jagardner@watmath.UUCP (Jim Gardner) (06/11/85)
[...] Again, I'll start with disclaimers: I have very little firsthand experience of PBM games, even the ones I describe here because I'm new to the field. I am submitting these articles for people who may be curious, and also in the hopes that someone out there with a more extensive background will submit something about his or her experiences. Last time I talked mostly about Heroic Fantasy from Flying Buffalo Inc. For $5.00 U.S., you can get all the rules to all of FBI's PBM games by sending to Flying Buffalo Inc. P.O.Box 1467 Scottsdale, AZ 85252-1467 This time I'll talk about stuff from Adventures By Mail (ABM). The big two (in my opinion) are Crasimoff's World and Beyond the Stellar Empire. Crasimoff's World is an FRP campaign game. Crasimoff was the ruler of the Astoffs, a race of sorceror/scientists who dominated the planet before they managed to kill themselves off playing with mutant viruses. Now that the Astoff Empire has collapsed, the human inhabitants of the world are beginning to emerge from their state of serfdom and are venturing forth to see what's what. They were purposefully kept from communicating with anyone outside their small villages, so there are no maps of the world, and precious little information about what one will find out there. You start off as one of three types of groups: Adventurers, Coastal Merchants, or River Merchants. Your group will almost certainly be human, although there are also dwarves and swampmen on the planet (and likely a handful of Astoffs surviving to cause real trouble, though thank heaven, I haven't run into any of them yet). You begin your journeys from your hometown with a party of 9 characters. There are several possible character classes: Fighter, Mage, Priest (cleric), and Leader (who can do a bit of everything). Other character classes exist on the planet, but you have to pick them up during your adventures (and of course if you thoroughly trust that easygoing Thief you meet in some unknown Inn, that's your problem). Increases in abilities (i.e. skill levels) are automatically granted every three turns, just for surviving. As with FBI's Heroic Fantasy, the rulebook for Crasimoff's World contains only the bare essentials -- there's a lot more you'll have to pick up as you go along. For example, there's a full-fledged war going on between the gods out there, and joining one side or the other will give you a lot of goodies courtesy of your new divine patron; of course, it also curtails some of the things you can do (the god of Light frowns on gross destruction, for example) and earns you a mess of enemies. Also, from reading articles in Flagship (a British-based magazine on postal gaming), the British version of Crasimoff's World has a number of players who have banded together in groups to grab control of various parts of the planet. These players exchange maps (very valuable information), organize group actions (e.g. sieges), and so on. The U.S. Game is younger and therefore doesn't have the same amount of organization among the players as yet, but I suspect it's just a matter of time. Beyond the Stellar Empire is a SF game primarily based on inter-stellar trading. Combat does happen from time to time, especially against pirates, but this is not a hack and slay game. Every player is expected to attach him/herself to one of several trading guilds and to take orders from time to time. Rising through the ranks of the trading guild means you have fewer orders to take. Beyond the Stellar Empire is notorious for the amount of inter-player diplomacy that's necessary. People spend large amounts of money on phone calls and postage, co-ordinating ships and shipments. This is characteristic of many of the big PBM games. Because the average game has dozens of players (if not hundreds), there is simply no way you can succeed on your own -- the opposition is too big. Therefore you must have allies, and since the people playing your allies are spread all over the continent (and beyond), communication expenses can become astronomical. Anyway, the price for Crasimoff's World is $3.00/turn ($15 for set-up and 2 free turns); Beyond the Stellar Empire $4.00/turn ($17.00 for set-up and 2 free turns). As you can see, PBM is not cheap. An apocryphal story tells of one player who spent $10,000 in one year on PBM games. However, if you're tired of playing the same old games with the same old people, you may want to give PBM a try. Address of Adventures by MAil: P.O.Box 436, Cohoes, NY 12047 For more information on PBM games, I would recommend Flagship magazine, issued quarterly $3.00/copy. In North America, it is distributed by Flying Buffalo (address given at start of article), but it is definitely not a house organ. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo