[PnP] New Players Wanted

[logicmage at comcast.net]

Scott,
I think I would like to try to join you this time.  I missed out on the last one because i had other things going on.  Do you have another method of contacting you for this do idont clog up this, and what do you need from me to start?

Wes

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Scott Adams <longshot at darktech.org> 

> At 12:29 PM 8/24/07, you wrote: 
> >For those of us who don't know, could you explain what your PBEM Adventure is 
> and how you run it? i.e. How do you run it? Do you use direct voice 
> communication over ICQ or some other program or do you meet in a chatroom or 
> something? 
> 
> A PBEM is Play By Email. In old days it was Play by Echomail. 
> I've run PBEM games since the '80s on my BBS. Its done by email or rather a 
> mailing list just like this one. It would be highly difficult to do via direct 
> voice or chat room. Due to time zones. We have one player in Alaska and the 
> other in Europe. We are taking what? 12 hours. Hard to arrange such a game. I 
> do chat live almost nightly with 2 players via ICQ and that's fine for questions 
> and actions. 
> 
> Thanks to Wout I use a mailing list which is just like this one goes out to 
> everyone in the game and I get and post actions from it or private email. I do 
> 2 Updates a week due to my and other schedules. I work on game updates Monday 
> and Thursday night for Monday (technically Monday though Tuesday) and Friday 
> releases. I could arrange a chat session I'm sure but again arranging such 
> schedules would be difficult. This is why PBEMs are nice in that regard. You 
> can read and reply to the posts at your leisure. Some folks tend to be more 
> active than others so theres plenty of things going on to keep it active most 
> times. 
> I tend to run it Free Form in between adventures allowing you to do things you 
> want and these periods could be 3 months between adventures (game time). Most 
> use it to get expertise in skills and spells or build ranches or such :) Then 
> for the actual adventures I tend to move the game as a GM from part to part. 
> This has to be done as if I allow folks to do what they want they could spend an 
> afternoon in a tavern carousing and brawling in a table game that could take 
> 5-10 min but in a pbem that could take 5-10 weeks. So I move the party usually 
> with npc help from part to part and it seems to work fine. 
> 
> There are good and bad parts to PBEMS. Table games allow for fast play a month 
> of game tme might last a afternoon session. But in a table ame a month could be 
> 3-4 months of real time. Table games allow for good voices and the role playing 
> aspect but in a PBEM your telling a story and introspection, dialogue, scene 
> description and other aspects can be 10-20x more detailed than in a table game. 
> So in the end its almost like reading a story book rather than some emails. I'm 
> no writer but I have fun doing it. 
> 
> As a player you only do actions for your character. Who do you fight? What do 
> you say? What spells to cast? What dialogue to say. 
> 
> As GM I do all the rolls and then give the results in a Update for all to see. 
> Aside from maybe some secret emals on secret actions. 
> 
> I have a game website that shows all the updates and some refernece material. 
> Like right now i have 2 images of the bad guys recently encountered. Maps, 
> reference materials like treasure or people. Etc. 
> 
> We are more or less based in Marentia. 
> Adventure #1 was in Clima and lasted 6-7 years. The reason for the length is 
> one player didn't understand the rules and argued alot and finally separated 
> from the party only to die later myseriously. Also had a lot of other problems 
> in life at the time. 
> 
> Adventure #2 was in the Zen'da plains (Ga'fel) with the home tribe of one of the 
> old players investigating some possible war invasion plans by L'p'nth and Bova 
> and a vampire and his minions. This one only lasted 20 months. 
> 
> Adventure #3 currently takes place in the Pavassa forest another homeland of a 
> player character and some visions from #2 about the forest dying leading to 
> various Campaign aspects. This one is 98% over and started last December so 
> only 9-10 months. 
> 
> As you can see I've shortened the length. It does require some time for players 
> to get used to the length. In game terms the entire 3 adventures took about 2 
> years in game time. (1.5 I think). But the nice thing about PBEMs is you can 
> come and go when you need to. If your on vacation others can do stuff while you 
> are in npc mode or plan your future actions. Or you might bow out of some 
> adventure and join later. That's all fine by me. 
> 
> Adventure #4 and 5 will continue the Campaign aspects intially started in #2 and 
> will be in other lands. :) 
> 
> 
> Currently we have 10 Characters playing. Since I've had 17 before (all active 
> posting daily back in the day in my Gamma World PBEM - which I'm still known for 
> in some circles :)) 10 is no big deal. 
> 1 Druid/Elf, 1 Bard, 3 warriors, 1 shaman, 1 Faerry, 5 are magic-users. 
> But likely Faerry and 1 MU will not be in #4 as they bow out for side things in 
> their characters. 
> 
> I accept anything but as you can see 50% are MUs and the Bard and Druid are the 
> first v2 I've used this adventure. I am using v2 rules and each time I look at 
> the rules seem to learn something new as I've not read it cover to cover yet. 
> 
> I don't mind the race mix as where the party tends to travel its not a problem. 
> Now in #5 it could be a issue ;) That'll be fun. :) 
> 
> How I run it? Well I allow folks to role play something even table games have 
> gotten away from. It comes down to fun rather than worrying about tedious rules 
> and such. Some players only need to read the update (5-10 min max - 20 min a 
> week!). Course I do bulk of the work since some combat can take 3-4 hours I 
> spend some 4-8 hours a week on the game. I'm in ICQ nightly so can take 
> questions. 
> But int he end I am a Balance guy. I don't go out of my way to kill characters 
> unless you do something stupid. "So you really want to run REALLY REALLY FAST 
> over that lava so you can get to the gold chest right?" Stuff like that. As 
> characters get better and better and this group certainly has I have to balance 
> it with making it more tougher and tougher missions. Some like toys with tons 
> of magical toys and protections so they don't fail in actions or spells. But I 
> balance it in various aspects by making it possible to fail even with toys. 
> Nothing is a sure thing. But those who may only have a dagger and loin cloth 
> may be lucky compared to the person with plate and magical armor. The loin 
> cloth dude is balanced by bravery and luck compared to toys. I don't go out of 
> my way to target the plate mail guy but I don't make it easy either :) If you 
> understand. This last combat we almost lost 2 characters but one lived by luck 
> and the other by a npc's magic. Close but b! 
> alanced. 
> Think of it this way if a person with 30 magical items, armor and wepaons is 
> standing by a guy with no magical items the prson with magic is a bulls-eye for 
> magic sensing/mana sensing creatures and thus the more "powerful" and thus a 
> target. With great power comes great responsibility (oh dear will I get sued by 
> Stan lee for that?). Balance. 
> But in the end I try to have fun. 
> 
> In the end check out my game site. Proof is in the pudding. 
> Check out the work. The first 10 or so links at the top detail what a pbem is, 
> faq, how to join and other things like campaign summary. detailed player/npc 
> descriptions among other stuff. 
> 
> Then check out some typical actions from players then my updates. Pick 1 or 2 
> regular updates and then see how a combat update is done. That's how its done. 
> Then if further questions ask them. 
> 
> Maybe my players will chime in here and complain..err I mean glorify me! (right 
> players?). 
> 
> www.funport.com/longshot/pbem 
> 
> It has adv#2's site there. #1 is archived and is over 1 meg of text which would 
> be about a 800 page novel :) 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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