I have been reading old Dragon magazines and I spotted lots of ads for Play By Mail games, both wargames and RPGs. I never played any of them, but I knew a couple people who were in multi-year strategic wargames by mail. Anyone here ever play one? Any good memories?

Yes. Once. Ages ago, I think I lasted three turns before getting bored.

Quote from: Silverlion;631423Yes. Once. Ages ago, I think I lasted three turns before getting bored.

This was my experience, too. I have a load of PBM rule books lying around somewhere. I'll dig 'em up and do a blog post sometime. I also played a football PBM which I enjoyed more and played longer than the rpg. I think that was called "In off the Post".

It's a trip to read about them in those old magazines. People were paying a couple of bucks a turn which was the equivalent of more then $5 now. Just to write down some moves and get a print-out back a couple of weeks later. And some companies were really going gangbusters for several years with full-time employees.

Same here, lasted a few turns and wondered what I was paying for. It's not something to get excited about or interested in. Before the internet I guess it was a way to 'role play' over distance. Are any still going in this day of instant messaging anywhere around the world?

My friend's game business used to be PBM. It made money but looked stressful--lots of printing out etc. from his bedroom office. He's moved with the times and his product is completely different now.

I can't think of a modern equivalent. De Profundis is technically by mail, but it's not that kind of game. We used PBM concepts for live action campaigns too.

I used to play one called Saturnalia. It turns out an archived version of the site is still up too,

   http://www.oocities.org/mark32_2000/sat.html

Also, whilst whistfully scrolling down memory lane, I found this little gem,

QuoteSouth Eurythria -- though be warned this is now a game based on the Thomas Covenant novels and has severed all links with the original Saturnalia after I refused the let the GM run a paedophile in my area...

I'm pretty sure I used to play in South Eurythria too. I seem to remember my last character's name was 'Dark Valentine'. I wonder what it says about me that both the characters I played were female?

Hey, they still play Adventurer Kings (by internet), it was a fun game for its time. I'd spend hours planning out every little move.

I also played Silverdawn, a cool RPG where you hand wrote two pages and the moderator would basically be your 1 on 1 DM for $3 a move.

I played three others, but can't recall their names. One was a popular gladiatorial combat game, with really screwy rules (the best fighters had high intelligence and low constitution, fights often ended with a warrior passing out from exhaustion, and players that knew all the secret weapon and armor rules had a huge advantage). Another was a turn based strategy, not quite as good as Adventurer Kings, and another was a big abstracted war game, rather like Risk but with players having armies in the thousands.

I even ran a PBM game when I was in grad school, Stellar Dynasty, though it was hardly a success.

Back before the internet, it was a great way to play a good long game.

Yes, I used to play several PBMs, for years.

Let's see, many were through Flying Buffalo.  Mostly Battle Plan.  Great game, still going strong, and I can even see doing it again some day.  Flying Buffalo has been running PBMs since 1970.  I even went to a PBM convention of theirs once out in Scotsdale, AZ, , and it was a blast!

There was a fantasy RPG one, called Crack of Doom.

I played that for years, but I felt the moderation was too arbitrary.  It was not really computer run, it was more single-moderator run, sort of like a GM.  I'd enter the description that a friend had used to successfully train a new skill, and the moderator would sometimes give me the same result, and sometimes a different one, and it seemed kind of random to me which you got.  So, eventually, I quit.

Anyway, I highly recommend trying one of the Flying Buffalo PBMs if you've never payed a PBM before.  Here is their current waiting list, updated last week.  It's a dying art, but I think every gamer should try at least on PBM in their life and experience what it's like.  It's definitely a different dynamic than the immediate gratification we get now a days with multiplayer games.   The time between turns allows a very high level of strategy and diplomacy.

Quote from: gufnork;631450I used to play one called Saturnalia. It turns out an archived version of the site is still up too,

   http://www.oocities.org/mark32_2000/sat.html

Mark Lawrence, author of grimdark post-apoc fantasy Prince of Thorns series, used to run that.

I played a PBM game called Earthwood.  It was fun.  I got a couple of buddies from school involved in it, too.

I just ran a search.  Amazingly, the company that ran it, GSI, is apparently still in business and running a Middle Earth PBM.  http://www.gamesystems.com/

I can't imagine what it would have been like... even pbem bores the fuck out of me.  there's no way I'd have ever done this.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;631476Amazingly, the company that ran it, GSI, is apparently still in business and running a Middle Earth PBM.  http://www.gamesystems.com/

They have an Origins award so they must be doing something right. I read the tutorial and it seems like it could be very interesting, but I wonder if I would have the patience for it.

My experience with PBEM or Play By Post hasn't been great.

I used to play the Middle Earth PBM donkeys years ago with a few mates. We enjoyed it to begin with, but the game has a few inherent flaws (assassins and curse squads ftw) and it really didn't make sense for us to pay to play game like that when we could just go round someone's house and play something similiar round a table.

I've also played Diplomacy as a PBM, which worked much better and I think was well suited to the sort of format.

Can't really see how an rpg game would work as a PBM.