Re: Character conflict in a pbm situation

From: mneme@dorsai.org (Joshua Kronengold)

Date: Wed, 09 Mar 1994 05:27:31 +0000

Solutions to combat in PBMs:

Have the players give you their general plans, write the combat, have them
comment and edit it, repeat until satisfied.  May, at worst, take as much
time as "round-by-round," but the big objection to rbr in a pbm isn't that
it's slow, but that it's unnessecarily slow, and STUPID.

Let the players do all the work.
GM: Six japaneese thugs attack.  Lamorack kills one, Sally kills one,
and tall, dark and handsome takes the last four (fyi, since this is a summary
of a recent turn in a real game, "t, d, and h" is an elven female npc).  Give
me a discription of the combat in your next turn report.

Re:  Computer moderation in an Email RPG-- eww, ick.  If you are having
a computer moderate the fights to make sure they are "fair," why not just
play a mud, or enter srt's Arena?  IMO, PBEM holds little fun for
rollplayers anyway -- no dice.

(for that matter, I see no reason to be used, especially religiously, in
a PBEM, as the players certainly won't notice, except for uglification of
the plot and less time spent on consistent descriptions).

--
---

Joshua Kronengold -- mneme@dorsai.dorsai.org
	 	    Sig file unde

References

Character conflict in a pbm situation
moudgill@cs.cornell.edu ( Mayan Moudgill)
Sat, 05 Mar 1994 17:53:35 +0000