Our newsletter for The Isles is out - Its a cut-down version of a couple of pages as I'm prioritizing processing turns and updating a number of info sheets and Guides. Turnaround remains less than 7 days while we update Maps, improve forms used for turnsheets and have a general tidy

https://the-isles.com/the-islander-our-r...ewsletter/

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I saw the game mentioned in Raven's list of postal-friendly games, and decided to check it out (but only email for me, thanks). 

I downloaded the rulebook and was very enthused by it. Very different to anything I'd played before in PBM. I created a free position of a male monk, and a commercial position with a female priest and female rogue. Upon creation, the player is told to wait for the first results when turns are processed, and meanwhile, to consider joining the yahoo email group. Yahoo is dead, with groups.io being the main replacement. But after searching, although I found a few DungeonWorld subgroups (mostly for guilds) in groups.io, there was no main DW group. Hmm. Where does the newbie go to learn more?

I searched the web, and then (yuk) facebook, and found a private DungeonWorld FB group. I asked to join but it was more than 24h later and a couple of nudges to the admins before I was let in. In my view, this isn't ideal - a newly signed up player is enthusiastic and wants to continue that enthusiasm, but the website didn't make it easy to do so! Once in, it is apparent that the FB group is the main place folks hang. Many role-played communications happen there, and the GM is also active on there. I summarised my experience as a new player to the FB group in the hope that it will be easier for the next enthusiastic newbie.

The first turn arrived on processing day, and I began to make sense of the game: the locations my characters were in, the turn format, the online order entry tool, and I did another read of the manual to try and get a more complete understanding. 

Orders were sent, the characters will hopefully go and explore their immediate environs, and ensure they are tooled up for their initial dungeon adventuring!

After the turns were submitted, I added another two characters to add more dimensions to the group: a male enchanter and a female centaur. Time to think about joining some guilds and participating in the hopefully rich roleplay aspects of the game.

Hi, my name is Victoria and I am a Masters Graduate conducting research, one of my projects is co-authoring a book on games played over various distance related media and the game theory and techniques used. As such I am delving into the world of "play by mail" games and hoping to find others who can supply me with scans of rules, contacts with those who created these games for questions and potentially interviews, reviews of games still being played, and hoping to see where this rabbit hole leads.... maybe wonderland and I am in search of the caterpillar.

Greeting everyone.  I have played PBeMs quite a bit over the years, and when someone introduced me to Far Horizons I was instantly intrigued.  Having mucked around in the code a bit and getting the gmail interfacing working again, I have started a game up with the cohort who introduced it to me.  Right now it is just in the testing phase as only ONE person has any real knowledge of the game at all.

I look forward to gleaning information from this site, and you the reader.  As well as finding new games to try out and expand upon what I currently already play.

Thanks for reading!

Species name: Epillon
Government name: The Society of Epillon
Government type: Oligarchy


Picking up an un-played position and attempting to learn the game...

I really REALLY enjoyed working through the game mechanics via the solo game feature. The AI is pretty good (based on the automatically generated suggested orders logic, presumably) and it is certainly a surprise to see your AI enemies encroaching on 'your' space with first scout ships then fighters...

The solo game helped me understand the basic flow: a) chart uncharted systems, b) colonise them, c) shuttle the PV from the colonies back to the homeworld and use the production value to create new freighters, fighters, stations, battleships. Then repeat until you crush the enemy empires.

It was all going pretty well, but then ended abruptly on turn 89, both surprising and disappointing me - on one hand, that's a good thing (I was enjoying it), on the other hand it was frustrating: no empire had defeated another, we were all still growing (or I was anyway). Then poof! All over! Thanks for playing! The precomputed end turn had arrived.

I definitely prefer open-ended games for these reasons, but not every sandpit lends itself to open-ended play. However, this game ended prematurely (for me).

I look forward now to real games with real opponents  Bring it on!

It may not be apparent from the rule books, but there are very capable windows apps to help map, plan and perform turn orders. I'll include a few screenshots to summarise some of these. 

Overall: very much recommended - signup and have a play!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y5XRQ6_...sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DmzvKpH...sp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N1JUgXd...sp=sharing

A above - we're taking on a few more players if anyone is interested - see the-isles.com for more info and browse to Startup Materials for what you need to start playing. Note that unlike a lot of PBMs The Isles is a rules-lite hand-moderated RPG game and is quite different to the turn-card style of game that you see a lot of - Have a look at the samples etc on the website before deciding if you wish to play :-)

Hello fellow gamers,

My name is Marc, a 48 year old from Holland. Have been playing MMO's back in the day and recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who had played PBM's in the past. Being interested in the concept, started digging on the web and stumbled on this forum. Since I needed something to pass time during boring night and weekend shifts at work, I signed up for The-Isles and from the get go, love every minute I spent on it

I've not added labels to my maps in-game but I think I'm missing something there as they add a little more interest and make the Towns and Villages of the region more 'explorable' if you can identify places of interest. Basic example attached - This is a watch post a days walk south-west of the main town in the game

R

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Species name: Freesian
Government name: The Corporate Authority
Government type: Corporate Oligarchy


My first transport is built.  Unfortunately, I formatted my command to build some colony units wrong.  As a result, I've got some raw materials to recycle, Economic units to spend, and an empty transport that's just itching to jump.  He has set his navigation computer for a system that is 7 parsecs away.  A whopping 7% mishap probability.  It jumps to 10% mishap on the return trip.  I don't know if I would take a job that had a 1 in 10 chance of exploding.

I decided against a third shipyard.  I think research is more important in these early turns.  My Life Support hardly accommodates anything.  I have to pretty much stumble on a perfect planet.  Using my limited production keeping 3 shipyards running, I feel, will slow down colonization.