Just found this site, and am delighted to have done so. Now the trick will be to see if we get it populated to the point where it takes off.

Hey all,

My name is Joe, aka the Greyhawk Grognard. I run a blog by that same name (http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com) and just found out about this site today.

I've been into gaming of all sorts-- board games, hex-and-counter wargames, miniatures, rpg's, and yes pbm games-- for pretty much my entire life. I started with Tactics II when I was about 8 years old and never stopped.

I was very heavily into play by mail games in the 1980's, starting with Schubel & Sons' StarMaster, which I saw advertised in Dragon magazine, and soon branching out into a large number of different games; Rimworlds, Renaissance, Beyond the Stellar Empire, Galaxy Alpha, Hyborean Wars, etc. etc. etc. I took a hand at making and running my own PBM game, Sail the Solar Winds. Alas, running it was a large manual process, and I had to give it up due to time constraints. I also was a game master for KSK Concepts, after they bought the rights to run a new and improved version of StarMaster. I had a hand in the redesign, and spent a lot of time converting the old hand-written sheets into database format, and then running the turns. I sort of faded out of the pbm scene after college, but still have fond memories of the hobby.

As I sit here in front of the computer, tonight, I ponder what the future holds for our site, here. I assess and re-assess what to display, and how to display it, and where exactly to display it on the site. The great objective, I suppose, is to continually refine the site to transform it into a first rate PBM resource - into a true portal for site visitors to the postal genre of gaming.

That's not to say that only pure postal games will make the cut for display or discussion on this site. For nothing could be further from the truth. However, it is my fervent desire and guiding light that the postal genre ever and always be the primary focus of my efforts here. Play by mail, of the correspondence kind, doesn't exist in a vacuum apart from all other gaming. To the contrary, the postal genre of gaming is inextricably linked to other genres and formats of gaming. Gamers, after all, tend to have overlapping interests, when it comes to entertainment in the form of gaming.

Some things that I eventually want to incorporate into the site here are tasks that I sort of dread to undertake. They aren't insurmountable obstacles, by any means, but rather, they will likely turn out to be time consuming undertakings - worthwhile, but time consuming.

One of these tasks that await my eventual attention is for me to compile a list, of some sort, of articles on play by mail games and PBM gaming that have appeared in various notable magazine publications over the years. I am talking about magazines such as Space Gamer, Fantasy Gamer, Dragon, White Dwarf, etc.. Perhaps something similar to this list, except with hyperlinks that will enable site visitors to this site to find more detailed information on the specific PBM articles and PBM reviews in question, or even enable them to be but a mere step or two away from purchasing PDF or other format versions of what are, in many if not most instances, very dated publications.

I suffer under no delusion that it might be possible to track down all articles and reviews in magazines that relate to PBM gaming. However, I do believe that the equivalent of a central repository of hyperlinks to these vital archives from play by mail gaming's past would be of enormous value to the PBM community of players scattered across the landscape of the modern Internet.

Recent discussions here on our site at PlayByMail.Net lead me to conclude that it might also be viable, for us to establish a similar repository of programming code, other software, and various informative resources that would be geared toward revitalizing the PBM gamer community, with the eventual goal being to empower average and ordinary play by mail gamers to craft a new era of PBM games. Not necessarily one that focuses purely and only upon empowering players to create games playable through the postal service, but which does include at least some resources and empowering devices in this area. Facilitating interested parties connecting with such tools of empowerment could and would be a win-win situation for the PBM industry.

Over at the PBM Gamer website, their motto is, "The new PBM revolution starts here." I cannot help but to wonder where the weapons - the tools of empowerment - are, with which this new PBM revolution is to be waged. It's a good motto, to be sure, but is the motto sufficient to accomplish the objective?

I leave it to each of you to ponder that thought.

Tales of the classic PBM games here at PBM.net have sparked my curiosity about the tools today's game author's are using. I've been a free software advocate and user for years. I've run Linux desktops for about a decade. There are so many free languages, databases, frameworks, and yes, the occasional game engine. ESMS is written in C and C++, but Eli had started on a version written in ruby before he handed the reigns to me. I've used a fair bit of perl in maintaining a league. I've also used free wiki software (tikiwiki) to maintain my very neglected website.
Last night I spent an hour or so cruising around Sourceforge looking for PBEM tools, and while there were many false starts with no code, there are several viable PBEM projects.

So, what's in your toolbox and why?

Dave

This is a thread to comment / expand recently created page at http://fh.binaryelysium.com/How_do_I...

First thing: AUTO is your friend. Issue it as soon as you can, it will provide some hints in the orders template at the end of each report.

To comment on the examples provided: Colonization can be done with 3 orders instead of 6:

Enough reading and reminiscing. I want to play some PBM games.

Please recommend your favorites! I trend toward empire-building, but am open to other experiences as well.

I am thinking I'll play one free game and one professional game and post my turns on a thread here, just for fun...

I was in Ultima Online Trammel Shard from 1993 to 2000, where there was a large group of role-players, with strict rules about combat. There is an article I wrote together with another player published in Flagship a few years ago. That was a great sunset of gaming for me, but since I changed to a Mac it has got both expensive to play in UO and technically difficult to create a disk partition, buy and install the MS software, plus the anti-virus subscription. The UO player base has also shrunk drastically.

This is still a role-playing game that I have a high regard for, and considerable nostalgia. You can read this article in the Flagship collection.

First published in the gaming magazine Flagship Issue 116 November/
December 2005 pp. 40-41. This article was put on the old f4g
Councillor's Guild Forum with the agreement of the editor.

Starforce Battles was a play by mail game that I designed and moderated many years ago. Below is one example turn from the game, after I resurrected it years later to run it via e-mail. I managed to come across it still lying on my computer, all these many years later. I edited out the player's e-mail address, but otherwise, the turn is intact. I think that I probably reprinted it to disk, well after the fact, while experimenting with the software for a possible new resurrection. Otherwise, I would likely have numerous players' turn results just lying around.

Attached Files

  StarforceBattlesExampleTurnResults.txt (Size: 38.56 KB / Downloads: 15)

I know that we have registered site users that hail from a variety of different places throughout the world. Out of curiosity, where do each of you hail from, currently, for those of you that don't mind revealing such.

I hail from South Carolina, USA.

Austerlitz: The Rise of the EagleThe Premier Napoleonic Play-By-eMail Wargame
Imagine the year 1808 at the height of the Napoleonic Era. You are the leader of one of the predominate countries of the period, each unique in its blend of troop types, navy, colonial position, population, natural resources and economy.

What path to imperial glory will you choose? Will you seek peace so that you may quietly expand your economy and develop colonial territories? Or will you organize an offensive alliance to crush and annex an unsuspecting neighbor, instead of licking the boots of your enemies?

Austerlitz: The Rise of the Eagle is a complex historical simulation that will allow you to manage a nation set in the Napoleonic Era. The goals and decisions you make for your country are almost always influenced or dictated by the actions of the other 15 players. Using a detailed economic and trading system, during the course of the game players will compete for economic resources and expansion. Eventually this leads to military conflict, where large battles are resolved by detailed Simulated Battles in which the unique battlefield qualities of artillery, riflemen, pioneers, and cuirassiers are manifest and your genius is put to the test.

http://www.austerlitz.biz/