11-22-2011, 04:15 PM
great post, Grim. Highly evocative.
I have been paging through my ancient archive of PBM materials -- rule books, turn results, newsletters, and many hand-written notes. Some of the most fun I've had while gaming has been through PBM. Out of all proportion, really. I have played the computer game Civilization many times and enjoyed it quite a lot. But it still pales in comparison to reading my narrative turn results from Silverdawn (all hand-moderated), poring over a purloined copy of an opposing team's newsletter in Empyrean Challenge (and I still don't know how my comrade got a hold of it), or moderating a bitter internal feud in EC by laying out and publishing a dozen-page update to all, obsessing over every detail of not only my own turn, but the state of our internal diplomacy the whole time.
Thanks to Ramblurr, I got a nice taste of this again with our Far Horizons thing. I missed that new "beginner-friendly" game of Hyborian War, and the nascent new release of EC is still in pre-alpha, with developments and a new test game coming agonizingly slow. Thanks to all this, and also to you for this site, I am rediscovering my favorite genre of gaming. Still trying to get into that Beyond the Stellar Empire thing. I will also be snooping around for a professional game to join. Will post about it soon.
Incidentally, I am a programmer, so if you have a game framework and want some work done on it, I would be more than happy to collaborate.
Also, I had a new idea pop up as I was warming up my own long-term effort to create a PBM game. Design by forum. I could put a basic game up, with minimal rules, and then crowd-source its further development. Could even start with that Far Horizons kernel since it's in the public domain now. Just a thought. Perhaps you and your readers here can tell me whether you think that would be something you'd like to participate in?
I have been paging through my ancient archive of PBM materials -- rule books, turn results, newsletters, and many hand-written notes. Some of the most fun I've had while gaming has been through PBM. Out of all proportion, really. I have played the computer game Civilization many times and enjoyed it quite a lot. But it still pales in comparison to reading my narrative turn results from Silverdawn (all hand-moderated), poring over a purloined copy of an opposing team's newsletter in Empyrean Challenge (and I still don't know how my comrade got a hold of it), or moderating a bitter internal feud in EC by laying out and publishing a dozen-page update to all, obsessing over every detail of not only my own turn, but the state of our internal diplomacy the whole time.
Thanks to Ramblurr, I got a nice taste of this again with our Far Horizons thing. I missed that new "beginner-friendly" game of Hyborian War, and the nascent new release of EC is still in pre-alpha, with developments and a new test game coming agonizingly slow. Thanks to all this, and also to you for this site, I am rediscovering my favorite genre of gaming. Still trying to get into that Beyond the Stellar Empire thing. I will also be snooping around for a professional game to join. Will post about it soon.
Incidentally, I am a programmer, so if you have a game framework and want some work done on it, I would be more than happy to collaborate.
Also, I had a new idea pop up as I was warming up my own long-term effort to create a PBM game. Design by forum. I could put a basic game up, with minimal rules, and then crowd-source its further development. Could even start with that Far Horizons kernel since it's in the public domain now. Just a thought. Perhaps you and your readers here can tell me whether you think that would be something you'd like to participate in?