GALAXY: (Discussion) How to be a GM

From: graeme@abekrd.co.uk (Graeme Griffiths)

Date: Thu, 02 Mar 1995 16:41:55 +0000

Well, here goes. I've had a number of requests for some help setting up
galaxy GMs from scratch. I suggest that anyone who thinks they'd like to
have a go has at least played the game before they GM but if you think you
can do it...

This is, hopefully, going to become the definitive Galaxy GM guide and it
will become that if experienced GMs offer their views. I've tried to
outline everything but I'm bound to have missed a million things.

So, please, if you're interested at all in Galaxy, esp. in the GMing side
please read this and tell me what you think. Remember, spelling mistakes,
grammatical errors and such by email to me, any views you have on this
subject or anything else you'd like to be added post a reply.

Hopefully once this is done, we'll get a whole new crop of galaxy GMs

==============================================================================
                     How to be a Galaxy Game-Master
                     ------------------------------

For the past couple of years the PBeM (play-by-Email) game Galaxy,
originally written by Russell Wallace and modified by a team of others,
has shown a sharp decline in nunber of games running. There are a few
games still running (a few 'local' games not open to the general public)
and the odd one or two global games, but the fact is fewer games are
running.

In late 1994 I started collecting names and preferences of people
interested in playing Galaxy in the hope of spurring some people into
GMing and to some point had success with this. There are at least 5 people
who have expressed an interest in GMing and who (IMHO) have the system
set-up and presence of mind to eventually do it and a enormous amount of
people who wish to play.

This document is to help those people who feel they could GM a game (or
several) but are unsure as to how to go about it.

The BIG question
----------------

Basically, the reason I started GMing and the reason I expect most
people do is in order to play Galaxy. I actually intended that my GMing
would spur others into following (and I still aspire to that), however
some people may want action a little qicker than that. So, the first
question every aspiring GM is going to ask is...

"Can I play in my own games ?"

I'm with Greg Lindahl on this. In his article "So you want to run your
own PBM game..." (Aug '94 PBM Fanzine,
URL - http://fermi.clas.virginia.edu/~gl8f/pbem_articles/so_you_want)
Greg discusses how one would go about running a PBM game. On the subject
of "the BIG question" he has this to say:

>  A GM must be fair, which also means that GM should not play in
> their own game. You might find this to be an obvious rule, but some
> GMs still break this elementary rule, including a few commercial GMs.

I add this, if you are going to play in your own game you should tell
prospective players before play starts. That way its at least a little
fairer. Having now GM'd for a number of turns I would find it difficult
had I been playing as I've browsed a few turn reports to make sure the
game is running correctly, plus people ask you question relating to their
_specific_ game position.

On the same question another way, do you really expect me to add a
result to the Hall-of-Fame-and-Infamy with you as GM _and_ winner ?

How to start
------------

Initially, the first thing you need to do is get a copy of the Galaxy
engine. This _is_ the game itself, its the piece of code that creates
games and processes turns. Its available to FTP at
cs.utk.edu:/pub/bampton/Galaxy in source (C code) form. There is, I'm
told, an executable ported for PCs however I've never seen it and all
attempts to find it have been fruitless.

Assuming you get the source code the next step is to compile and test
the code. The source (IMHO, of course) is not exactly a working-model of
object-orientation and is, hence, not the easiest code in the world to
port. However, its not rocket-science either and a reasonable knoweledge
of C should see the job through.

In order to test the code its best to run a game where you are all the
players (see "Creating a game" below) and run a couple of turns to make
sure it does what you expect. How hard you want to test the code should be
based on confidence of your ability to solve any problems encountered
on-the-fly as your game progresses.

The Galaxy "engine"
-------------------

This is the executable produced when you run a make on the galaxy code.
It is, as stated above, the game itself. It creates games and runs the
turns. If invoked without any options it will run a command shell (the
galaxy prompt) from which you can do the following:

C - Creates a game (see "Creating a game, below)

P - Processes a turn (see "Turn processing", below)

G - Allows you to give a position in an already running game to a new
player

L - Shows you the list of games that would run if you used the P command

A - Adds a game to the list of games to run

D - Deletes a game from the run-list

Q - Quits the program

Most of these are really only supported for historic reasons, it is
unlikely that many GMs run games this way, instead the command line
options can be used.

Options:

-f file : Run the turn (for each game on the game-list) using file as the
orders file.

-g game1 game2 ... gamen : Specifies which games to run

For example:

Assume I am running several games, all in the same data directory. If the
schedule dictates I run a turn in game1 (but not any of the other games) I
would invoke galaxy with the following options

galaxy -f orders.game1 -g game1

where the file "orders.game1" contains the orders for game1 for this turn.
If I miss the -g option all the games would run that are in the data
directory and, as orders.game1 only contains the orders for game1, all the
players of the other games would run with no orders used.

The Galaxy "server"
-------------------

What I call a Galaxy "server" is not a single entity but a collection
of scripts that can be used to deal with running the game. There are a
number of ways to approach the task of running a Galaxy game, I will
outline the one I use. This is NOT the only way.

The server needs to do two main tasks :

i) Accept orders from the players, check them and return the checker
output to the sender.

ii) Run the games turns on a regular schedule and send the turn
reports out.

My galaxy server has a slight change to the original galaxy code. The
original code always ran from the current directory (forcing each script
to 'cd' to the directory the data files were in), I changed it to always
run from an explicit path. It also allows me to simply add a general and
game-specific message-of-the-day file to each turn report as its produced.
This "improvment" is not available at the moment, if you want my version
of the code I'll send it to you. If I get a fair rew requests I'll try and
put the code together as a real release and put it onto the FTP site.

My directory structure is

$HOME/lib/galaxy/admin holds the reports and nreports directories and the
order files.

$HOME/lib/galaxy/data is the data file directory.

This just allows me to enforce _my_ regiment of directory structures, it
doesn't mean everyone else has to.

Order processing
----------------

Orders can be assumed to be arriving at a single Email address and/or
having a fixed mail subject. A mail filter (e.g. procmail, see later) can
be used to pass the incoming mail through a script. This script should run
the checker on the input and if the orders are acceptable (i.e. Have
#GALAXY and #END lines, even numbers of '@'s and a correct password,
player-name and game-name) place the orders into the order file for the
correct game. Whatever the outcome of the checker, a reply should be sent
to the sender of the orders telling them the status of their orders and if
they made any mistakes. Notice that above the term "acceptable" does not
mean "correct", the orders are still valid and should be used as orders in
the game even if they have some mistakes in them.

For the UNIX minded heres an example script:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh

BINDIR=$HOME/bin
LOGDIR=$HOME/logs
TMPDIR=$HOME/lib/galaxy/tmp
ADMINDIR=$HOME/lib/galaxy/admin
TMP=$TMPDIR/galaxy-orders
OUT=$TMPDIR/orders-return
LOG=$LOGDIR/checker.log
CHECKER=$BINDIR/checker

# 'getfrom' is my program for extratcing return addresses from a piece of
# mail. You can do this any number of ways.

GETFROM=$BINDIR/getfrom
MAILER=/usr/lib/sendmail

# First put the orders in a temporary file

cat > $TMP

# Note the arrival in the log file

echo >> $LOG
echo "Orders received at `date`" >> $LOG

# Retrieve the mail address from the header of the orders

WHO=`cat $TMP | $GETFROM`

# Start composing the reply

echo "To: $WHO" > $OUT
echo "Subject: Galaxy server output" >> $OUT
echo >> $OUT
echo "Welcome to Graeme's Galaxy PBeM Server" >> $OUT
echo >> $OUT

# Run the orders through the turn checker (N.B. This uses gchecker
# available as part of the galaxy 3.50 release

$CHECKER $TMP >> $OUT 2>>$LOG
r=$?

# If the checker reports an error, tell the sender.

if [ $r -ne 0 ]; then

echo "You seem to have attempted to send Galaxy orders to my server" >> $OUT
	echo "Unfortunately there has been an error" >> $OUT
	echo >> $OUT

case $r in
	1)
		echo "Incorrect game name, re-submit with correct name" >> $OUT
		;;
	2)
		echo "Incorrect player name, re-submit with correct name" >> $OUT
		;;
	3)
		echo "No #END statement, re-submit with #END added" >> $OUT
		;;
	4)
		echo "Incorrect password, re-submit with correct password" >> $OUT
		;;
	*)
		echo "An undefined error has occurred contact graeme@abekrd.co.uk" >> $OUT
		echo "with a subject 'Galaxy game error' if you need help" >> $OUT
		;;
esac
	echo >> $OUT
else

# If there was no error store the orders in ther correct orders file
# 'getgame' is another script that extracts the gamename from the #GALAXY
# line. Its similar to 'grep -i "#galaxy" $TMP | cut -d\ -f2' but makes
# sure the output is in lower-case

GAME=`cat $TMP | $BINDIR/getgame`
	if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
		echo "Orders for game $GAME" >> $LOG
		ORDERS=$ADMINDIR/orders.$GAME
	else
		echo "Couldn't get gamename $GAME" >> $LOG
		ORDERS=$ADMINDIR/orders.nogame
	fi
	cat $TMP >> $ORDERS
fi

# If theres a valid recipient send the output, else save it (the save bit
# is entirely untested as getfrom has never failed...)

if [ "$WHO" != "" ]; then
	cat $OUT | $MAILER $WHO
else
	echo "No recipient, saving to $SAVE" >> $LOG
	cat $TMP >> $SAVE
	rm -f $TMP $OUT
	exit 1
fi

# Remove the temporary files

rm -f $TMP $OUT
exit 0

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
   I make no apologies about how it works, it works and thats what counts.
No its not that elegant but it does the job and took about 10 mins to
write.

I don't include the code for getfrom and getgame although I am willing
to give them away to anyone who wants them (They're not too tricky to work
out)

This script cats all the orders received into orders.gamename in
$ADMINDIR. If another set of orders is sent they will also be cat'd to the
file. This is O.K. because galaxy will use the last orders read from the
orders file for each player.

Turn processing
---------------

Turn processing at its most basic can be done from the galaxy prompt
when you fire up galaxy without the -f option. Typing P will prompt you
for the name of an orders file and the turn will run. However, if you have
many games in the same data directory (as seems sensible to me!) unless
you specify a game list (either using A and D at the galaxy prompt or
using the -g option on invocation) all the games in the data directory
will run. This is fine if you want to run all your games at once but not
so good if not.

I have never run a turn using the galaxy prompt. I always use the
following recipe. To run game "test" I (because of my order processing
script) have an orders file "orders.test" and so call galaxy as :
galaxy -f orders.test -g test

From this I wrote a script to do all the housekeeping:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh

BINDIR=$HOME/bin
LOGDIR=$HOME/logs
TMPDIR=$HOME/lib/galaxy/tmp
ADMINDIR=$HOME/lib/galaxy/admin
DATADIR=$HOME/lib/galaxy/data
# Need to add BINDIR to the path and export it so that the send script can
# use it.
PATH=$PATH:$BINDIR
export PATH

if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
	echo "Usage: rungalaxy game"
	exit 1
fi

ORDERS=$ADMINDIR/orders.$1
LASTORDERS=$ADMINDIR/last_orders.$1
ORDERSARC=$ORDERS.arc
SEND=$ADMINDIR/send

# I keep all the old reports tar'd up in an archive directory.

turn=`cat $DATADIR/$1/next_turn`
DIR=`pwd`
echo Tarring old reports
echo
cd $ADMINDIR/reports/$1
tar cf $ADMINDIR/reports/archive/$1.$turn *
rm $ADMINDIR/reports/$1/*
cd $DIR
echo
echo Running galaxy engine
echo

# This is where galaxy is run

$BINDIR/galaxy  -f $ORDERS -g $1 >> $LOG 2>&1

# Archive the orders files and clean up directories for next turn.

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
	chmod +x $SEND
	echo Running $SEND.
	$SEND
	cat $SEND >> $ADMINDIR/$1.send
	rm $SEND

if [ -f $LASTORDERS ]; then
		cat $LASTORDERS >> $ORDERSARC
	fi
	mv $ORDERS $LASTORDERS
else
	echo Problem with galaxy engine, not sending reports
fi

exit 0

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
   This, as yet, can only take one game at a time. I intend to remedy this
shortly.

Extra server stuff
------------------

Obviously you can add other features to your server, something to
automate the registration for new games is useful. Some way of players
quizzing the current status of a game is nice. Use your imagination,
supply the best service to your players you can.

Creating a game
---------------

As there is no documentation about the galaxy program, creating a game
is a bit of a learning curve. Heres some instructions to get you on your
way.

i) Make a file containing a list of the players mail addresses like so

--------------------
player1@his.domain.wherever
another@somewhere.else
more@another.place%thru.some.router
...
lastplayer@yet.a.further.domain
--------------------

ii) When you have this invoke galaxy (no options)

iii) Type 'C' to begin creating a game

iv) Give the name of the game you want to create, this is used to
create data, report and nreport directories so I usually use lower-case
for the game name.

v) Give the name of the file with the players mail-addresses in it.

vi) When asked for the number of planets its time to work out how you'd
like the game to go. If you give 2-3 planets per player it will be a fight
from the beginning. The more planets you allow per player the more time
before people _have_ to start attacking each other for territory (it don't
stop 'em attacking anyway...)

vii) You then get asked the size of the galaxy. Each homeworld must be
at least 20 ly apart and so there is a minimum size its just hard to
calculate but 20 x (square root of the number of players) plus a bit will
give you an idea. Trial and error can be used (by repeatedly creating a
game until it works !) to find the real size of the galaxy.

viii) After this it will produce the turn 0 files and a send script,
running send will send the reports (Beware, theres a lot of data to send
you may cripple your mail-server if your not careful).

ix) The game is now created and once the reports have been sent theres
no going back...

NOTE: One of the most annoying things I find abut galaxy is that it
doesn't delete the game directory when it gives up creating a game so if
during the above steps you make a mistake, before you can create the same
game name you have to delete the data/gamename directory.

Backing off a turn
------------------

Inevitably, mistakes will occur, if they do you wil have to back off a
turn and re-run it. To do this you simply remove (or more sensibly move)
the last data file (they're the numbered files in the data/gamename
directory), and change the number in data/gamename/next_turn to be
decremented by one (i.e. the number of the file you just moved).

Once this is done you're back at the point, effectively, before you ran
the turn. You need to find that turns order file and re-run.

Procmail
--------

To say that I think procmail is _the_ best shareware package I have
ever seen and that I want to have Stephen R. van den Berg's children would
be an over-statement, but only a slight one. Procmail is simply the best
mail filter around, it does everything and it does it quickly and
reliably. What procamil does for Galaxy GMs is to allow us to split our
incoming mail by Subject (or any other criteria) and hence pass orders
(and any other game-related files) through a processing script.

If you want to GM galaxy procmail makes it easy, you can do it without
procmail but if you don't have to, don't.

Graeme Griffiths. (graeme@abekrd.co.uk)
2nd March 1995.

==============================================================================
--
Graeme Griffiths,                   | "I'd love to talk philosophy, but I gotta
Abekas Video Systems +44 1734 585421| take a piss. Man that philosophy, runs
graeme@abekrd.co.uk                 | right thru' ya." - Dave Lee Roth 1994
Ge e+ -k++++++  C- o# -d& e??????  B-- i**  -t+=%%  -e+  M-@ e+ !!!!!!