I have begun the process of transitioning the PBM Hivemind section, heretofore located on the front page of the PlayByMail.Net website, to the front page of the PBM Wiki site.

This is a work in progress, and will probably take a day or three to finish, due to time constraints on my end.

Part of it has already been incorporated onto the PBM Wiki. Click the link, below, to check it out for yourself:

http://playbymail.net/pbmwiki/index.php/Main_Page

Issue # 4 of Suspense & Decision magazine heralded the incorporation of several new ideas into the magazine's pages. It's part and parcel of trying to figure out what I am doing, of figuring out just where the magazine is headed, of figuring out how to "connect the dots" that matter.

To a very large degree, silence still permeates PBM Space. That's the term that came to mind, just now, so that is how I will describe it for this particular editorial.

PBM Space.

Player communities for various PBM games (or their descendants) exist on what might as well be worlds separated by vast distances from one another. Some of these worlds have greater populations of players than others. But, they all breathe the same turn-based flavor of air.

Their die-hard loyalty forms the mass of these respective worlds. Those that possess sufficient mass invariably attract new players. Gravity of interest then pulls them in. . .sometimes.

As individuals, countless millions of us possess the equivalent of warp engine capability, of star drive, of jump drive, of hyperdive. We can travel at will to and fro across this Internet universe virtually at will, at unimaginable speed. It's almost as though we will it, and we are there.

But, when it comes to gaming, we might as well all be aliens, and interaction between these worlds of PBM gamers remains limited.

Me? I'm trying to figure out how to bridge all those scattered, individual worlds, in the hope of forming what, exactly?

It's not really a bridge that I am building, though. It's more along the lines of...a Kirby machine.

Except, I don't have any blueprints for it.

Plus, I don't know how to build it, nor even where to start. All that I know is that it has to have lots of indecipherable components.

I have less interest in bridging the actual worlds, than I have in bridging the interests of the individuals who occupy those worlds.

But, not all of their respective interests. Only certain ones.

It is at times like these that I find myself sympathizing with Darkseid, as he seeks the Anti-Life Equation. What I seek is the PBM Equation.

Except, I don't think that any single one of us possesses it.

I don't know which ones possess a fragment of it, or which ones possess multiple fragments and shards of it.

What I do know is that, once I find it, PBM will benefit from it.

Or, I could be wrong.

About any of it. About all of it.

It would be far, far quicker for me to get an artist to draw me a Kirby machine than for me to actually build one.

To make matters worse, I don't want just any old Kirby machine. Nope! It's got to be a certain kind, a certain one.

It's still under construction. Heck, for all that I know, for all that anyone ever knows, it may never even achieve a full state of construction. It's pieces, and how they connect correctly to one another, may eternally elude me.

But, by my estimate, I'm about a quarter of the way there.

Suspense & Decision magazine is not this Kirby machine. It is, at most, but a single energy source. When I look at it, what I see is a trigger mechanism. Ixnay recently described the energy as contagious. Hopefully, that will prove to be a good thing, since contagious is typically associated with something bad.

Kirby machines, of course, aren't real.

But, I'm building one, anyway.

Submission Deadline for Issue # 5: March 20th, 2014

After four issues, we remain but dust on the horizon. We remain the slightest of noise.

That's why I need YOU to send something to me for Issue # 5.

Save the excuses. I have a bag full of excuses, none of which are very useful for making the next issue actually happen, actually become a reality.

How can none of you have anything to say? How can YOU have NOTHING to say? Let the PBM warrior in you do the talking!

We've got to show them that there's something of substance stirring up all of that dust. We need to let them learn that we're more than just noise. I want YOU to help ME to deliver the THUNDER to THEM!!

The THUNDER of TURN-BASED gaming!

The POWER of PBM!

Be the power source! Be the thunder!!

Send your stuff - your articles and your ads and your photos - to me at: GrimFinger@GrimFinger.Net

Submission Deadline for Issue # 5: March 20th, 2014

Some articles that I found interesting follow below. Before reading them I would suggest that you watch this video so that you know what they are talking about (warning - strong/abusive language in there)



Article 1: http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/how-inapp...-industry/

Article 2: http://www.baekdal.com/insights/when-don...-on-trust/

Unfortunately such companies are the ones making big money right now, but this should perhaps serve as a reminder why a few of us continue to chose quality over making money.

NOTE: Click on the image to download Issue # 4 of Suspense & Decision magazine.

Hello all.

I played a few PBMs back in the 1990s, but never really got very far in any of them.

Galactic Overlord by GEM Games was my first game, then I think a few games of CTF 2187 by Advanced Gaming Enterprises, a couple turns of Samurai Warlords (run by an Aussie GM), a few turns of The Bloody Blade by Damien Games, a few months of Supernova II by Rolling Thunder Games, and lastly a bit of Monster Island by Adventures By Mail about the end of the 1990s or maybe early 2000s? (There was one other game I don't remember the name or GM, but the game I think folded after about 2 turns or so. Was a fantasy wargame about an evil horde about to overrun the land, and players had to design & build castles to protect their villages.)

I had a subscription to Paper Mayhem for about 3 years or so I think.

I became aware of the idea of PBM from Dragon Magazine, as was and am primarily a D&D / RPG gamer.

I have played a bunch of computer strategy games such as Master of Orion (still play it, lots of old games available from GOG.com), Civilization IV, etc.

Anyway I came across a plug for Suspense & Decision via Greyhawk Grognard's RPG blog a while back, and have been lurking and reading posts for a while now. (Read all 3 available issues of S&D.)

My schedule doesn't match up with anybody to play face-to-face tabletop games anymore, so I'm thinking of giving PBM another go.

Thinking about maybe Olympia G4 before it gets too far into the game, or maybe DungeonWorld? Maybe Riftlords as I never played a Flying Buffalo PBM?

My budget for any kind of entertainment is kinda low due to cut hours at work (but more time), so something I can try for free or low cost is best at this point.

I use to play pbm quite actively in the 80's and 90's Eventually gave up when I ran out of money!! Mainly wargames, world conquest I seemed to enjoy, plus crisis! & Austerlitz. There were others, but I guess I didn't do so well in those games, as I can't remember the names!! Tend to play diplomacy on line now a days. It does seem difficult to tell which firms are still going. Nice to see it still going though. Can anyone recommend a modern wargame, either pbm, pbem or online?


Anyway clearing out my loft and I still have a load of flagship magazines. Would anyone been interested in them? I basically have from issue 14 until the low 90's. I also have issue 3!! I am not sure if all of them are there I could be missing a couple, I haven't counted. But I didn't want to recycle them, before I've given someone a chance to read them.

I created the Facebook page for PlayByMail.Net a while back, but I decided to wait until today, in order to publish it. That's Facebook's way of saying that the page is now viewable by the public on Facebook.

Not that I don't have enough irons in the fire, already. Rather, I was doing a little research, recently, and I believe that PBM gaming could use a more visible presence on the world's largest social network.

Facebook's page on Wikipedia states that Facebook has 1.23 billion users, as of today's date. To put it succinctly, that's "quite a few."

That's all fine and dandy, of course, but it's not that figure that interests me, particularly. Rather, the figures that interest me will be appearing in issue # 4 of Suspense & Decision magazine. You'll be able to check them out for yourself.

At this point in time, there's not really much of anything on the PlayByMail.Net Facebook page. But, if you want to check it out, here's the link to it:

So, I'm up early, this morning, awaiting the arrival of a snowstorm, and in the midst of doing some Internet searches for things PBM related, it dawns on me how very much that the PlayByMail.Net website is like an airport.

While an airport is often a destination, it is never THE destination that one ultimately aspires to going to. Rather, we're here, if you need us, in order to help you catch a flight to somewhere else.

Like a real airport, we ultimately have no control over the quality of your in-flight experience with various PBM companies. From time to time, you might see a representative for a game company dart in or out of this place, but none of them really run the equivalent of a kiosk here.

Cluster Wars has a dedicated forum section here that their players and staff use, but that game is still in development. Rather than a ticket booth or a formal kiosk, it reminds me more of a garage that is attached to this airport. Not what one might expect to see at an airport, necessarily, but it does provide the convenience of visitors to this site being able to walk into the equivalent of Vern Holford's garage, and just start asking him and his game neighbors about Cluster Wars.

I've been visiting various game sites, lately. It's been an interesting week, needless to say. It's hard to be everywhere, especially simultaneously at once. Receptions vary. A little glitz. A little glamor. A lot of in between. None of it, however, either individually or collectively, deters me from my self-appointed rounds.

Continuously, I flip through the pages of old issues of PBM magazines. It's a small collection, to be certain, but it's what I've got. I use what I've got, in order to try and figure out a way forward.

On its face, this airport is looking a bit aesthetically challenged. But, we do have flights being booked and travelers arriving and departing. It's a small airport - but, it's not quite as overlooked, as it once was. At the same time, it's no major thoroughfare for gaming adventurers. But, it is in operation, and it does offer those who happen by here some degree of functionality that may prove useful to them.

For the most part, we're a no-frills kind of place. Yet, we cater to what some might consider to be those who seek an exotic gaming type of experience.

Construction is an ongoing fact of life, here. Some of it, you may encounter. It may even cause the occasional delay. Some of it, however, you won't see. Back-ups being performed. Site ads being switched out. Problem areas identified and remedied, even before you encounter them. Even web hosting upgrades are being seriously considered (to add more disk space) - we still have some leeway, but I don't want to pushing things too far.

There's nothing wrong with taking direct flights to your gaming destinations of choice. But, if you ever need us, we're here.

Enjoy your flight! Enjoy your game!

Whatever happened to Ilkor? It seems it disappeared from the face of the internet... I thought the game was well on its way; it was even advertised by Ken St Andre and GAD Games posted regularly about the game progress on the Trollbridge.

So what happened?