Happy new year!

In Issue #29 of PBM Chaos, I listed 10 PBM resolutions for the new year, and no comes my attempt to place them into some kind of order, as I speculate aloud which of the bunch that I think will be the most likely to pull off, versus the ones that will likely prove to be the greatest challenges to accomplish. Rather than think small, though, I decided to put myself out onto a limb (out onto ten different limbs, actually), and not just craft a list of easy-peasey resolutions, just to say that I wrote an article.

Now, without further ado, here is my attempt to place them into order, from most likely to be accomplished at the, extending all of the way to what I think will be the least likely or hardest to accomplish. In suspect that more than one of them will likely yield some success, but perhaps not end up being 100% successful.

Resolution #9
To continue publishing PBM Chaos.

Resolution #6
To play a multiplayer game of Galac-Tac.

Resolution #1
To give TribeNet a try.

Resolution #8
To breathe life into the old PBM forum.

Resolution #2
To complete the PBM Rulebook Library.

Resolution #3
To revamp The Hyborian Tome website.

Resolution #4
To create a PBM Gateway.

Resolution #7
To create a PBM Network to better facilitate growth of the overall PBM player base.

Resolution #10
To establish a cadre or corps of die-hard PBM gamers, in order to act as a force multiplier in and across the PBM sphere.

Resolution #5
To double the size of the Play By Mail subscriber base.


I'm already publishing PBM Chaos, so continuing to publish more issues of PBM Chaos shouldn't prove to be unduly difficult, though the frequency at which issues of it publish will likely vary - but that's always since its beginning been chalked up as part of the chaos that inheres in PBM Chaos. Publishing issues of PBM Chaos can - and does - get time-consuming, at times, but it's not actually hard or difficult, per se. Chances of Resolution #9 proving to be a success are likely 100%, barring health issues, death, or real world issues imposing themselves upon me.

Resolutions #6 and #1 are already in progress, though certainly still at the beginning of the process to make them turn into reality. I've already signed up for both TribeNet and Galac-Tac. I still have yet to issued my first set of turn orders for each. I have, however, played dozens of turns of Galac-Tac in solo games against computer-controlled opponents, but I've already fiddled with Galac-Tac's game interface and issuing orders a pretty good bit. TribeNet, I'm really just at the very start of trying to learn and get going in that game. Of the two, Galac-Tac will likely prove to be a much smoother start for me than TribeNet. My understanding of TribeNet's interface and orders is well ahead of  where I am with TribeNet. Nonetheless, I feel that I can make some progress in both games, but the TribeNet path is definitely going to be bumpier of the two.

Trying to breathe life back into the old PBM forum (this forum) is already underway, though I'm still very early into that process. The whole reason why this article is being written and posted here, at all, is to give me something to link to over on the Play By Mail Facebook page and in future issues of PBM Chaos. People have to have reasons to begin visiting and hanging out in this forum, again, and the primary way to accomplish that is by posting stuff here, so that if they want to read it, they have to visit it. Resolution #8 will simply require persistence and the ongoing generation of content - neither of which are hard, per se, but both can be time-consuming.

Completing the PBM Rulebook Library will be tedious and time-consuming. Yet, even at the very beginning of that project, there will (and has been) light at the end of that tunnel. Thus, Resolution #2 is definitely achievable, and certainly to a very large degree, for PBM games in existence, currently. It's basically going to take the form of a list of links. Thus, simple, yet tedious and time-consuming, because it involves tracking thing down, manually.

The remaining resolutions, #3, #4, #7, #10, and #5 are not minor undertakings. All of them require either lots of time and effort to bring to fruition, and some also require cooperation from other people, which is never a guaranteed thing, upfront.

Resolutions #3 and #4 are items that I can accomplish on my own, without really me being dependent upon others to aid me in carrying them out and making them become a reality. Revamping The Hyborian Tome website will likely be much quicker to accomplish than creating a PBM Gateway, such as I envision.

Resolution #7, creating a PBM Network to better facilitate growth of the overall PBM player base, will require participation from PBM companies and PBM GMs. I am not so foolish as to believe that I will gain 100% cooperation from all PBM, companies and PBM GMs, but I certainly think and believe that I can gain participation from some of them. The only question is, how many, and how fast

To establish a cadre or corps of die-hard PBM gamers, in order to act as a force multiplier in and across the PBM sphere, which is what PBM Resolution #10 is, is dependent upon cooperation and persistence and commitment from PBM gamers. My gut feeling is that this one will be a huge mountain to climb. By and large, cooperation on the part of PBM gamers tends to be scattered and sparse. I think that it will actually prove to be more likely that PBM companies and PBM GMs will be more likely to cooperate than PBM gamers, where resolutions #7 and #10 are concerned. There's just a lot less PBM companies and PBM GMs than there are PBM gamers, but the greater numbers of PBM gamers is anything but a guarantee.

And last but certainly not least, Resolution #5 is a monumental task, from where I find myself, right now. Doubling the size of the subscriber base for PlayByMail.Net's e-mail mailings translates into an increase of almost 200 new subscribers in the coming year of 2024. OUCH! That's a big chunk to bite off, as PBM resolutions and being realistic are concerned, but I think that it can be done - or at a minimum, that a large portion of it can be accomplished before the end of 2024. Obviously, if PBM Chaos readers and readers of the Play By Mail Facebook page were to start sharing PBM stuff that I generate or facilitate others generating, then that would be a tremendous help and increases our chances of accomplishing PBM Resolution #5 on schedule. At worst, I fail, and failure is always a risk anytime one undertakes to strive to accomplish anything of note.

Thank you for your interest! Be sure to lend your support to make these new year's PBM resolutions a grand success!

Just FYI -- You have until 12/24 to get signed up for the next Galac-Tac galaxy (#113) before it starts.

Just FYI -- You have until 12/24 to get signed up for the next Galac-Tac galaxy (#113) before it starts.

This forum is for discussion of Stefan Graf's game of Diplomacy played via PBM Chaos.

This forum is for the discussion of Diplomacy.

Players can SHOOT or they can MOVE. Of course, if you MOVE, I need to know WHERE you are moving to. And if you SHOOT, I need to know WHO you're shooting or WHAT LOCATION that you're shooting at.

There is no rulebook, per se. I can try to put one together, as time allows, but there wouldn't be a book, even if I did. What you fail to grasp is that is basically the rules. You have one character to play. Your character can either SHOOT or MOVE. If you do neither, or miss a turn, then your character stays where they are at, but are still susceptible to being shot at by other characters. Two characters can't occupy the same space/location, so you can't move into a location where another player is. You can try, but if they don't move, then your character won't move. The dead are instantly removed, so if you try to move into a location where a character is dead, your move will go through.

As I have posted, previously, PBMville is an experiment. Me? I hate big, thick, lengthy rulebooks. So, I am trying to keep rules to a bare minimum. One character, one order per character. And it's not a complicated choice - SHOOT or MOVE. But I do have to know where you are moving to, or what you are shooting at. Otherwise, how would I just automatically know which character that you're shooting at, or what location that you're moving to?

That's basically the sum totality of your "rulebook" that you are asking for.

Now, there may or may not be Events, as the game progresses. If so, then those Events will be explained at the time that the Events transpire. No player gets rules for Events ahead of time, because that would give the Events away before they happen.

If one reads the issues of PBM Chaos, then everything that you need to play is included in PBM Chaos. I did create a rule to govern what happens, when I make a mistake, as GM/Narrator. That's a rule for me, not for players, though. Even then, dice will decide.

When players SHOOT, as was explained in PBM Chaos recently, I roll dice (one die). Specifically, I roll to see if the shot is a HIT or a MISS. If it's a MISS, that's the end of your turn and action. If it's a HIT, then I roll that one die, again, to see if you WOUND or KILL the targeted character. I never know ahead of time who is going to actually get shot or killed.

There's no big rulebook to study. That's not what I wanted to create. PBMville is more an experiment than a game. As a game, it is an exercise in minimalism and incrementalism. It begins at a very basic level. One character, one decision per turn. And your one character with one decision per turn only gets to choose between SHOOT or MOVE.

Rather than inundate and bury players with a bunch of rules, in PBMville they start off with basically no rules, and no more than one character with one decision to make.

Events, should they happen, are a way to increase the rules, but in a very deliberate, incremental manner. This approach allows for a gradual increase in complexity, and players do not have to worry about devouring a bunch of rules all at once. This is geared at hopefully providing players with a more leisurely atmosphere for playing PBMville.

A large part of the "fun" to be found or discovered in PBMville doesn't revolved around a player's one measly character. Rather, it's more about what everyone else's character choose to do. Your one character's role is an exercise in simplicity, itself. SHOOT or MOVE. How utterly boring, right? But complexity can arise, where numerous simple decisions arise in the course of any given turn. That's one of my theories, anyway. While you're shooting somebody, somebody else might be shooting you.

Common sense says that gunfights are dangerous. Very, very dangerous. There's good reasons that most people avoid gunfights, if they can. Yet, in the context of a "game," players instinctively sense that if all that they do is to try and avoid gunfights, then they will end up missing out on something - namely, the excitement that naturally accompanies shooting the other guy's character and killing them.

If you follow along long enough with what gets published in issues of PBM Chaos, you will likely begin to notice subtle changes. Incremental degrees of complexity are being slowly woven into the fabric of the game/experiment. For instances, players are learning really quickly that characters can die very quickly. First turn deaths can, will, and have happened, already. Also, some characters are now WANTED, Dead or Alive - and a reward is now attached to their heads. Obvious changes in incremental form, but changes that do NOT require a rulebook to grasp and understand. Also introduced without more rules for players to learn is that characters' kill counts are kept track of. Where there were no kills, because no character had died, there was no information of this sort to track - and by extension, no reason to trouble players with it.

All information (including all rules of the game) are not always relevant nor needed, and particularly if they aren't even in play. Providing a rulebook with everything that could happen over the course of the game creates a DISTRACTION. Players should concentrate on the game, not on a rulebook that mentions things that haven't even happened, yet, nor which may ever happen. Players tend to remember that PBMville is a GAME, more than they remember that PBMville is an EXPERIMENT.

In real life, we live our lives in the PRESENT moment. Yet, people routinely allow themselves to become distracted, by dwelling upon the PAST and/or the FUTURE. In the context of a so-called "rulebook," most of what you might view to be the "rules" are likely a part of PBMville's FUTURE. Characters that exist in the game, now, are not seers nor prophets. They cannot see into the future. Hell, in many ways, even I can't see into the future of this game, and I'm the GM and Narrator.

PBMville is NOT a dungeon crawl. Players don't even get to write their own characters' backstories. Rest assured, that players do get to make decisions, but as of the present moment, their choices and range of decisions is VERY LIMITED, and this is intentional and by design.

At worst, PBMville ends up being a failed experiment. Players may or may not end up finding any fun to be found in the concept. Some players may choose to stick around longer than other players. Some players may experience parts of the game that other players do not. Right now, what players "see" is the town map of PBMville with its various locations marked out with numbers, and other characters (most of which are player characters, with a couple of non-player (NPC) characters tossed into the mix. Players cannot see ahead in time, nor can they see anything other than that town map and other characters. But even where the other characters are concerned, they only "see" the other characters that are in the game, right now, though they also have an AWARENESS of characters that died, but which used to be in the portion of PBMville that they see.

Perhaps this "explanation" is something that you prefer, but this explanation isn't the same thing as a rulebook. To understand the RULES of the game, read the issues of PBM Chaos as they get published, and in the order that they get published (at least, from the point where PBMville began). Players do NOT receive individual turn results via e-mail. Instead, turn results for the entire game get published on an issue-by-issue basis. Accordingly, the RULES as you envision such things to be, will appear in issues of PBM Chaos. Players do NOT receive rules that are irrelevant ahead of time. That is a big, big no-no!

And if you bothered to read all of this, then you're likely the most knowledgeable player in the game, but you still don't know more rules about the game than anyone else.