Re: PBeM

From: Phil Shulkind <phil@phildee.demon.co.uk>

Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 00:00:00 +0000

Gary Jones <GJones@manassa.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>I come from Phil's (well, Dee's if you want to be pedantic) end of the
>hobby, where the length of a turn reply is often, perhaps mistakenly,
>used as one measure of how good a game is (sort of never mind the
>quality, feel the width). PBeM *is* different I guess, for example both
>GM *and* player pay to send/receive the turns and results (assuming
>they're not on a company or uni connection!), so perhaps it is not
>surprising that turns appear to be shorter in length (course you could
>always zip them up... <grin>).

Difficult to be sure how players measure the quality of a turn. Length
comes into it to an extent, but I suspect that the quality of the writing is of
most importance. After all, anyone can fill a lot of paper, it's filling it with
something interesting that is more of a challenge. We used to run games
with options for 'extended turns' where you paid more for turns over a
certain word count, but we've dropped that and charge flat fees now. The
long turns were very popular, but they just got *too* long, as I mentioned
earlier the longest was about 20000 words?!

Dee finds it easier to write longer turns for players who put the effort in
from their end. There's nothing worse than players who write a couple of
sentences and expect you to write a novel in return! The best players put
lots of thoughts and feelings in their turns, as well as action, bringing their
characters to life. I'd go as far as to say that it takes less time to write a
long turn for one of these players than a shorter one for the players who
provide little or no input.

Phil Shulkind
PHILDEE ENTERPRISES
Professional Play By Mail since 1990
Wanna talk PBM? "subscribe" to pbm-forum-request@tightbeam.com
visit our web site : http://www.tightbeam.com/phildee

References

Re: PBeM
Phil Shulkind <phil@phildee.demon.co.uk>
Mon, 31 Mar 1997 00:00:00 +0000