We've done forum RP a few times. It's always worked pretty well at first, IMO, but ultimately degenerated. I think this is an awesome community to do it with, but there are inevitably a number of problems that arise. If anyone is interested in reviving it, I'll list all of the problems we've encountered and we can talk about what may/may not alleviate those problems.

-The DM: I've often bit off too much for me to chew. As the only DM, there's just too much for me to handle and everyone kinda has to sit back and wait for me. We were doing one in August that broke down because I had just gotten married, we were house hunting, etc. so there was no time for me to keep it going. Sometimes I have plenty of time, but other times, not so much. And I really hate to leave people hanging.

-Character sheets: they're integral to most RP but we haven't found a great way of storing them. Again, if you leave it up to one guy, then you're waiting on him every time to update them. I've thought of hosting them on the GOG forums themselves, where everyone makes their own sheet and edits it on GOG as time goes on. This leaves open the possibility for some to edit their sheets in less than desirable ways, though. How can "inventories" and skills be managed? Also, there's no "signatures" on the forum, so there's no easy way to link to your character sheet so that everyone knows what's going on.

-System: the system probably has to be free, because I'm not sure how many posters will be involved if it isn't free. Additionally, many systems don't work too well on the forums, let alone without a built-in forum diceroller. We've done homebrew more often than not, but homebrew is homebrew for a reason if you know what I mean. It's really tricky to make it simple enough to jump in whenever you want while still providing intriguing character development options.

-World-building. how do we create and manage the world created by the RP? Who manages it and how?

-Time issues: we've sometimes been waiting a day, a week or more for a character to make a post. Sometimes they have dropped out mid-adventure. How can this be handled? Much like me as DM, a lot of PCs have wanted to do this, but then they suddenly have something come up and don't have time any more. Then that event in their life is over, and they have more time again. Basically the problem is time commitment. It would be easier if people were able to come and go as they please without hurting the RP.



So there's some of the problems that we have experienced. Any thoughts on whether some of those issues could be fixed? Or maybe they can't be fixed and we should we give up the idea of forum RP on GOG altogether?

I'll share one thought: in one of the RPs, we had a tavern thread where PCs could post as little or as often as they liked. But I did do some DMing there with the bartenders, barmaids, etc. I think a better idea would be to have such a thread, but have it be free-form, no DMing, just PCs interacting with each other. That would mean no time commitment on PCs part, no time commitment on my part, and thread could evolve and change a bit on its own without requiring anyone in particular to monitor it. That might be a good jumping off point.

As to handling a system, character sheets, world-building, I don't know for sure.

Any thoughts?

I believe there is a site called roll20 - or something similar. You should check them out.
The guys I use to play with and I were looking at it last year as a way to play again. It is free (iirc) has its own built in character sheets / models / way points and you can either single DM or multi (again iirc).

At the moment I am looking to finish this years Uni then continue trying to get us back playing together. After 3 years? It will be like playing for the first time all over again.

http://roll20.net/ If you are worried about peoples time commitments then you can always set the story as drop in / out tavern style missions. As adventurers travel to your land they see a poster with a "help wanted" poster then they meet up to fight a single session dungeon that can have leads into a wider story ark which, so long as you can keep a basic write up of the last adventure it can tide players over when they miss a week or two.
The biggest problem then is home-brew character set ups being handled as people come and go needing to be leveled.

Definitely, thanks for the thoughts.

Right now, I'm thinking that RISUS would be the best answer.

I have participated, DMed, and lurked a few forum RPs so here are some ideas that might help.

DM woes: I've seen three ways to fix this. 1) Simply have multiple DMs that are managing different groups of people. One DM per 5-6 people tends to work well, the downside is the DMs have to work with each other behind the scenes which can be more work. Another way to do multiple DMs is delegation. For instance have one person handle worldbuilding, one handle actual interactions with the players, one handle significant npcs (this is especially useful if a player knows they only want to play for a few days), etc. 2) Have round robin DMs, where each DM takes certain days, or a week at a time. Both of these methods help prevent DM-fatigue, although they can cause complications in consistency. 3) Simply make sure to have a few backups who can spot the main DM if a break is needed. Multiple backups are good, as the backups might also have things going down at the same time.

Character sheets: Have one of the opening posts reserved for links to character sheets. Have people update and upload their own character sheets, although the DM should also keep personal copies. Trusting the players not to cheat is no different than trusting the players not to fudge stats and cheat in pen and paper games. I recommend Dropbox, GoogleDocs, etc.

System: Eh, sorry, no advice here. I've seen successful runs using DnD 3.5, Pathfinder, WarHammer 40K, DnD 4.0, and the craziest wackiest homebrews imaginable. I've seen runs done with no dice-rolling at all, and everything just running on common sense. I've also seen catastrophes in every system that was successful before. The best DMs I've seen were flexible, patient, and decisive. Flexible in regards to working with crazy player ideas and filling in where the rules run out; decisive in being able to say this is the decision and here's why, or simply this is the call, let's move on.

World-building: With one exception*, the best runs I've been in are where the DM has a solid concept of the world already established, and the players were simply jumping in to the timeline and the story went from there. Other than that, make sure to post summaries of what has happened every few pages or every few days so everyone can catch up. I was in a Cyberpunk run where on every 7 (so thread page 7, 17, 27, etc) the DM posted fake newsfeed articles summarizing major player events (Breaking News: The Death Talons broke into StyTech labs and assassinated CEO Lynch Carlton the Third). This also let the DM tell the players other major things happening in the game world, which worked really well for providing story-hooks (countries invading, major house fires, data-theft from corporations, etc).
*The one exception was a truly crazy run of a bunch of new gods working together/against each other to create a world. That was neat.

Time Issues for Players: Best I've seen, have a specific time where actions need to be posted by. Every three hours, every day, every week, whatever works for the DM and the players. In direct combat, have a wait time of 15 min or 30 min or an hour. If they miss their slot, then the character simply doesn't take described action. In a fight it could be because they are hiding or concussed. If a person misses a day, they could have just wandered off and couldn't find the party until they tracked them down. Let the player say what happened to their character to avoid god-moding, to the DM and other players they simply aren't there (Where's Virtuous Dave? I don't know should we wait? Let's see if we can find him/Let's hope he makes it to the rendezvous spot. Where's Deceiving Jeff? Probably hiding in a corner somewhere, cmon let's go). It works really well as long as everyone knows the rules going in. I recommend bolded and in one of the opening posts.

For long absences: Run with it. If a player has to drop out, let them and work it in. As 011284mm said strung together pick-up missions are a good way to manage this. Plan that every mission is going to run for a shorter time and let folk jump in and out as needed. Stringing together complete contained missions works just as well as one cohesive campaign. Also nice for anyone who wants to play a different character. What I meant by work with it, is if a player needs to leave mid mission it works to have a quick excuse; they need to peel off because they got word by courier that they were needed urgently elsewhere (their uncle had just been assassinated, their farm burned down, a noble requested their assistance), or they simply wandered off, or they got injured and needed to recover, or just wanted to settle down in a town somewhere, etc. Giving a plot out works because then if that character comes back they have a nice platform to build from. They rebuilt their farm, solved their uncle's murder, are no longer welcomed at such and such court, found a new hidden temple, healed up, learned a new skill, painted a beautiful work of art, are now a caravan-guard and friendly with the merchant guild, etc. I found this worked best by asking the players to come up with three to five possible excuses at the beginning, that way if they couldn't post for over a week I would just automatically use one of the excuses. It also helped solidify some of the character concepts before the ball got rolling.

I have wanted an RP here for some time, and it always either fails or no one ever responds. I am so in for this.

I've got some stuff I'm working on here. I'll send you a link when I'm finished. Great info.

Thank you very much.