The Unseen Servant forums

I always envisioned these ads where the DM would run multiple people (if he got more than one person to pay him that much money to play D&D) in the same campaign, where nobody knows if another character is another PC or an NPC. It would almost end up like a video game (albeit a slow one).

The concept might be played out in a PBP format if players are willing to accept a slower post rate of 1x/week.

Grognardsw wrote:

Source: 1983-84 Dragon Magazines

It always seemed to me that PbM games were kinda... pricey?

No kidding. Even $3/move is almost $7/move in today's dollars. Yikes.

That Civil War one is...double yikes.

Do you think that's word than "Music World?"

I wonder how many players these PBM games actually got.

The music world one is ridiculous, but the civil war game--the basis of the civil war is "foreign wars and incompetent leadership." We know who the good guys are, here...

I wonder about the same questions raised here in the past and did a quick search on the subject. It seems a sizeable cottage industry of gaming, though I never knew anyone who did it. But those who played by mail didn't know fellow gamers most likely, so I guess not meeting any made sense.

From wikipedia... ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play-by-mail_game )

Play-by-mail games, sometimes known as "Play-by-post", are games, of any type, played through postal mail or email. One example, chess, has been played by mail for centuries (when played in this way, it is known as correspondence chess). Another example, Diplomacy, has been played by mail since the 1960s, starting with a printed newsletter (a fanzine) written by John Boardman. More complex games, moderated entirely or partially by computer programs, were pioneered by Rick Loomis ofFlying Buffalo in 1970. The first such game offered via major e-mail services was WebWar II (based on Starweb and licensed from Flying Buffalo) from Neolithic Enterprises who accepted e-mail turns from all of the major E-Mail services including CompuServe in 1983.

In the 1980s, play-by-mail games reached their peak of popularity with the advent of Gaming Universal, Paper Mayhem andFlagship magazine, the first professional magazines devoted to play-by-mail games. (An earlier fanzine, Nuts & Bolts of PBM, was the first publication to exclusively cover the hobby.) Bob McLain, the publisher and editor of Gaming Universal, further popularized the hobby by writing articles that appeared in many of the leading mainstream gaming magazines of the time. Flagship later bought overseas right to Gaming Universal, making it the leading magazine in the field. Flagship magazine was founded by Chris Harvey and Nick Palmer (now an MP) of the UK. The magazine still exists, under a new editor, but health concerns have led to worries over the publication's long term viability.

In the late 1990s, computer and Internet games marginalized play-by-mail conducted by actual postal mail, but the postal hobby still exists with an estimated 2000–3000 adherents worldwide.

The commercial market for play-by-mail games grew to involve computer servers set up to host potentially thousands of players at once. Players would typically be split up into parallel games in order to keep the number of players per game at a reasonable level, with new games starting as old games ended. A typical closed game session might involve one to two dozen players, although some games claimed to have as many as five hundred people simultaneously competing in the same game world. While the central company was responsible for feeding in moves and mailing the processed output back to players, players were also provided with the mailing addresses of others so that direct contact could be made and negotiations performed. With turns being processed every few weeks (a two week turnaround being standard), more advanced games could last over a year.

Game themes are heavily varied, and may range from those based on historical or real events to those taking place in alternate or fictional worlds.

Inevitably, the onset of the computer-moderated PBM game (primarily the Legends game system) meant that the human moderated games became "boutique" games with little chance of matching the gross revenues that larger, automated games could produce.

The mechanics of play-by-mail games require that players think and plan carefully before making moves. Because planned actions can typically only be submitted at a fixed maximum frequency (e.g., once every few days or every few weeks), the number of discrete actions is limited compared to real-time games. As a result, players are provided with a variety of resources to assist in turn planning, including game aids, maps, and results from previous turns. Using this material, planning a single turn may take a number of hours.

Actual move/turn submission is traditionally carried out by filling in a turn card. This card has formatted entry areas where players enter their planned actions (using some form of encoding) for the upcoming turn. Players are limited to some finite number of actions, and in some cases must split their resources between these actions (so that additional actions make each less effective). The way the card is filled in often implies an ordering between each command, so that they are processed in-order, one after another. Once completed, the card is then mailed (or, in more modern times, emailed) to the game master, where it is either processed, or held until the next turn processing window begins.

By gathering turn cards from a number of players and processing them all at the same time, games can provide simultaneous actions for all players. However, for this same reason, co-ordination between players can be difficult to achieve. For example, player A might attempt to move to player B's current location to do something with (or to) player B, while player B might simultaneously attempt to move to player A's current location. As such, the output/results of the turn can differ significantly from the submitted plan. Whatever the results, they are mailed back to the player to be studied and used as the basis for the next turn (often along with a new blank turn card).

While billing is sometimes done using a flat per-game rate (when the length of the game is known and finite), games more typically use a per-turn cost schedule. In such cases, each turn submitted depletes a pool of credit which must periodically be replenished in order to keep playing. Some games have multiple fee schedules, where players can pay more to perform advanced actions, or to take a greater number of actions in a turn.

Some role-playing PBM games also include an element whereby the player may describe actions of their characters in a free text form. The effect and effectiveness of the action is then based on the judgement of the GM who may allow or partially allow the action. This gives the player more flexibility beyond the normal fixed actions at the cost of more complexity and, usually, expense.



From a blogger... ( http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/198/ent ... ne-issues/ )

Back in the 1980s, as a teenager, none of my friends were interested in roleplaying games, and there weren't any local clubs. So I couldn't try face-to-face gaming, and instead found substitutes. Fighting Fantasy and other gamebooks were a lot of fun. And another thing that kept me going was play by mail (PBM) gaming.

This was in a time long before the Internet became widely accessible. Play by mail gaming back then literally meant playing through the post, writing turns for my character, posting them, and receiving the results back, and then repeat. Some of the games involved more abstract codes for turns, so you would almost be doing something approaching computer programming as you put your turns in, and then the results might be pages of statistics, for example economic figures for running a kingdom or a city or a trading caravan. Other games were much more freeform roleplaying, where you as the player would describe what your character was going to do, and the GM/person running the PBM would receive that, in the post, figure out what happened next, and send you a few sides of paper outlining that.

At the forefront of PBM gaming at this time, especially in the UK, was Flagship magazine. This was founded in 1983 and ran until the last couple of years, only finishing - for now anyway - when the editor sadly had a severe stroke. Back in the 1980s and 1990s Flagship was almost the only way (barring occasional articles in some other magazines like GM) that interested players could find out about postal games they could take part in, and it was full of adverts for new games, and reviews of them, and other articles. One of my favourite sections was the 'Rumours from the Front' section where players would send in short summaries of what was happening in their games - often a good glimpse into what gaming in those games might be like. More recently it generalised its content to cover other games, like RPGs and board games. Always a good read.

Over time play by mail gaming companies folded in greater numbers, and there were fewer games. But it continued as a hobby until recently. Many companies (including those still running, like KJC) made the transition to Internet gaming, allowing turns to be sent in by email or web form, and the results returned similarly. But there was still something magical about gaming by post, and receiving each new envelope full of untold potential.

For people who played play by mail back in the day, or anyone simply interested in how it worked, the available PDF back issues of Flagship are a good read. Only some of the issues are available there, but they include the very first issues from 1983, as well as some of the last from 2010. 

I knew people (friends of my parents) who played chess by mail.

And the brother of my friend (who introduced us to RPGs in the mid 90s) played a fantasy PbM, but money was an issue, so he stopped after a couple of moves.

I'm intrigued by the concept of these PbM games, these slow-moving enterprises... Strategic, "empire building" games work best, of course. By the way, we basically have a PbM on board right now, Starbeard's Warhammer!

Fulci wrote:I knew people (friends of my parents) who played chess by mail.

And the brother of my friend (who introduced us to RPGs in the mid 90s) played a fantasy PbM, but money was an issue, so he stopped after a couple of moves.

I'm intrigued by the concept of these PbM games, these slow-moving enterprises... Strategic, "empire building" games work best, of course. By the way, we basically have a PbM on board right now, Starbeard's Warhammer!

Hah! I hadn't quite thought about it that way, but I guess that's what it is! Right now we've only got 2 full time players, but room for plenty more. I'm trying a few ways to experiment with the whole conundrum of hidden moves: at the moment, I'm always putting something public about each character, even if it's a (false) rumour. Stuff that happens in public goes in the public forums, but once they leave the city or sneak into a back alley it goes private. We'll see how it moves along.

One of my ultimate dream games for this forum would be a true PbM style sandbox, where each player submits a turn privately and interacts with the world as though everyone is an NPC. It would have to be multi-DM PbM, with each DM being responsible for their own town and surrounding dungeons. It would probably have to use a system that easily allows fairly strict readings, like BECMI, so that rulings can stay fairly consistent across DMs. Realistically it would probably flop after a while, or never get enough PCs to warrant all the hoopla, but it's still a nice thought.

I've never actually had the chance to play in a professional PbM, but I've always figured that I'd fork over the dough one day and try it out, just to say I did. I believe Flying Buffalo still runs most of their PbM through e-mail now, with turns still costing about $3-$4.50. I think most of them are finite games, with a set beginning and end, which always seemed more feasible to me than those dozens of sprawling, open-ended games that seemed to have a monthly turnover rate in the magazine ads.

Starbeard wrote:

Fulci wrote:I knew people (friends of my parents) who played chess by mail.

And the brother of my friend (who introduced us to RPGs in the mid 90s) played a fantasy PbM, but money was an issue, so he stopped after a couple of moves.

I'm intrigued by the concept of these PbM games, these slow-moving enterprises... Strategic, "empire building" games work best, of course. By the way, we basically have a PbM on board right now, Starbeard's Warhammer!

Hah! I hadn't quite thought about it that way, but I guess that's what it is! Right now we've only got 2 full time players, but room for plenty more. I'm trying a few ways to experiment with the whole conundrum of hidden moves: at the moment, I'm always putting something public about each character, even if it's a (false) rumour. Stuff that happens in public goes in the public forums, but once they leave the city or sneak into a back alley it goes private. We'll see how it moves along.

I'd really like to join, but I have a lot on my hands right now Maybe next month, if it will be possible.

Starbeard wrote:

Fulci wrote:I knew people (friends of my parents) who played chess by mail.

And the brother of my friend (who introduced us to RPGs in the mid 90s) played a fantasy PbM, but money was an issue, so he stopped after a couple of moves.

I'm intrigued by the concept of these PbM games, these slow-moving enterprises... Strategic, "empire building" games work best, of course. By the way, we basically have a PbM on board right now, Starbeard's Warhammer!

Hah! I hadn't quite thought about it that way, but I guess that's what it is! Right now we've only got 2 full time players, but room for plenty more. I'm trying a few ways to experiment with the whole conundrum of hidden moves: at the moment, I'm always putting something public about each character, even if it's a (false) rumour. Stuff that happens in public goes in the public forums, but once they leave the city or sneak into a back alley it goes private. We'll see how it moves along.

One of my ultimate dream games for this forum would be a true PbM style sandbox, where each player submits a turn privately and interacts with the world as though everyone is an NPC. It would have to be multi-DM PbM, with each DM being responsible for their own town and surrounding dungeons. It would probably have to use a system that easily allows fairly strict readings, like BECMI, so that rulings can stay fairly consistent across DMs. Realistically it would probably flop after a while, or never get enough PCs to warrant all the hoopla, but it's still a nice thought.

I've never actually had the chance to play in a professional PbM, but I've always figured that I'd fork over the dough one day and try it out, just to say I did. I believe Flying Buffalo still runs most of their PbM through e-mail now, with turns still costing about $3-$4.50. I think most of them are finite games, with a set beginning and end, which always seemed more feasible to me than those dozens of sprawling, open-ended games that seemed to have a monthly turnover rate in the magazine ads.

This is something dmw71 and I have been playing around with for some time now. I think his current sandbox game (viewforum.php?f=152) is probably the best iteration of hidden-game rules.

In an earlier version, we tried to keep it where, as you say, everyone else is an NPC in a previous version of the game, but it was incredibly time-consuming for him. He was basically running a full solo game for each player, PLUS he had to cross-post conversations, editing actions to third person when necessary and filtering to make sure PCs appeared as NPCs. It was a real struggle and, ultimately, it failed as a moderate post frequency PbP game. He might be able to provide better details about what did and didn't work.

It would be feasible, I think, if your posting frequency expectations were not very high - say, once a week at the most, but more likely once every 10 days (almost the pace a true PbM game would have had).

Alethan wrote:This is something dmw71 and I have been playing around with for some time now. I think his current sandbox game (viewforum.php?f=152) is probably the best iteration of hidden-game rules.

In an earlier version, we tried to keep it where, as you say, everyone else is an NPC in a previous version of the game, but it was incredibly time-consuming for him. He was basically running a full solo game for each player, PLUS he had to cross-post conversations, editing actions to third person when necessary and filtering to make sure PCs appeared as NPCs. It was a real struggle and, ultimately, it failed as a moderate post frequency PbP game. He might be able to provide better details about what did and didn't work.

It would be feasible, I think, if your posting frequency expectations were not very high - say, once a week at the most, but more likely once every 10 days (almost the pace a true PbM game would have had).

I've played in 1-and-a-half games run by dmw71 before, and I think the way you've all ironed out the hidden-game format is definitely working, and shows just how effective it can be for a PbP.

That post rate sounds about right. I imagine that for a true double-blind experience, the post rate would have to be a bit slower than usual (once every 7-10 days), and the turn rate would also have to be a bit longer. Players really couldn't expect to hash out lengthy conversations back and forth, but would have to adopt a more strategic style of posting. Actions would have to be more general in nature, with the trust that the results would be adjudicated by the DM in the spirit of the player's best interests.

Edit: For example, instead of searching every bit of furniture in a room, they would simply search the room (paying special attention to x or y), and let the DM figure out how long it takes and what order things go in.

Starbeard wrote: I've played in 1-and-a-half games run by dmw71 before, and I think the way you've all ironed out the hidden-game format is definitely working, and shows just how effective it can be for a PbP.

That post rate sounds about right. I imagine that for a true double-blind experience, the post rate would have to be a bit slower than usual (once every 7-10 days), and the turn rate would also have to be a bit longer. Players really couldn't expect to hash out lengthy conversations back and forth, but would have to adopt a more strategic style of posting. Actions would have to be more general in nature, with the trust that the results would be adjudicated by the DM in the spirit of the player's best interests.

Edit: For example, instead of searching every bit of furniture in a room, they would simply search the room (paying special attention to x or y), and let the DM figure out how long it takes and what order things go in.

Ways Of The Earth has a 5+ year old game on his Immersive Ink forum called Hinterlands (http://forum.immersiveink.com/viewforum.php?f=4). In that game, we've adopted a similar hidden-thread format for characters when actions split one or several people from the main party or when a character is sneaky (like my hero-level two-headed hobbet fighter/thief) and likes to do things on their own.

The big difference is that WOTE set those private threads up as viewable by all, excepting you need password access to view them. The drawback to this method is that other players can see there is new activity on the thread (i.e. something is going on that might be sneaky), even if they can't see what the activity is.

I remember when WotE began and almost signed on...kinda wish I had now. Although, my track record for staying in games is not that great, I am optimistic that one day I will find one I can never leave.

hedgeknight wrote:I remember when WotE began and almost signed on...kinda wish I had now. Although, my track record for staying in games is not that great, I am optimistic that one day I will find one I can never leave.

I joined on 2/10/11, so about 4 1/2 years ago, and haven't regretted it once. One of the best games on the world wide web, if you ask me.

Anyone remember Polyhedron?