PBM Games Alive and Kickin

[derv]

I stumbled upon this post on greyhawkgrognard. Apparently there is still interest and an active community of PBM gamers. I have to say this really takes me back to the early days of paging through Dragon Magazine and seeing adds that had various campaigns being played through the mail.

There's a new epub zine that GHG links to that may be of interest to some. It's located here: Suspense & Decision

Something should be said for the slow pace of a turn based game that you can participate in once a month (or how ever they have them set up). It's something to look forward to in the mail, besides bills In a world of instant gratification, there still resides those who prefer delayed rewards and have the patience of waiting for snail mail.

Another zine that's worth looking at and UK based is Flagship This started as a PBM publication and branched into broader gaming material. At last, the archive seems to have ended with issue 130 in 2010. Though, the editorial mentions FBI's 40th anniversary of running it's Starweb PBM game. Also of interest is issue 110, that has an article on 30 yrs of D&D. Here we are at the anniversary once again 10 years later.

Even if PBM holds no interest to you, the articles and material are entertaining from a historical/reflective viewpoint. Worth checking out.

[danhem]

It is surprising that they are still going, but it is the good ones that have survived. There used to be so many advertised, but most of them never got going. I recall an editorial in Dragon discussing that problem. It was pretty similar to the current list of Kickstarter RPG projects that have turned into disasters (no, I'm not counting dT&T as one of these).

I played FBI's Heroic Fantasy and Reality Simulation's Hyborian Wars, both of which are still running and were really fun. The cost per turn does add up unfortunately. With so many other free options out there in the play-by-post world I'm sure that they are tough business to keep going.

I actually think the Heroic Fantasy rules set would make for a great play-by-post game or even a mini "Dungeon!" style game with a random, computer generated maze.

[zanshin]

The longtime editor of Flagship, Nicholas Palmer, wrote the seminal book 'The Comprehensive guide to Board Wargaming' which was one of the best guides to hex style board games published. I still treasure my copy.

[kwll]

Thanks for the link, this brought back some good memories. These kinds of games were popular enough in the 80's to grant a few french translations. I remember playing the french version of Duelmasters, and a fantasy game called Quest. The former changed name but seems to be still active, but I have found no trace of the later.

It seems that the current games are very sophisticated for some, and try to use this century technology to stay relevant. It is true that they have something different to offer, but they are still expensive... My take is that it really mostly makes sense if you are playing some kind of Diplomacy game, because character interactions between games makes the richness of the experience.

I am a big turn based (mostly space and fantasy) 4X games fan, so I might be tempted to try. There seems to be pretty tempting offerings around like Phoenix or Alamaze, or even Middle Earth.

So many games, so little time...

[derv]

I think I might want to give one of these games a try. As I read about them, it seems they really span the gamit of how they're played and what type of output you get with a turn. Some games are entirely computer generated and moderated. Some are compiled and translated into a narrative by hand. Some seem to have a "Diplomacy" type method and others are more like a RPG.

FBI's Heroic Fantasy might be fun. It looks like it takes it's lead from T&T. But, what do you get with a turn? Do you get a story line to follow as your party investigates the different levels of a maze? Then you give "commands" that are fed into a computer program? I'm still a little unclear on how these games work.

I think I would be most interested in a PBM game that generates a narrative in a fantasy setting, where you run a character or party who has to make decisions as they travel. The PlayByMail forum mentioned a game called Xott that sounded interesting and seemed to follow this idea.

It is true that all of these PBM games can get expensive. But they do seem to be a nice diversion. Considering, most people spend the equivalent to the cost of a turn each morning when they buy coffee.

[Aramis of Erak]

A few human moderated ones were successful ruleset products - two come to mind...

Lords of Space - probably sold more copies due to the binder art than due to the game, tho' the game's not bad as a 4X.

En Garde! - Originally intended as a FTF almost-an-RPG... and still available dead tree.

[kwll]

With regards to human moderated PBM games, there was a game advertised here (and by KSA himself) which was planning to do just that: Ilkor. For some reason, the site disappeared, and all reference to it ends in 2012. I was only able to retrieve the company site. Anyone knows what happened?