10-20-2013, 04:38 PM
Spellbinder Games Keys of Bled was a complex and very deep game that ended some time in the late 1990s. It was ideal for sub-creating. Here I want to describe one of my positions in one of the oldest and most addictive PBM games I have been in.
My oldest clan in the game was Balgownies Bairns last turn being No.104, and with the objective role of Insurgent (Landholm). The youngest clan was called Israel headed up by Rebecca with a Matriarch objective role, on turn 62 (Firstholm). This had evolved out of Abraham's Children after the clan had settled in a Holmland (homeland).
My second oldest clan was called The Gnos reaching Turn 81 (Farholm), and for one of the 1960s generation it was a classic choice to sub-create in the spirit of the Age of Aquarius. Its original leader was called Sib, short for sibling, but at some point I replaced him with Olga. Naturally, my position was given "the objective role" of Priest, which I guess was fine. It also originally had a dance troop called Darvish's Dervishes in the tradition of dervish dancing (Wikipedia see Dervish and Whirling Dervishes in the same item). This also fitted with my idea of a multi-religious approach. I abandoned the idea when it proved to be redundant as just one of many ways of increasing morale, which in-game was its only effect. Easier to increase supply in winter.
The point here is to highlight the importance of adapting sub-creation to the spirit of the game s well as its rules.
I made the Gnos sea-based, on a farmland coast, sector 90/99, with a main fleet of 5 warships: Flagship Maharishi, the other four Krishnamurti, Rudolph Steiner, Esterhazy I and Esterhazy II and a base for the ships. Each warship had 25 FM and 25 sailors. The FM were equipped with leather armour, stabbing sword, and longbow. There were also 3 smaller and faster Escort Ships: Cosmic Consciousness, Transcendence and Nirvana, each with 20 FM (20 Leather Armour, 20 Stabbing Sword, 20 Sling).
The main body of the clan was a defensive force of 720 Infantry organised in 6 x 120 units, plus 120 cavalry, 30 commandos and 100 trainee mercenaries under Don John (as in Don John of Austria - see Wikipedia). there were also 100 potters. The civilian population was some 4,600 plus equipment for farming and hunting, tracker dogs and guard dogs and a bullion reserve of nearly 5,000 gold. 105 spies (people) were also part of home base security.
One subgroup was headed by Attila comprised of 25 mountain commandos and a further 25 trainee mountain commandos. They also had 4 carrier eagles for communication with Base. They were in 83/97 High Mountains but as I don't have mapping any longer I don't know where these were in relation to the coastal farmlands of home.
Items included various potions like 10 truthall, 10 truth seer, 10 fertility, 5 keysearcher, and 1 mutant key.
I never got to use many of these potions, and can't remember if I used even the obvious ones like fertility and truth seer. I suspect the 5 keysearcher potions and 1 mutant key potion were needed to learn what the keys of Bled were. I never got that far in all the many turns I sent in. The keys remained a secret I was unable to solve. Did anyone succeed? I never heard of anyone doing so. But then I was a very cautious and defensive player, trying to husband resources in a hostile world containing many NPCs of different kinds to interact with.
But the mystery and difficulty of the game were legion. Chris Dempsey was an outstanding GM, and the game turn results were so detailed that I have not even attempted to copy the results into this already very long post. Basically they consisted of a one-page detailed info on all resources of the clan, which needed revising by the GM after each turn, and a unique turn result report for each turn which was typed single-spaced on foolscap folio (see Wikipedia for a brief description).
I met Chris Dempsey a couple of times and expressed my enthusiasm for this very addictive and absorbing game. His response was simply a smile of amusement.
But it is clear that the work involved in running such a detailed game was too much. Bledian Diary was the simplified alternative, a game I never got into. But that is another story. Keys of Bled remains for me the PBM game that epitomised the spirit of gaming at the time. It wasn't always about "winning" but about exploration, collaboration with other players and enjoyment. But it did need a dedicated and inventive GM like Chris Dempsey to make it work.
In a later post in this thread I will look closer at Ultima Online. For the major factor for me was my discovery of mass on-line role-playing, and the beginning of an entirely new era in "peaceful" gaming, a climax to my career as a gamer that eclipsed all else that had gone before. I did much writing in this, more sub-creation than any game I had been in before.
My oldest clan in the game was Balgownies Bairns last turn being No.104, and with the objective role of Insurgent (Landholm). The youngest clan was called Israel headed up by Rebecca with a Matriarch objective role, on turn 62 (Firstholm). This had evolved out of Abraham's Children after the clan had settled in a Holmland (homeland).
My second oldest clan was called The Gnos reaching Turn 81 (Farholm), and for one of the 1960s generation it was a classic choice to sub-create in the spirit of the Age of Aquarius. Its original leader was called Sib, short for sibling, but at some point I replaced him with Olga. Naturally, my position was given "the objective role" of Priest, which I guess was fine. It also originally had a dance troop called Darvish's Dervishes in the tradition of dervish dancing (Wikipedia see Dervish and Whirling Dervishes in the same item). This also fitted with my idea of a multi-religious approach. I abandoned the idea when it proved to be redundant as just one of many ways of increasing morale, which in-game was its only effect. Easier to increase supply in winter.
The point here is to highlight the importance of adapting sub-creation to the spirit of the game s well as its rules.
I made the Gnos sea-based, on a farmland coast, sector 90/99, with a main fleet of 5 warships: Flagship Maharishi, the other four Krishnamurti, Rudolph Steiner, Esterhazy I and Esterhazy II and a base for the ships. Each warship had 25 FM and 25 sailors. The FM were equipped with leather armour, stabbing sword, and longbow. There were also 3 smaller and faster Escort Ships: Cosmic Consciousness, Transcendence and Nirvana, each with 20 FM (20 Leather Armour, 20 Stabbing Sword, 20 Sling).
The main body of the clan was a defensive force of 720 Infantry organised in 6 x 120 units, plus 120 cavalry, 30 commandos and 100 trainee mercenaries under Don John (as in Don John of Austria - see Wikipedia). there were also 100 potters. The civilian population was some 4,600 plus equipment for farming and hunting, tracker dogs and guard dogs and a bullion reserve of nearly 5,000 gold. 105 spies (people) were also part of home base security.
One subgroup was headed by Attila comprised of 25 mountain commandos and a further 25 trainee mountain commandos. They also had 4 carrier eagles for communication with Base. They were in 83/97 High Mountains but as I don't have mapping any longer I don't know where these were in relation to the coastal farmlands of home.
Items included various potions like 10 truthall, 10 truth seer, 10 fertility, 5 keysearcher, and 1 mutant key.
I never got to use many of these potions, and can't remember if I used even the obvious ones like fertility and truth seer. I suspect the 5 keysearcher potions and 1 mutant key potion were needed to learn what the keys of Bled were. I never got that far in all the many turns I sent in. The keys remained a secret I was unable to solve. Did anyone succeed? I never heard of anyone doing so. But then I was a very cautious and defensive player, trying to husband resources in a hostile world containing many NPCs of different kinds to interact with.
But the mystery and difficulty of the game were legion. Chris Dempsey was an outstanding GM, and the game turn results were so detailed that I have not even attempted to copy the results into this already very long post. Basically they consisted of a one-page detailed info on all resources of the clan, which needed revising by the GM after each turn, and a unique turn result report for each turn which was typed single-spaced on foolscap folio (see Wikipedia for a brief description).
I met Chris Dempsey a couple of times and expressed my enthusiasm for this very addictive and absorbing game. His response was simply a smile of amusement.
But it is clear that the work involved in running such a detailed game was too much. Bledian Diary was the simplified alternative, a game I never got into. But that is another story. Keys of Bled remains for me the PBM game that epitomised the spirit of gaming at the time. It wasn't always about "winning" but about exploration, collaboration with other players and enjoyment. But it did need a dedicated and inventive GM like Chris Dempsey to make it work.
In a later post in this thread I will look closer at Ultima Online. For the major factor for me was my discovery of mass on-line role-playing, and the beginning of an entirely new era in "peaceful" gaming, a climax to my career as a gamer that eclipsed all else that had gone before. I did much writing in this, more sub-creation than any game I had been in before.