07-14-2013, 06:33 AM
Sifting through the Internet for scattered remnants and artifacts of play-by-mail gaming from days gone by leaves me wondering, at times, what's the point?
The stuff that I want to find the most is long since gone - assuming that it was ever on the Internet to begin with, and the people that I most want to communicate with, aren't exactly the most accessible.
Finding the Old Guard of PBM, or at least, what remains of its dwindling numbers, is vastly easier than communicating with them. I've found a few of them, over time, and it's probably accurate to say that at least a few of them have no real interest in being "found." By that, I mean, being bothered - bothered with a genre of gaming that, to them, "died" many years ago.
Dusty tomes of PBM rulebooks, from games of all sorts, lie undisturbed in boxes the world over, hidden away from those who would seek them out, that their long-dormant secrets might be known by mortal men, once more. It might be best if I tread not at all in the Corridors of the Past, which lead to all things play by mail.
Oh, but how the mighty have been vanquished, retreating to this Mausoleum of Silence that has become sanctuary to them. Here, in the present of what is the future of PBM's past, we have become invisible to them. Though they remain very real, indeed, to us, it is we who have ceased to exist - ceased to exist in the Eyes of PBM's forefathers.
Thus, the Elder race of PBM moderators, like so many games from PBM's past, have become lost to the stars. They continued to advance in technology, and we, their descendents - the rightful heirs to PBM's golden legacy - wallow in the squallor of a genre of gaming that seems Hell-bent on passing us by. They mined it for all that it was worth, and then they abandoned us for the greener pastures of tomorrow.
Now, we co-exist with them, separated from them by the dimensions of our respective lives.
This is the reality from which I speak, as I sit here at my desk, pouring over Phil Chenevert's star map for Blood, Gore & Guts Across the Galaxy that is depicted on page number five of Paper Mayhem issue #69. As I sit here in the semi-dark, my eyes squinting to make out what the text of Phil's article says, Deltax Gaming looms before me like runes from a long-forgotten empire whose PBM star has long-since burned out. Surely, this bodes ill for Phil Chenevert's Armadillos of Love.
In the space between PBM's Old Guard and those poor, unfortunate stragglers who seek to till ancient ground, no one can hear you scream.
In due time, this facility that is the PlayByMail.Net website will be lost to time, as well. But, that moment in time has not yet arrived, for us. As such, we continue to stand guard against the encroaching seconds that click off the clock. Their assault is an ongoing one, one that never ceases, and against which there ultimately is no defense.
The stuff that I want to find the most is long since gone - assuming that it was ever on the Internet to begin with, and the people that I most want to communicate with, aren't exactly the most accessible.
Finding the Old Guard of PBM, or at least, what remains of its dwindling numbers, is vastly easier than communicating with them. I've found a few of them, over time, and it's probably accurate to say that at least a few of them have no real interest in being "found." By that, I mean, being bothered - bothered with a genre of gaming that, to them, "died" many years ago.
Dusty tomes of PBM rulebooks, from games of all sorts, lie undisturbed in boxes the world over, hidden away from those who would seek them out, that their long-dormant secrets might be known by mortal men, once more. It might be best if I tread not at all in the Corridors of the Past, which lead to all things play by mail.
Oh, but how the mighty have been vanquished, retreating to this Mausoleum of Silence that has become sanctuary to them. Here, in the present of what is the future of PBM's past, we have become invisible to them. Though they remain very real, indeed, to us, it is we who have ceased to exist - ceased to exist in the Eyes of PBM's forefathers.
Thus, the Elder race of PBM moderators, like so many games from PBM's past, have become lost to the stars. They continued to advance in technology, and we, their descendents - the rightful heirs to PBM's golden legacy - wallow in the squallor of a genre of gaming that seems Hell-bent on passing us by. They mined it for all that it was worth, and then they abandoned us for the greener pastures of tomorrow.
Now, we co-exist with them, separated from them by the dimensions of our respective lives.
This is the reality from which I speak, as I sit here at my desk, pouring over Phil Chenevert's star map for Blood, Gore & Guts Across the Galaxy that is depicted on page number five of Paper Mayhem issue #69. As I sit here in the semi-dark, my eyes squinting to make out what the text of Phil's article says, Deltax Gaming looms before me like runes from a long-forgotten empire whose PBM star has long-since burned out. Surely, this bodes ill for Phil Chenevert's Armadillos of Love.
In the space between PBM's Old Guard and those poor, unfortunate stragglers who seek to till ancient ground, no one can hear you scream.
In due time, this facility that is the PlayByMail.Net website will be lost to time, as well. But, that moment in time has not yet arrived, for us. As such, we continue to stand guard against the encroaching seconds that click off the clock. Their assault is an ongoing one, one that never ceases, and against which there ultimately is no defense.