pacing to make sense.

Design-wise, liquid time offers a surprising amount of flexibility when it comes to timing.

One of my favorite moments as a moderator in a Lacie’s Box roleplay was in the Louvainian Affair, synchronizing six different threads that had different reply speeds. The scenario was that six different groups were on the same train, trying to do different things. One group was already two rounds in while the others were still on their first round. Therefore, we let that group’s two rounds synchronize with the end of the others’ first round of replies. Despite the pacing differences, we managed to synchronize everyone in the scenario in one simple step.

You can play a lot more with liquid time. Imagine having two threads running at different speeds. You can have a fast-paced duel and a slower strategic council meeting. By treating time as liquid, you can let the duel determine when players can interrupt the council meeting.

Recognizing liquid time allows us to design and play more intentionally. We can leverage its flexibility to keep scenes moving, to account for different writing lengths and speeds, and to align separate threads without breaking immersion.

Liquid time is always there in some shape or form, so when returning to your games, consider how tight you want the strings of time to be. Again, the best approach depends on the game you want it to be. If you have no strong inclinations, you can feel for the stretch and trust your sense of where to hasten and slow down time in your head. For games that want a very specific pace, usually the faster-paced play-by-posts, the biggest factors I’ve seen that tightened liquid time were word limits, action restrictions, and deadlines. When you have a set amount of time, players tend to stay within that reference point.

Anticipation: Drafting Patterns in Replies

One of the few universal rules in play-by-post games is simple: write what your character attempts, not that they’ve already succeeded. It’s also more commonly known as “No Godmodding.” Instead of replying that you blocked an attack, you reply that you attempted to raise your shield to block in time. This distinction matters because it creates room for others to respond and for the game master (or whoever is appropriate) to adjudicate the situation.

In live tabletop games, someone might shout, “Not so fast!” and instantly reverse the situation with a counterspell. The group processes the outcome in real time. But in play-by-post, that immediacy evaporates. Replies unfold in their own time, shaped by reply speeds, group culture, and how the system works.

So how do you keep the flow moving without asking for confirmation every time? How do you account for complex sequences where actions depend on multiple possible outcomes?

The natural answer is to respond in a way where you’re already anticipating multiple probable scenarios or outcomes. Just as each row of threads influences what comes next, players often weave little “if-then” patterns so that they can lay out their intentions and expectations without prematurely resolving them. Anticipation is the process of responding to future possibilities. “If this happens, then my character does this.”

You’ve probably seen, or even written, something like this yourself. An example is, “If the enemy lunges, my character sidesteps and counterattacks, and if not, she keeps her wary stance,” or “I peek through the window and jump in if the room’s empty.” It can also manifest as, “I’ll spend a Ki point to make four attacks on the ogre and redirect any excess attacks to the other ogre,” or, “After that, I’ll monitor the sorcerer, ready to counterspell in case they hurl a fireball at us.”

The main benefit is that it keeps the game flowing and eliminates delays for clarification or permission. If the stated condition isn’t met, everyone can simply disregard the anticipatory statement. However, if it is met, the next response can immediately build upon your action. This approach also enables players to support each other without needing to coordinate. Coordination often requires time for discussion and planning, which can disrupt the momentum of the scene. By anticipating how others will act and placing trust in your fellow players, you can reduce the pressure for frequent communication.

It’s not just a tool for players either. As a game master, if I know that certain players or characters have predictable tendencies or if the group has a standard operating procedure of some kind, I can already process and give it to them so that we can save time. I know there are OSR play-by-post groups where, as soon as the group enters a new room, the game master already rolls investigation and looting rolls for the group and posts the results so they don’t need to declare that they search for traps and valuables.

However, the more anticipation is layered and chained, especially with multiple players setting up conditional actions, the more complicated it becomes to untangle the narrative thread. If everyone is waiting on someone else’s “if,” then the flow can get knotted, and intervention is needed to get the game moving again.

The impact and necessity of anticipation depend a lot on the type of game you’re playing. In faster and snappier games where each reply covers a single discrete action, anticipation may not even be needed. But for slower, chunkier games — where players write longer replies, take longer to write, or where actions are resolved in larger blocks — anticipatory writing becomes a necessary tool.

This practice is also a group preference. I know several groups that prefer a simple and clear narrative thread, while others have embraced anticipatory writing as a prompt for their characters’ mental states.

The presence of anticipation in gameplay is influenced by the game’s system and pace. For instance, systems like D&D may necessitate anticipatory writing or require significant adjustments to accommodate the multiple actions players can execute in a single round. Meanwhile, faster-paced games might not need anticipation, as clarifications can be addressed promptly. Slower-paced games, such as those played weekly, often encourage discussions aimed at maximizing the effectiveness of each response.

Parallel Timelines: A Patchwork of Stories

After stretching and weaving all the replies together in a single narrative fabric, you get this beautiful patchwork quilt of stories. The result is, in my personal opinion, the magic of play-by-post games. There are very few mediums where it feels natural to tell stories that break free from linear time, where you can let the past, present, and future interweave.

A play-by-post game allows for the progression of events in parallel timelines, even when they occur months or years apart. Players might dip into flashbacks or maybe leap ahead to indicate something, a foreboding element. Sometimes, a thread started in the real-life present may actually be set earlier in the narrative, and the knowledge from the in-universe present can be used to shape interaction in that thread as a way to lean into tragedy or recontextualize moments.

I’ve seen this phenomenon most clearly with Blades in the Dark play-by-post games. Some players used the flashback mechanic, where they could set actions from the past, so they could reference the previous flashbacks of their fellow players. They were roleplaying scenes set in the past while simultaneously committing the heist in the present.

This parallelization of interactions is not possible in live games.

The concept isn’t limited to just that system. In D&D games, attacks from martial classes often unfold like parallel scenes, provided the setup isn’t restricted to one discrete action at a time. These actions can then be woven together into a single flurry once resolved. In Lacie’s Box, we experimented with flashforwards due to several players having a heavy backlog of threads. This technique allowed us to foreshadow future scenes in the past and reference earlier replies within the narrative present, even if those responses were posted just yesterday.

Parallel timelines offer a flexibility that is both a blessing and a challenge to navigate. On one hand, it allows us to spend more time with our characters, filling in the gaps and exploring consequences after the event. On the other hand, it really can be difficult to maintain coherence. After all, a character’s past self shouldn’t act or be placed in a situation that contradicts their present self.

That is where retroactive rationalization comes into play. Retroactive rationalization is the process of creating new explanations or justifications for a character’s past choices after those events have already unfolded in the narrative. It typically occurs when a player realizes that their earlier decisions or story elements no longer align with the new developments, character motivations, or general expectations of the group. Instead of resorting to retconning or rewriting what has already been established, the player constructs a rationale to make those earlier actions seem intentional and consistent with the current storyline.

But with freedom comes risk. This technique is not something to embrace lightly, and it requires careful consideration. The main challenge lies in navigating the game if there are no strong centralized synchronization points. When there are too many potential time paradoxes, it can become overwhelming and confusing to keep track of all the events. Additionally, the unrestricted flow of information can lead to issues like cheating or inaccuracies in games that rely on information gathering, such as mysteries or political thrillers.

The potential chaos it invites raises important questions regarding its limits. Is changing a motive or providing information to aid players’ progress considered cheating? How many threads can a player manage simultaneously, and what is their duration? Are flashbacks permitted, and if so, how far back can they reach? Can other players be included in these flashbacks? How should the group address any paradoxes that may arise? These are the questions each group must address on their own.

An Unfinished Tapestry

If storytelling is the art of weaving events together, then play-by-post design is the craft of stitching countless, individual threads, replies, and perspectives into an evolving tapestry. There is a beauty (and challenge) in how play-by-post games invite us to break from the straight path. We are not limited to the linear flow of time, but rather we are co-weavers of the narrative, sometimes picking up where another left off a long time ago, sometimes patching holes in the past, and sometimes sketching out a design for the future.

A tapestry’s strength is in its weavers’ care and creativity, not just the tightness of its weave. Whether your group is synchronizing through gazette summaries, dilating time to fit the pace, anticipating each other’s moves to keep action flowing, or exploring parallel timelines to add depth and dimension, you are all practicing the quiet art of communal creation.

As you finish reading this article, I encourage you to reflect on your tools and techniques. Where do you pause to resynchronize the fiction? How do you let time stretch or snap to serve the story? How do you handle threads that loop backward or forward in time? And perhaps most importantly, how do you support one another, your fellow players and co-weavers, so that your collective narrative holds strong, even when the pattern grows more complex?

Now that we have covered the fundamentals, I believe we have finally acquired the vocabulary needed to discuss play-by-post systems in a way that accommodates the diverse cultures and mediums across the community. In my next post, I plan to tackle a more practical topic: exploring the factors that affect a system’s adaptability for play-by-post games and sharing various techniques I have encountered for modifying these systems.

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you learned something today. If you have any questions, please let me know. I’d love to discuss play-by-post design and theory with other people.

May you be well.

In case you haven’t read it:

In Part 1, I discussed the unspoken mechanisms and challenges of play-by-post gaming, particularly focusing on the difficulties associated with cross-cultural discussions, the fragility of the magic circle, and the unique role that time plays in our games.

In Part 2, I discussed four essential concepts related to play-by-posts: synchronization, liquid time, anticipation, and parallel timelines.

For Part 3, I plan to explore the factors that contribute to a system’s adaptability for play-by-post games, as well as various techniques I have encountered for modifying these systems.

Interested in learning or discussing more about play-by-post design? Feel free to contact us at [email protected].

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