I've been struggling for MONTHS to get an illustrator to do a few location pictures for me to use in the game - Finding an artist to draw you a picture of an Orc for D&D or your favourite mediaeval character is easy for 10 or 20 dollars, but finding an artoist who can draw a location is really tricky. 

With this in mind, I've started using my own photographs of places that have inspired locations in The Isles - here are The Three Men, a line of cairns just outside Tower Village near where players in The Isles are currently starting

Attached Files

  Three Men WinterSML.png (Size: 240.68 KB / Downloads: 8)

There's been a lot of quiet around here, of late. I just wanted to take a moment out to thank everyone who participated in making this possible.

Now, if you've got all of that silence out of your system, how about joining in on the posting end of things? That way, whenever others visit the forum, they will have something new to encounter, which will also better tempt them into participating in the forums with postings and replies of their own.

The compiling of Issue #19 is progressing, albeit a bit slower than I would prefer. PBM gamers are hoarding their memories, it seems.

GASP!!

Help me out, people. Find something within you to say, something to talk about, and especially if it PBM-related. The magazine and the forum feed off of one another. Surely, you're not completely talked out, already?

You can't build the future of play by mail on silence, you know. Just imagine a PBM universe where no one participates. Is that what you want?

Of course not!

Besides, it's not like there's nothing good in the works. We're gonna try organizing a few PBM games, as 2020 approaches ever closer. Energy is building - in the PlayByMail.Net Facebook page, for example. PBM is being talked about a bit more, now. We need YOU to be a catalyst for positive PBM change!

Dare to enter the PBM fray!

Anyone here know how to get the Thunderbird email client program to work with Google News Groups?

I'm not doing something right - either that, or I can't use it to download postings to a newsgroup.

There are players accumulating that are interested in playing a rapid-turnaround Galac-Tac game with only two days between turns.  This means that if a turn comes out on a Monday morning then the due date is Tuesday night and the next turn comes out again on Wednesday morning.  This pace is certainly reasonable in terms of how long it takes to write up a turn (typically about an hour), but that steady pace over weeks and months can be difficult to maintain for some.  OTOH, it means the game can reach a conclusion much sooner (calendar-wise) than a 1-week or 2-week game.

If you're interested in this level of rapid-fire action, feel free to drop on over to Talisman Games and get signed up so we can get this game started for those folks.

Heres a sample turn for The Isles so people know what they get as a turn result sheet

Attached Files

  TSCompleteMNT.PNG (Size: 239.53 KB / Downloads: 12)

I've attached a Map of one of the small settlements in the woods close to the main Town where players in The Isles start.

Know as the Doxy Pool, it is a small Garrison tasked with protecting the Miners who work in the Quarrys and Mines within the woods. The pool is fed by a waterfall - The pool itself empties through a steep drop beneath the Broch which itself sits on an island in the Pool

Attached Files

  Doxy PoolTNY.png (Size: 428.23 KB / Downloads: 12)

So, IIRC, back in the 1980s, the ads for this game used to talk about it being set in the 21st century.

My question for players of this game is: does it still have a futuristic feel? (Would you call it a sci-fi game?) Or is it just about gangsters and gangs in New York?

So, Issue #18 gets published, and released to an unwaiting world. A handful of the PBM faithful rejoice. Then what?

Then, I buy software to keep things moving forward, that future issues might then fall into place with timely regularity. Then, the computer that I'm currently using (my son's) decides to begin acting up.

It works fine - in my wife's Windows account on it. When I try to use it in my account - No cigar, buster!

So, no big deal, right? I'll just use my wife's account, and just carry on like nothing ever happened.

Wrong, again!

Say what?!

I'm guessing that it may just be some corrupted files, so I'll just start the computer in Windows Safe Mode. Easy enough, right?

Oh, not at all! Not in Windows 10.

Thus, I will continue to tinker with it. If need be, then I will just get a new computer, and resolve it that way, or take it in for repair, and let someone with a bit more techno-genius tackle the problem.

And here you thought that the life of a PBM magazine editor was all play and no fun. Tsk, tsk, tsk. . .

At the very worst, I lose everything, and simply start from scratch. For some reason, though, I just don't like doing that. I'm not really mad about it. It's just annoying - frustrating, as old folks used to call it.

I'm glad I'm not one of them.

. . .ahem. . .

Oh, no, I have too many plans, way too many plans, for a computer malfunction to kamikaze its way onto the flight deck of the USS PBM. After all, we're at war, baby!

Just my resolve being tested, I suppose. Assuming, of course (and assuming is a really bad habit to get into, even on the very best of days), that there's even something "out there" testing my resolve "in here," inside the whatever it is that's inside of me that is the area where one's resolve gets tested. So, is it an external thing or an internal thing, or some combination of the two, I wonder.

Not that any of that matters. It really doesn't.

We've gotten this far, so as I see things from my perspective up on Resolve Hill, we'll just keep on moving forward, right through it all.

For now, we will, anyway.

The submission deadline for Issue #19 is September 10th, 2019, but the publication deadline is September 30th, 2019, so we've got a month to get it all sorted out. Grab a bucket and start bailing, is all that I can say!

Besides, it will be sometime in 2020, most likely, before one of the major phases of this overall operation will be launched.

Then again, one man's major is another man's minor, and vice versa, I suppose.

After all, if they won't come willingly, then we'll just have to bombard them into submission, huh? But, what does that even mean?

Rest assured, I know what it means, and for now, that will have to suffice. What should matter to you is that operational planning now extends into the year 2020.

PBM - It's gonna be a grind!

Hi everyone,



Norfolk Warriors Final Beta registration will be opening to the general public on Sept 6.



The registration forms are now available to all members of the project's Facebook Group and Discord server.  I'm also opening up early registration to members of this PBM group.

I am going to allow only a limited number of beta testers, so if you want to be a part of it, I suggest joining before everyone has access to register.


https://forms.gle/y2LJn16BHjSFEtRaA


Cheers,

Paul

It is my intention to begin authoring a series of articles on different games. I won't be able to write them all for every issue, and some will come before others, but the first three games that will be featured in this series of articles will be one of the following:

Galac-Tac (by Talisman Games)
DungeonWorld (by Madhouse UK)
PhoenixBSE (by KJC Games)

I suspect that the learning curve for PhoenixBSE will be the biggest of the bunch, and so my inclination is to tackle it third, for article purposes. It really is a toss-up between Galac-Tac and DungeonWorld, as to which is most likely to be featured in the first article in this series. The intention is to eventually have multiple series on different games going in future issues of Suspense & Decision magazine, simultaneously. Now, whether it ultimately works out that way or not is anybody's guess, really.

Let it never be said, though, that I never tried.