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+--- Thread: The Sink Holes, Fires, and Secret Lairs of Play By Mail Gaming (/showthread.php?tid=250)
The Sink Holes, Fires, and Secret Lairs of Play By Mail Gaming - GrimFinger - 08-14-2011
It's funny, in a way, what one remembers from years gone by. There's a lot of things that I can recall about play by mail gaming. Most of it is in bits and pieces - fragments and shards of scattered recollections.
I remember how I got started in PBM. It was an an ad for Hyborian War, on the back of one of those black and white Conan magazines. I used to enjoy reading those. Somewhere along the way, I got out of the habit of reading them.
That ad, it still stands out in my mind. That, and the paragraph of text that tempted me into giving both the game and the hobby of PBM gaming a try. Man, it was interesting, that initial packet of info. I didn't know what to make of it. It was still an unknown commodity to me, at that particular moment in time.
I remember spending several hours reading those brief kingdom descriptions of the player kingdoms of Hyborian War, over the course of a few days, before deciding to take the plunge. Here's the one that, after much consideration, that I decided to try my hand at.
Blonde reavers of the icy north, the mailed warriors of the Aesir are held in check only by their equally ferocious kin the Vanir to the west, the grim Cimmerians southward, and by arcane Hyperborea to the east. Loosely organized, the clans await their forging to a cause, or a great captain of men, to spur them over the ice towards bright and bloody conquest!
I think that it was maybe reading Thor comic books that gave the kingdom of Asgard an edge, in persuading me to choose that kingdom over thirty-five other possibilities.
I quickly became enamored of the game, growing more addicted to it, as I played each turn. I didn't know what the Hell that I was doing. I made many mistakes. It took forty-seven turns for that first game of Hyborian War to end. Damn! That's a long time, in real time.
That game was HW-85. Here I am, approximately twenty-five years later, playing the kingdom of Nemedia in HW-854. I'm a lot more comfortable with the basics of the game, now. There's a lot that I know about the game, and there's a lot that I still don't know about the game. I don't know of anyone who truly knows everything about the game, and I have encountered quite a few fellow Hyborian War players over the span of time since I first dipped my toe into the refreshing waters of play by mail gaming.
I played in several other PBM games over the years, but in spite of that small feat of no real importance, the vast majority of PBM games that I was aware of, I never even gave them a try. Oh, the tragedy! Oh, the loss! Oh, me, oh, my!
But, that's just the way that it is. I have more copies of play by mail magazines in my possession now, than I ever had during the heyday of my enthrallment with the PBM hobby. What's up with that? Is there more to it than mere nostalgia?
PBM was a growing, thriving hobby, before I ever even encountered it. Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo had been swimming in PBM waters for a decade and a half or more, before I ever even knew that the hobby existed. I missed a lot - an awful lot, I tell you. There's no way to measure what all that I missed.
And how much money went down the drain, due to all of those long distance phone calls that somehow became a part of the PBM picture? Oh, damn! Can I have all of that money back? There were some good friends that were made, from those phone calls, though. How many of them do I still talk with on the telephone occasionally, these days, though? None. Not a single, solitary one. Now, that's sad.
People go on with their lives, of course. They can get burned out on PBM gaming as easily as they can get burned out on any of a number of other pursuits in entertainment. I don't think that there's any real way around that.
Maybe that's for the better, though. PBM games could surely become a time sinkhole, if one wasn't careful. But, damn, it sure was a lot of fun!
And there are worse things in life than having fun.
These days, I can communicate much more quickly than I ever could, back in the olden days of PBM, back in the days when I was in the prime of my interest in the game and the hobby. But, communications back then was a much more intense experience, for me. Plotting and scheming via the Internet has nothing on the old timey approach by U.S. Mail and by AT&T long distance telephone service.
For my HW-854 game of Hyborian War, I recently set-up a forum site dedicated solely for the use of myself and a handful of allies. I am trying something new, in the area of communication and coordination. I am, in essence, bringing technology to bear, hopefully to the detriment of my enemies in the game. I don't give the URL of the site out, as that would defeat the purpose of having a secret lair to plot and scheme in. I'll try to keep you abreast of how the whole concept works out, going forward.
It's really late, here, as I post this, and my eyes and my body are tired. I think that I will hit the hay. Until next time, keep the PBM fires burning brightly.
Someone out there may notice.