Who was that masked man?

[ravenzachary]

I've come and gone so much, and most recently I've been gone so long that although I introduced myself once before I feel the need to reintroduce myself again.

I was born and raised to Portland, Oregon and lived there most of my life. When I was first married we did live on Boston for a just over 2 years, but decided Portland was better for us. Then, somewhat unexpectedly, we move from Portland to Salem, Oregon where we live now.

My introduction to PBM gaming came back in the 1980's in the form of a flyer mailed to me based off of an Opponents Wanted add in The General magazine published by The Avalon Hill game company. My first thought on reading it was "what the heck?". I was looking for people to join a local board game club in Portland, not a PBM game. But the GM was offering three free turns to start, and there was a little something that tweaked my interests, so I signed up intending to play my free turns and see what came of it. Within a few months I had 7 or 8 other guys at the club playing as well. All of us at that time had heard of playing our board games by mail, but none of us had ever heard of a game designed to be played by mail. The game itself, Galactic Empires, was engaging in large part because of the interaction with other players in the game and we all kept playing for several years.

From that point some of the guys discovered the magazine Paper Mayhem and learned of other games that several of us joined. Games like Terra II and Galactic Poisoners come to mind, but I know there were others.

Lots of details passed from then until much later, but in the end the games we played all faded away mostly when GMs lost their interest. Most games at that time, as I expect still today, are run by one or two people, and I think most of us who have never done it don't realize the time commitment involved. There is a paradox here, if you don't get enough players it hurts your game and it becomes hard to justify the time you're putting into it, get more players and then you find you have no time for anything except the game. That said, I did acquire and still own the rights to my first PBM game, Galactic Empires, and I ran it as a side hustle for several years until I put it on hold to update the rules and program, and that's where it sits today. Every now and then I get the idea to start GE back up, and perhaps to pursue some of the other ideas I have for PBM games. Perhaps someday...


~Mark
a.k.a. 'The MAD Scientist'

Welcome, Mark! I'm in Portland. When this Pandemic thing is over, we should get together.