Looking for some volunteers for the front cover of future issues of Suspense & Decision magazine.

In all likelihood, you will end up in some predicament. The artist will try to 'put you in the cover' so to speak, and that will likely mean that your 'character' will be the target of some monster, creature, space aliens, mad scientist, etc..

If interested, then send a photo of yourself that can be used as a photo reference for the cover artist to go by, when drawing you into the cover. Send photo to: GrimFinger@GrimFinger.Net

I saw a posting on Rick Buda's Facebook page for this game, Forge of Empires, and decided to check it out.

I've only recently started. I am in world Tuulech, if you care

I increased the size of the default text for the forum postings, to make them a tad easier on the eyes of those of us who have gotten a little older, over the years. Also, I changed the background color of quoted text in the forum to a light blue color, to make quoted text stand out a bit more from forum users' responses.

Forward.

I sit here, listening to various musical artists render their respective takes upon the song, Unchained Melody, even as I simultaneously ponder the words of the introductory speech for Star Trek - notably, the portion about 'to boldly go where no man has gone before.'

There are no end of things that I could write about, but Fate is fickle, and so are my personal tastes. Which probably explains why I sit here, on a Sunday afternoon, thinking about play by mail gaming.

I am but a speck of dust. The magazine, Suspense & Decision, is but a few specks of dust clumped together. Together, we have both crashed into a harsh landscape of (What else?) more dust - the dust that is the entirety of play by mail.

A mountain, a moon, an entire universe of dust.

Would it really have mattered all that much, had we crashed elsewhere on this landscape of dust particles, each one a portion, each one a memory, each one a fraction what the fun that PBM gaming has brought to mankind down through the years?

How many episodes of the old Star Trek television series did Captain James Tiberius Kirk and crew encounter trouble? How many times did the ship and crew face danger? How many Red Shirts paid the ultimate price for a greater purpose?

Stranded.

That's what it feels like, sometimes.

But, only sometimes.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

The Enterpise explored NEW worlds. It sought out NEW life, NEW civilizations.

In the context of PBM gaming, generally, and in the context of PBM magazines, specifically, what does it mean - what should it mean - to boldly go where no one has gone before?

Regardless of how Suspense & Decision got in the current mess that it finds itself in, should we allow ourselves to remain stranded?

Perhaps all of our crew (our readership) have died from our previous crashes. Do we take a body count and call it a day? Or, like Kirk, should we reach for the stars, anew?

There will always exist threats to our continued existence. Problems will always beset up in alien-like ways. We are not - we are never - promised tomorrow.

But then again, neither was PBM gaming. The tomorrow was never promised to it. Though we may reach for it, time and time and time again, none of us truly hold title to it.

Tomorrow is an illusion. By the time that it arrives, it has morphed into something else. It is a continuous, never-ending transition.

And so it is that our magazine is going through transition.

Now, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, opinions may vary. Indeed, they likely will. It is what it is, though.

Perhaps if I spent a fraction of the time working on the magazine as I spend ruminating about it, it might all be moot.

But just as James T. Kirk had his share of Klingons and Romulans and Gorns to deal with, so, too, do I have my own share of problems and situations and errors to deal with.

Kirk said that how we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.

He also asserted that a little suffering is good for the soul.

In fairness, though, some may feel that the magazine crashing doesn't qualify as suffering. They may choose to view it as a blessing in disguise.

How do I intend to succeed where, before, I failed, where Suspense & Decision magazine is concerned? Honestly, I have no idea. At the moment, I'm just trying to figure out how to get us all beamed back aboard (those that survived and are still interested, anyway), and the magazine underway, once more.

Verily, none of us truly knows what awaits us out there - several issues ahead. Might we fail again? Oh, sure. Definitely. Positively!

What if there is nothing else left to be said about play by mail gaming? What if interest in either the magazine or the hobby never pick up? What if nobody bothers to participate, to come aboard, to join us on our journey?

Then I suspect that we will have this ship all to ourselves.

I can think of much worse fates.

Issue #13 is coming straight at you at warp speed, even if you can't see it, yet!

I fully intend to trek unchained. Together, we shall boldly go - from issue to issue to issue.

James T. Kirk said, "Risk! Risk is our business. That's what this starship is all about. That's why we're aboard her."

Even the Enterprise had to go in for repairs.

Very soon, we will be full speed ahead, once again.

FULL.......SPEED.......AHEAD!

New free games starting almost every week on different scenarios and variants.


-- 

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Hello everyone!  

I am a long time gamer who loves playing rpgs, board games (Diplomacy is my favorite), wargames, and card games.  I once played in a pbem game of World Wide Battleplan run by Flying Buffalo.  I have recently signed up to play Duel2 and hope to start a game of Hyborian War soon.  Looking forward to some play-by-mail fun!

1. I have entered into discussions with the cover artist that I used, previously, for the front cover art of the various issues of Suspense & Decision magazine. He is receptive to joining us, again, in helping to move Suspense & Decision magazine forward, and to making Issue #13 a reality.

2. Two of the biggest obstacles to publishing Suspense & Decision magazine with regularity are health issues and other interests in life that have a tendency to distract me. My health isn't horrible, as far as I know, but as with most anyone who continues to age, time has a way of exacting a toll upon me. I have less actual control over my health, than I do over other interests which distract me and which consume large chunks of my time. In all likelihood, I may very well some of my other interests int the magazine, as well. It's not a perfect solution, I grant you, but I dare suggest that this approach may well stand the best chance of the magazine enduring over the long haul. Besides, if I write an article about something that you're not interested in, you can always just skip past it - much as readers were used to doing with various game-related articles that I wrote in previous issues of Suspense & Decision magazine.

3. Everyone has their own ideas about how to best go about the task of creating and publishing issues of a magazine like Suspense & Decision. I have no problem with this. However, where extended lulls in publication have transpired, no line seems to have formed by others sporting different approaches to the core concept. Accordingly, just as when I sought to bring Issue #1 into existence a while back, likewise, I will largely be guided by my own judgment as to how to get the ball rolling, once again.

4. Certain aspects of the magazine, as readers previously new it, will be carried over to this new attempt to bring the magazine back. Other aspects, however, may be changed or eliminated, altogether. I will strive to eliminate obstacles and barriers to getting the job done.

5. I could certainly use some help. You are invited, anew, to participate.

Death awaits us all.

The magazine has died, it seems. Even this website, itself, is permeated with the stench of death. Few are they that roam its halls, these days. Alas, alack!  The mighty have fallen!

Ahem.....

In a way, strange though it may seem to those of you who may happen upon these words long after I post them, I find myself drawn even more to this website (and its magazine progeny) the more distant that others seem to become to it. Now, that doesn't fix anything, and it certainly doesn't re-gather this website's former cadre of interested parties.

Once upon a time ago, though, this website didn't exist, this forum didn't exist, the PBM Wiki didn't exist, and Suspense & Decision magazine didn't exist.

As if any of that matters now.

Like Middle-earth and Alamaze, my interest seems to run in ages or in cycles. All too often, I am distant from the very hobby that inspired all of my efforts to craft a digital legacy to play by mail gaming.

Legacy? Is that what they call this.....this whole cauldron of mess? This place has fallen into decay. It has sank into ruin. Its users have gone on to other things, to other places, to other interests.

None of which precludes me from taking up the gauntlet, once more!

Will I lose interest, again, at some point down the road? Maybe. Perhaps. Probably even probably.

But, the alternative to trying is to not try at all.

I could just give up the ghost of interest, for once and for all. I could just call it quits, and make this place come crashing down all around me. I could obliterate it to the very last shred of its meager existence.

It all boils down to choice.

And the choice is.....

Mine!

Issue # 12 of Suspense & Decision magazine has never materialized. It doesn't matter who intended what. It doesn't matter what was planned, nor what may have been hoped for. It doesn't even matter who cared and who didn't.

I have decided to re-enter the fray, once more. At worst, I will fail - again.

At best, maybe I can spark a little something in somebody else, somewhere along the way, somewhere a little father down the road.

Feel free to join me, as I set out upon the high road to PBM adventure, yet again.

Or just feel free to observe from a distance. 

Or just not give a whit, at all, for any reason, great or small.

You make your decisions, and I'll make mine.

Suspense & Decision will be resurrected. I will exhume its lifeless body, myself. In all likelihood, it won't be the same as it was, before.

That may be a good thing, or it may be a bad thing, or it may well end up being a little of both.

There are some changes that I will make. You may or may not agree with them. I will do what I deem necessary to get the ball rolling, again.

Period.

It is late in the evening on June 28th, 2016, when I post this message here in this forum. That means that the month of June is almost gone. While it is just a guess on my part, I suspect that we're looking at a tentative time frame of two to three months, before the next issue of Suspense & Decision magazine published by me will materialized. I may be able to beat that estimate.

Or I may not.

Only time will bear it out, either way.

I will start anew with Issue #13. I am perfectly fine with leaving Issue #12, the issue that has never yet managed to materialize, buried in the sands of time. Bernd is still free to publish it, as was his previously stated intention, or he is free to abandon it, entirely. He is also free to just ponder its fate a bit longer, even still, entirely at his own leisure and discretion.

I will draw heavily upon my past first-hand experience with launching Suspense & Decision magazine from scratch, upon my own judgment, and upon my own gut instinct to try and succeed at getting us from the point of this forum posting to the point of Suspense & Decision magazine existing as a reality, once more.

I invite you - each and every last one of you - to join me on this journey. The unknown awaits us, one and all.

Forward, ho!

Well, we're still out here and Galac-Tac is available for play, but participants are scarce and welcome.

Please let us know what kind of decisions you're making (even half-baked ones) about the future of the magazine.  Personally, I think that continuing S&D would be a good plan, as it is already set up with a publication history and good exposure, unless you really want to take off in an entirely different direction.

I'd previously submitted some material for the last unpublished issue of S&D (November) that I hope you've been able to acquire from GrimFinger.  If so, that should all still be fine to include in the next issue.  (If not, let me know and I'll get you copies.)