It may not be for everyone, of course, but it pretty darned quiet for me, on the PBM Front.

I am out of the play-by-mail loop, at the moment, with no near-term changes in that likely. That may seem a bit odd, in light of the fact that I maintain this PBM-related website, but truth is stranger than fiction, at times, it seems.

On a personal level, it's largely a matter of competing priorities, for me. My interest in the play by mail genre hasn't really ever diminished, although my focus has been shifted to other things numerous different times over the years. Perhaps actually playing in PBM games is one way to stay vested in the hobby and the industry. That one should be a no-brainer, huh?

Most of the gaming that I do manage to do, these days, tends to be largely limited to playing one of the various Jurassic Park Survival maps for the by-now-dated Warcraft 3 game with my son, and an occasional romp on various PlayStation 3 games (again, with my son), or playing a handful of board games (nothing exotic, mainly Monopoly or one of its variants).

Maybe the time has come to shutter the windows and to lock the doors on this place? Perhaps I should take my rightful (or non-so-rightful) place in history alongside other PBM websites that have given up the ghost. Maybe it is time to, in the proverbial sense, rest in PBM peace.

Or, maybe not.

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

If that's the case, though, then where's everyone else at? Off doing their own thing, of course - and I can't say that I blame them. I really can't.

Later this year, I will turn fifty, God willing. By and large, I have enjoyed pretty good health, over the years. For that, I am thankful, for it certainly hasn't been due to my own efforts, that's for sure.

I have pretty good eyesight. I don't have to wear glasses or contact lenses. I haven't had to endure corrective eye surgery. Yet, the really small font on those old issues of Paper Mayhem magazine does nothing to entice me to spend oodles of time absorbing that PBM essence of old from the pages of David Webber's enduring legacy.

The biggest PBM-related news that I am aware of, these days, is probably Rick Loomis' more-than-just-a-tad successful KickStarter project for Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/9947...and-trolls

So, a big congratulations is definitely in order for the Flying Buffalo man from Scottsdale, Arizona.

Maybe that's what play by mail needs - to be kick started. Of course, there's been many efforts over the years to accomplish just, exactly that. Or, maybe there has largely been lip service paid to it. Or, maybe play by mail just isn't amenable to being kick started.

At various times, PBM-related thoughts will cross my mind. I would label it as awe-inspiring, but rather, just some thought or idea or other would cross my mind, seemingly for no reason, at all. For instance, what if the heyday of the PBM era had coincided with the Facebook era and the Twitter era and the KickStarter era? Now, you know as well as I do that something good would have come out of all of that.

Instead, what you are now treated to is an infrequent, and dare I say less than inspirational, treatment of all things PBM.

I visited the PBM Gamer website, yesterday, and again, today, and it remains in Maintenance Mode. So, is it gone, now, too? Heck, this site right here, PlayByMail.Net, recently encountered some website resources limit issue, and when I went to load it a few days back, I couldn't even access my very own website. Well, not this one, anyway.

The web host wanted me to upgrade my web hosting package, and while I could have done that, I just plain didn't want to. So, here I sat, unable to access PlayByMail.Net, and I wasn't even able to access the web hosting control panel, in order to check on what, specifically and exactly, was at the root cause of why we had exceeded system resources.

Historically, I have run more than one website operating off of the same web hosting package, since, historically speaking, there has existed no real danger of exceeding bandwidth or disk space limitations associated with the entry-level web hosting package that I signed dup for.

Eh? Who? What's that, you say?

Does this mean that play by mail interest has increased so much, and has grown so great, that we are now faced with the rather enviable prospect of needing to increase our disk space and bandwidth allotments for this site, in order to accommodate our web hosting needs?

Is this the long-awaited herald that prophecies of old foretold would one day sound, to mark the return of the golden age of play by mail? My God, man! Why didn't you just tell us, you might be saying to yourself, right now, as you fire up the Marlboro from that pack that you thought that you had discarded years ago.

. . .Ahem. . .

In a word - No!

Hey, I could just go ahead and begin heralding the return of PBM to the forefront of the gaming entertainment world, but since it's never actually achieved that milestone level of success in the first instance, I'm not sure that the second time around would necessarily be the charm.

Various projects that grew from PBM roots continue to inch along. You could read about those ongoing efforts and occasional success stories, but no one is posting about them here, anymore, it seems.

For a long while, I had a number of back issues of Paper Mayhem stacked on top of my computer desk, providing me immediate access to PBM material of yesteryear. Perhaps I need to drag them back out of storage. Uh, what did I do with them, again?

I noticed, long ago, that if I post regularly about PBM on this website, then actual site traffic of substance from individuals actually interested in play by mail gaming tends to increase. But, the same holds true, if others interested in the same post with any degree of frequency or passion, at all.

To some that visit, the site tends to offer little in the way of new reading material for them to peruse, on those occasions when they do happen to pop in for a visit. Accordingly, there exists little in the way of incentive to tempt them to keep coming back.

I understand that. I comprehend it, quite well. I fathom what I am saying.

There are all sorts of game-related things that I want to do, from a design or implementation perspective. Unfortunately, I just prefer eating, or playing games, or any of a number of other things, to the grunt work of creating a game.

There are at least two different board games that I want to create, so that my son and I can play them, together, and all too often, I find myself desiring rest and relation more than I am able to justify actually making those games transition from crude conceptional stages to concrete reality.

The stuff from my last computer is all gone, lost when I had to replace it, unexpectedly, just so that I could remain connected to the online world. Isn't the Internet a lot like air? I mean, don't you HAVE to have it?

If the Internet suddenly exploded with interest in play by mail gaming, wouldn't that be great? I mean, wouldn't that be a grand occasion? Surely, if that happened, PlayByMail.Net would be all over it. Right??

Uh, let me get back to you on that.

Seriously, though, if that sort of unhappenable event actually turned reality on its head, and happened, I'm not so sure that I would cover it, just sitting here and thinking about it and conveying what I am thinking. At least, not to the degree that one might imagine.

I mean, if that happened, then everyone else would be covering it, so I would perhaps be more like, what's the point?

So, is it even possible to kick start an entire genre of gaming? Is such even within the realm of possibility, even at the outer edge of pure possibility?

I don't know.

What I do know is that, currently in the here and now, it's all quiet on the PBM Front.

Hi,

we are looking for 2 more sign up to start our next pbem-spiele community starweb game:

https://rswgame.com/en/created?gameId=vents5h

We want to bring pbem players and pbem gamemaster together and raised a G+ pbem site for german pbem scene.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/...3255556953

If anyone finds its interesting for an english g+ community, feel free to copy...

Hi,

we are looking for 2 more players for our next Adventurer Kings game. Our communiy (www.pbem-spiele.de) is a german community, but the game itself is in english. So no problem to play.

You can download the latest rules here:
http://www.pbem-spiele.de/fileadmin/downloads/rules.zip

Sign up with your name and mail here:
http://www.pbem-spiele.de/index.php?id=204

The game itself will be played with an client and webappliaktion. Firther information will be send around if we are complete.

See you in the game!

So this is where you guys hang out - glad to have found you!

I'm Rick McDowell, designed and was the original producer of Alamaze. We also licensed Alamaze to RSI and the production of the game was taken over about 1990 by my brother Phil operating Pegasus Productions. (Phil passed on last year.)

I was engaged by RSI to design their Forgotten Realms license, but ultimately they released something completely different.

My active involvement in design and production waned until 2003 and in 2004 we (Enlightened Age Entertainment) released the web based Fall of Rome with a full GUI and lots of humming scheduled processes so for example, turns are run at the top of the hour or sooner that the turn deadline occurs.

Attention turned to Kingdoms of Arcania, but that game has been put on the shelf for the time being as we were bogged down in programming.

If we can get the programming needed, I have a design for a two player, single setting (about an hour) strategy board game that is like Feudal (the 3M board game, not Feudal Lords the PBM). If you don't know Feudal, think a combination of chess and Stratego with special actions and fantasy elements.

We are presently exploring a re-release of Alamaze, if it appears we still have enthusiastic players in waiting. Let us know if you are interested!

Best,

Rick McDowell

You will be interested in reading this!






Greetings Folks,

I'm Rick McDowell, the designer and original producer of Alamaze, the
GAMA Origins Game of the Year. I'm in a position to revive the game if
there is sufficient interest from the player base.

If you are interested, please post a message here and ask your friends
to do likewise. (dont post on this site, I copy paste it from the newsgroup).

We've also been running Fall of Rome (www.fallofromegame.com) since
2004. Fall of Rome also won the Origins Game of the Year award.

Good hunting!

Rick

New game starts very soon at:
http://www.pbem.dk/


1 Introduction

It is some 300 years after the MageWar, some 200 years after the Troll Wars, and 178 years after the subsequent collapse
of the Great Empire of Chard. The scattered pieces of the once glorious empire are now five small human nations,
uncoordinated where not outright at war with each other. The other “old” major powers of Chard are the Pirates of Pyr,
the Druids, and various nations of non-humans. Then there are the three new powers, but we will come to them later.
Just north of the continent of Chard, in the Cold Sea, lies the Northern Isles where a human king rules what was once the
farthest outpost of the Great Empire. In the northern reaches of the continent itself are scattered the castles of the Order
of Quama, descendants of the finest order of knighthood of the old empire. Together with the two elven kingdoms and
the Druids, these two human nations have hitherto dominated the northern part of the continent, except for the northeast.
Here the swamps and deserts are home to the Snakemen, so called because of their scaly skin and their slightly flattened
heads and yellow eyes. On the far northeastern tip of the continent, where once one of the great battles of the Mage War
were fought, are mountains and harsh wastelands where a few scattered humans struggle to survive. The central part of
the northern half of the continent is mostly covered with forests. In the eastern part of the forested lands lies the kingdom
of the Elves of Windwood. Otherwise, the forests are home to the scattered human followers of the Druids, an ancient
priesthood for the goddess of nature,Wenollin.
On the eastern shores of the southern half of Chard lies the Eastern Kingdom, once the strongest province in the Empire.
The fertile lands of the Eastern Kingdom are shielded in the west by the Grey Range, and west of those mountains lie the
lands that were once the heart of the Great Empire. Now the old heartland has only a fraction of its original population,
concentrated around a few independent walled towns. In the southern part of the Grey Range lies the kingdom of the
Dwarves, on good terms with the its human neighbours to the east.
The far southern tip of the continent is the Wey peninsula. This is ruled by a ruthless and powerful queen who is ever at
war with her neighbour the Caliph of El-Sha’al, who rules a great populous nation on the plains northwest of Wey. North
of Wey and the Caliphate, the great Din’aral jungle stretches in a green belt across the continent from east to west. In the
hilly country just north of Din’aral, from the western shore and northeast towards the old heartland of the empire, one
finds the kingdom of the Gnomes. Unlike his dwarven counterpart, the gnome king does not care much for humans, a
resentment that dates back to the Troll Wars where the Great Empire punished the gnomes for their neutrality.
From the lands of the Gnomes, the Black range stretches northwards as far as the great northern forests where the Druids
and the Elves of Windwood reside. In the middle of the Black Range itself, the Trolls have once again begun to gain in
power, although they are nowhere near their strength from before the Troll Wars. They have enslaved the nearby tribes of
goblins, and with the power vacuum in the old heartland of the empire they are looking to expand their influence towards
the east. On the shores west of the Black Range lies the kingdom of the High Elves, ever a thorn in the side of the troll
king. The High Elves, together with their cousins the Elves of Windwood, situated further east, have hitherto prevented
the trolls from expanding northwards out of the Black Range.
In the great western bay that stretches from the High Elves in the north to the Caliphate in the south lies the islands of the
human Pirates of Pyr. They used to raid the shores of the continent until the great battle at South Point where the navy
of the Great Empire destroyed most of the pirate fleet. Since then Pyr has built a new though smaller fleet and is now so
strong that the trade by sea between the Caliphate and the High Elves has dwindled to almost nothing.

Enter the Dark God.
The Dark God Ozzaxytl is a conqueror of worlds in several planes of existence (or dimensions, if you will). Ozzaxytl has
now cast his hungry eyes on the world of Chard. He is currently unable to manifest in Chard but has to work through
minions and agents. In order to bring about the manifestation of their master, the agents have to gain control of seven
power spots, specific locations where the lines of power that bind the world meet, and erect a dark obelisk on each power
spot. A few obelisks have already been erected, and as more are added, the power that Ozzaxytl can channel to his minions
will increase. The Old Gods of the world of Chard were unaware of the threat from Ozzaxytl until the erection of the first
obelisks changed the power pattern of their world. They cannot oppose the much stronger Ozzaxytl directly but have to
work through their followers to prevent the erection of the obelisks.
Ozzaxytl’s influence has introduced three new major powers on Chard: The Vampire Lord, the Sorcerer and the Beast
Master, none of which were previously powerful enough to threaten any of the regular nations. The Vampire Lord has
his realm in the far north east of the continent, just north of the Snakemen. The Sorcerer’s castle is located in the Red
Ridge Mountains, a range that runs along the western coast of Chard, from the kingdom of the High Elves in the south
to the Cold Sea in the north. The Beast Master lives somewhere in the wilderness of the east, south of the Snakemen and
southeast of Windwood. The emergence of these three powers very much threatens the elven kingdoms, the Druids and
the Order of Quama.
TheWar of the Dark God is about to begin. It will end when either all seven dark obelisks are in place or when all existing
obelisks have been destroyed and the Old Gods again reign supreme.

Hi Guys

I used to play Kingdom run by sloth enterprises in the UK does anyone by any chance have or know where you can get a scanned copy of the game rule book?

Me and my friends used to play this game many years ago and as a hobby I have been trying to remake this game just for us to play.

But for some of the data we need we need the rule book and no-one seems to be able to find it.

Any help would be great

I have the Galactic Prisoners (GP) Newsletters from 1989 posted on Facebook. I just got a printer/scanner, and just grabbed 1989. I will now find my 1985 Newsletters, and work up from there.

While browsing the Sardarthion Press website, today, I took notice of a new deluxe atlas that they are offering for purchase, one titled, "Cruenti Dei: Atlas of the New World."

The Sardarthion Press site says that it is available for purchase through LuLu.Com for $35, but on the Lulu site, itself, the purchase price is listed as being $50.

Of the pages displayed in the preview on Lulu, it was page # 11 that I, personally, found to be the one that enticed me the most. The temptation was not so great, however, that I would part with either $50 or $35 to purchase it, however.

It's a hardcover book with full color printing on the interior pages. The full color on the interior is a plus, for those who favor going the full monty hardcover route. For those living in the 21st Century, however, and who are quite comfortable with PDF format, it appears that purchase options are rather limited.